Week 9 Reflections “Venture into Useful Webtools”

I have never tried to see so many great websites before. It would wear me out just to see them all, so I decided to pick just a few for trial. I will take time to try them in the future.

As my journey to become an E-teacher comes toward the end, I came to see which direction I am going with my learning now. This week one of our tasks was to create at least one of templates and exercises. I thought the EasyTestMaker(http://easytestmaker.com)would be beneficial for me to learn. I hope eventually it would save me time to make my own handouts. Another thing I tried was “Quizbreak(http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/)”. With it I created a jeopardy game (http://clear.msu.edu/quizbreak/play.php?board=33541-1268439065). I am either going to use this game at the end of the class after studying the course book for consolidation or at the beginning of the next lesson for provoking students to research and read more. It is very exciting to be able to use several tools to keep students interested.

The goal of education is to have students become autonomous learners. I think the teacher always have to keep that in mind when s/he makes a teaching plan. How can students become critical and constructive thinkers? I sometimes wonder if we teachers might have paved too good a road for the youth. Students nowadays have access to so many “state of the art” tools to learn foreign languages. However, tools alone don’t make learners competent enough to be autonomous learners. Skillful human techniques can only manipulate the great web tools. “There is no royal road to learning.”

Blogging and posting comments in the Nicenet made me a little more critical thinker and reflect more on what I did than before. So, I also want to implement those into my lessons. I created a class blog (http://misatoenglishnetwork.blogspot.com) and a class through the Nicenet (Class name:Misato1-3, Class key:3290524M59) for my students and coworkers in my school. As for making my blog inviting and neat, I would like to learn how to process pictures for uploading.
As this online class is nearing the end, I have mixed feelings. Doing tasks, reading assignments, reading others’ comments and making my own in the conference room and writing blogs have been overwhelming to me, but it has been fun and exciting. The idea of having to do them haunted me day and night. However, I know I am going to miss this class. I would like to learn more about new methods and techniques to share with my coworkers and students.

I visited Dilip in his blog and learned how he also has felt overpowered by the experience in this course. He was one of the classmates that have been leading the class for giving good ideas and opinions. He said, “I have cultivated habit of thinking beyond horizons… And this is unforgettable learning experience.” I agree with him and cannot thank my facilitators and all my classmates enough for their energy and goodwill they have put into this course.