FINAL REFLECTION

Now's the time to roud up and reflect a little bit on all the things we've learnt these weeks: we've started a blog,created a treasure hunt, experimented with podcasting, wikis and video.Phew! a whole lot of new stuff .The best thing about it is that before the course they were tools I had heard off, that seemed interesting but at the same time too complex,somewhat out of my reach and now I've realized that with a little effort and some guidance I can use them in my regular classes.
I've found podcasting and wikis the most interesting because they are helpful in difficult teaching areas such as oral practice a collaborative projects. Podcasting allows some permanence to our students' production, this is  rewarding and at the same time makes self and peer correction easier. Wikis are a forum where you can contact students any time, any place and monitor their homework quite unobtrusively,they are fantastic
for written asigments. Podcasting was the most challenging task,I think that it takes quite a bit of practice to make the most of audacity. On the other hand treasure hunts were perhaps the least demanding, probably because we are more used to them, even if not on a fully online version.
It's been a pity that I haven't been able to interact much with my peers on the forum, I've lagged behind all along the course (my fault!) and by the time I contributed to the discussions my colleages had already moved on to other task.
All in all the couse has been very interesting but as with other courses I've taken so far,  the real difficulties come now. I have to start putting in practice what I've learnt straight away, otherwise I will forget everything an in no time I will be back at the starting point.That's why I've decided to turn the reading assigment for next term into a wiki project and see what comes out of it.After that I will have to reconsider the programme for next year in order to introduce ITC driven tasks little by little.
And that's all folks, I hope I'll meet any of you on the net in the future,till then, best of luck to you all!

VIDEO QUIZ

Good afternoon to you all!
There goes my contribution to the use of video in ELT,I've tried to create a video with animoto but as it was giving me problems when uploading images if changed into quizzes. See if you like this one

MY WIKI

Hello everybody!
I've been going through comparative and superlative adjectives with my year 2 students,which is pretty boring, I think my wiki can boost my students motivation: they have to create a general knowledge quiz collectively and then try to solve it individually.They will have to review the grammar but the techny approach will hopefully make it more fun.Learning about English speaking countries will be a plus. Check it at http://wikiquizz.wikispaces.com/

BEST BROWNIES EVER

Just a few hours left to finish the holidays,  try my brownie receipt to sweeten the way back to normal life!

ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON!

Does any of these guys ring a bell?Perhaps this one is more your type...



Well, well my fellow detectives, by now you have guessed what this is all about: the reading assigment for the third term are some Sherlock Holmes's stories. Before you start reading answer to these questions with the help of the webs below(This is a team job,work in fours as in your reading groups,open a new word document and write your answers there, send it as an attached document in a mail to my class assigments' account, just one mail per group please!).


1-Who is Sherlock Holmes?
2- Who is Holmes's best friend?
3-Which of these items belong to Sherlock?
- a) a bonnet b) a deerstalker c) a cap.
- a) a spyglass b) a microscope c) a telescope.
- a) a piano b) a flute c) a violin.
- a) a cigar b) a cigarrette c) a pipe.
4- What's the name of Holmes's housekeeper?
5- What was Holmes's adress?
6- Does the building still exist?What can you do there now? name at least three things.
7-Who wrote Sherlock's stories?
8- When were they written?
9-How many of them are there? which is the favourite of the readers?
10- Where did most of them take place?
11- What was the city like at the time?why?
- a )healthy and beautiful.b) filthy and dangerous c) calm and boring.
12-What was and is Scotland Yard?
13-Are Sherlock Holmes stories still famous? How many  Holmes books are printed in Europe and the US every year?
14- Who were Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett?
15- What nowadays tv series characters are similar to Holmes and Watson?


Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_holmes
http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/
http://www.sherlockholmes.com/
http://www.sherlockholmesonline.org/
http://www.britainexpress.com/London/victorian-london.htm

THE BIG QUESTION
Did you use your detective skills to complete the first part of the task? I hope so, now just a little extra effort: after reading the story I'll give each group in a few days, you'll have to do an oral presentation in front of the class.One of the parts of the presentation is the introduction, isn't it? Well, rearrange the answers to the questions under these four headings and send me your proposal of introduction!Of course you can complete every paragraph with your own ideas.
HEADINGS:
1)THE CHARACTER
2)THE AUTHOR
3)THE BACKGROUND
4)SHERLOCK TODAY

DONE?
Relax and enjoy yourselves holmes style in the following adress
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/lostcasesofsherlock.jsp

ASSESSMENT: TOTAL MARKS 25

• FOR THE SEARCH: 1 POINT FOR EACH CORRECT ANSWER (BOTH CONTENT AND EXPRESSION), 0.5 FOR JUST CORRECT CONTENT.
• FOR THE BIG QUESTION:CORRECT DISTRIBUTION OF IDEAS UNDER EACH HEADING: 2 POINTS,LOGICAL ORDERING OF IDEAS IN EVERY PARAGRAPH :2POINTS,ADDITION OF EXTRA IDEAS:2 POINTS.
• KEEPING DEADLINE AND SENDING MAILS CORRECTLY:1 POINT
• USING ENGLISH WHILE WORKING:1.5 POINT
• ORGANIZING GROUPWORK :1.5 POINT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
THANKS TO ALL THE WEBS MENTIONED IN THIS POST,TO GOOGLE IMAGES , TO YOU TUBE AND WARNER PICTURES FOR THEIR  HELP IN THE MAKING OF THIS TRESURE HUNT

My Alter Ego

I just feel like this little kiwi that cannot fly but after much toiling manages to reach the clouds,hope I don't crash the first tree in the maze of information contained in slides like the one below !

Trends and Impacts of E-Learning 2.0

View more presentations from Stephen Downes.

me as a teacher

Hi!
I guess this image ilustrates my typology of teaching quite well. It shows suprise and wonderment, which is what I feel now that I'm starting to view the possibilities new technologies offer to teaching .However its also rather basic and believe it or not it's taken me about one hour to paste successfully here ,which shows how hard it's going to be for me to become a 21st century teacher!