Week 1 -In a nutshell

It is only Thursday of this week and I can say that I believe I have fulfilled the week's aims:
* I logged into Nicenet and shared information about myself with the others, starting to create a learning community.
* I posted my opinions about the ground rules for discussions and rubrics for self-evaluating .
* I filled out a needs analysis survey to help ensure that the course topics are appropriate.

* I created a blog on www.blogger.com using the instructions in Blogger how-to and shared the URL with the group.
* Having created the blog on Blogger, I wrote about what I had done and what I had learned in the course so far and , of course, I published more than one post on my blog.

And I have commented on some of the others' blogs . Oh, and with Arjana's help I succeeded in creating a corner with blogs .

Fruitful week !I am on the mettle !

Week 1- Pondering on using blogs in my English classes

1.In a creative writing class, keeping an individual record of each student’s written work has several advantages and a blog can serve as a platform for this publication. Students can view their progress over the course of a term. This allows them to monitor their improvement as well as help them focus on areas for improvement.

A blog also provides a real world audience. Student’s work is no longer limited to exposure to the instructor and perhaps a few other classmates. The blog allows the student to publish his/her written work, making it available to anyone who accesses the blog : friends, family , other teachers ,visitors.

2.I am sure that our English drama activities : plays, skits or monologues will be more visible for the students' families especially (they can't be present at the shows every time ).

3.From time to time , in our English textbooks there is a written project as part of a vaster portfolio . A 'portfolio' is a file or folder containing a set of someone's best pieces of work over a period of time collected as an example of their skills . The creation of this portfolio can be more challenging on line, on the class blog . And because in these lessons a particular emphasis is placed on cross-curricular transfer the teacher can post links for helping the students to carry the task on .

4.On the clss blog I can choose the game of the month .Not any game , but an educational one using different areas of English: grammar or vocabulary , for instance . I could explain the game , write the rules with the class (if necessary )and let them enjoy it as homework . Their assignment could be a ' report ' on the blog about the game ( what they learned , why they liked or dislike it)

5. I can also use the blog as a resource centre ,as a way of engaging students in more reading / listening . I could use online stories for children with a short exercise of a kind or another at the end of it( how to catch the main ideas of a lecture or a reading, how to respond to a specific reading or lecture, how to write an essay or summary).This way homework will gain more credit, I assume.

Variety of teaching is the spice of learning !

Week 1 -Take root

Here I am again . I am amazed how many countries are part of this course so far :

Israel, Morocco, Jordan, Georgia, Croatia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Macedonia, Ukraine, Canada, Kazakhstan, Paraguay and myself (Romania) . There is a huge variety of cultures gathered with a common aim : teachers who want to learn more , who spend their summer holidays in front of their computers , praying for the Internet connection to last long enough to do their tasks ( for example mine was off almost the entire day ) . Overworked, under paid , teachers continue their labor of love against all odds. Each school year finds them rebuilding their classroom, making it an environment rich in knowledge and pleasure.

I feel that teachers who spend their lives teaching kids, do more than just teach. They help mould the future of communities, cities and countries.

Be proud, my course colleagues , of being teachers !

Week 1 -Happy blogging !

Finally , following Deborah's instructions step by step, I have managed to create a blog ! My first one ! And hopefully not the last one !

I had been thinking about new ways of improving my students' writing for a while. Talking to Valerie, my Peace Corps volunteer , we realized that she could have enough time to set up a class of creative writing in order to help our students to improve their writing skills as a secondary project , besides teaching English . She started the classes in the second semester of this school year but something was missing in the end . Our students' pieces of work remained known only by their colleagues and teachers . If we had had the idea of a blog our idea , and their work , would have been more popular and well-known .

Moreover , our children would have been more motivated and willing to produce something valuable and appealing . They would have spent more time to find out the right words, phrases, idioms to use and maybe they would have checked their grammar more .

The first thing to do at the beginning of the new school year is to create a blog for our creative writing class.That's the ticket !