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Peer-evaluation of the project “Cinquain Poetry”, by Tatiana Yamskikh. I found this project a truly creative one, designed with the intention to provoke students to being inventive and original as well as to fulfill a set of internet-based activities. The idea of the project seems fresh and new to me, and sometimes it can be quiet valuable even for the students of technical departments to plunge into something high-flown, such as poetry. However, it can also hide a danger of strong opposition to such kind of creative activities. This gives me ground to say that the target audience of the project is mainly the students of humanitarian specialties, although it is not stated in the description. The tasks of the project are clearly structured and students are encouraged to use various Internet-based activities, such as ICQ chats, webquests, wikipaedia, cerfing Internet. I presume the tasks are authentic and quite suitable for English language teaching. The project has clear evaluation criteria which give both students and teachers a possibility to see the progress and to evaluate it correctly, but of course, the topic of the project itself gives space for subjective remarks. In the conclusion I would like to remark that I would rather use this project with some of my students as an additional, probably extra-curricula activity.
I would also like to thank Tatiana for nice ideas.
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HI, everybody, dear Alexey, dear participants!!!
That was my greeting then, back in the beginning of the course and let it remain the same. At least this, since a lot of other things have changed in my perception of digital technologies and their role in education. Fortune really favored me since I got a lot new and useful things for myself and consequently for my students. My understandings about the role of internet technologies in language teaching hasn’t changed a lot, frankly speaking, since I never underestimated it, but during our course I definitely expanded the boundaries of the possibilities I can use in teaching. Huge field of new perspectives for ICT in teaching has opened for me now. I am trying now to incorporate them in the educational process yet not to become too involved and distracted. Speaking about course readings and activities that I found most useful and challenging I would name the provocative article by “The flickering mind” by Todd Oppenhemier, informative paper by Bernie Dodge “Some thoughts about Webquests”, useful ideas in “Reading images: Multimodality, Representation and New Media” by Gunther Kress. I also found some fresh thoughts and ideas to apply in Catherine Poling’s “Blog on: Building Communication and Collaboration among Staff and Students”. As a result I am going to try all of the internet tools and activities I am aware of by now with my students. Most of all I enjoy using blogs and project work, but the choice does not depend on me only, because we as teachers are to care about our students’ needs first, so every particular class might need something different. My attitude to distance learning has changed a little as a result of the course in terms of minimizing the fear of ignorance. I thought I was not literate enough for introducing internet-based technologies into my classwork, but now I understand that not only I know much more than I had known before, but also I perfectly realize that I can learn together with my students. It seems next to impossible to know every single site providing useful materials for teaching and studying English, but that gives us a challenge to search more and be more involved in this work. And lastly, to all my hobbies I would also like to add cerfing the Internet for new web quests, English communication societies, curious blogs etc to introduce them to my students.
Acknowledgements:
My heartiest thanks to Alexej, a caring and patient course coordinator for providing us with a great chance to study the world of digital technologies; and to all the course participants for their ideas and useful advice. Special thanks to my Group # 4 for collaboration. I appreciate.
Best wishes
"With love from me to you",
Alena.
Current Mood: creative Current Mood:  content
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HELLO and WELCOME TO northern IRELAND! ENJOY YOUR STAY! Continue working and talking through your group’s blog (diary) at http://livejournal.com, be ready to use e-mail and ICQ (and skype if possible). You can publish all comments, essays and photos in your group’s blog. Mind that only the Northern part of the island called Ireland belong the UK. 1. Right from the scratch! Island and Ireland are homophones – the words written differently but pronounced just the same way. Can you find and translate the homophones of these words: 1) one – 2) two – 3) there – 4) air – 5) tea – 6) eye – 7) be – 8) see – 9) dear – 10) flower – 11) peace – 12) red – 13) brake – 14) steel – 15) knight – 2. Let’s start to explore Northern Ireland! Please, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland and find answers the “Big 5 Whats”: 1) What is the flag of Northern Ireland? 2) What is the coat of arms of Northern Ireland? 3) What is the motto of Northern Ireland? 4) What is the language spoken in Northern Ireland? 5) What’s is the territory of Northern Ireland? 3. Now that you know what Northern Ireland is, let’s stay here for a while! Please, visit http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/catalogue/default.asp?itemId=12 to find a place to live. Divide your group in two sub-parts and distribute the roles in the following way: Group 1. People stay in the most luxurious hotel you can find in Northern Ireland, and write the description of your hotel in your group-blog; Group 2. People stay in the cheapest B&B hotel you can find in Northern Ireland, and write the description of your hotel in your group-blog. Read each other’s description and organize a multi-chat to find a compromise where to live all together. Place a record of your chat in your blog. Good luck =) 4. Group Task. As a group you visit Belfast. Go to http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/opencontent/default.asp?id=66&itemId=66&Section=Attractions and decide in a group ICQ or Skype chat where to go in Belfast. Then follow the recommended steps: 1) Agree on a route, taking into consideration each other viewpoints. 2) Make a plan of your journey. 3) Visit at least 5-6 places of interest. 4) While traveling, keep a diary. Everyone in the group should have his share of this task – there should be everyone’s impressions included. On every place, please, put 2 viewpoints of two different people. That would help your readers to get a more complete and concrete picture. 5. Personal Task. Go to http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/opencontent/default.asp?itemId=60 and find any other curious place to visit. Make a virtual tour there, find out about all the tourist attractions there and… make an advertisement for this place! Your advertisement should be performed in your group-blog in the following form: -) it should be a version of a small guide book; -) it should contain rather detailed description of the places you find most attractive, and quick notes about other places to go within the chosen area; -) it should be supplied with pictures from those places; -) it should be concise and not too long for your possible future tourists not to get bored. Place your ad in the wiki space and encourage voting. Every participant of the project should vote for a certain ad to discover who the winner is! Your task is to make others visit your place!!! GOOD LUCK! Current Mood: awake
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HELLO and WELCOME TO northern IRELAND! ENJOY YOUR STAY! Continue working and talking through your group’s blog (diary) at http://livejournal.com, be ready to use e-mail and ICQ (and skype if possible). You can publish all comments, essays and photos in your group’s blog. Mind that only the Northern part of the island called Ireland belong the UK. 1. Right from the scratch! Island and Ireland are homophones – the words written differently but pronounced just the same way. Can you find and translate the homophones of these words: 1) one – 2) two – 3) there – 4) air – 5) tea – 6) eye – 7) be – 8) see – 9) dear – 10) flower – 11) peace – 12) red – 13) brake – 14) steel – 15) knight – 2. Let’s start to explore Northern Ireland! Please, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland and find answers the “Big 5 Whats”: 1) What is the flag of Northern Ireland? 2) What is the coat of arms of Northern Ireland? 3) What is the motto of Northern Ireland? 4) What is the language spoken in Northern Ireland? 5) What’s is the territory of Northern Ireland? 3. Now that you know what Northern Ireland is, let’s stay here for a while! Please, visit http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/catalogue/default.asp?itemId=12 to find a place to live. Divide your group in two sub-parts and distribute the roles in the following way: Group 1. People stay in the most luxurious hotel you can find in Northern Ireland, and write the description of your hotel in your group-blog; Group 2. People stay in the cheapest B&B hotel you can find in Northern Ireland, and write the description of your hotel in your group-blog. Read each other’s description and organize a multi-chat to find a compromise where to live all together. Place a record of your chat in your blog. Good luck =) 4. Group Task. As a group you visit Belfast. Go to http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/opencontent/default.asp?id=66&itemId=66&Section=Attractions and decide in a group ICQ or Skype chat where to go in Belfast. Then follow the recommended steps: 1) Agree on a route, taking into consideration each other viewpoints. 2) Make a plan of your journey. 3) Visit at least 5-6 places of interest. 4) While traveling, keep a diary. Everyone in the group should have his share of this task – there should be everyone’s impressions included. On every place, please, put 2 viewpoints of two different people. That would help your readers to get a more complete and concrete picture. 5. Personal Task. Go to http://www.visitnorthernireland.com/opencontent/default.asp?itemId=60 and find any other curious place to visit. Make a virtual tour there, find out about all the tourist attractions there and… make an advertisement for this place! Your advertisement should be performed in your group-blog in the following form: -) it should be a version of a small guide book; -) it should contain rather detailed description of the places you find most attractive, and quick notes about other places to go within the chosen area; -) it should be supplied with pictures from those places; -) it should be concise and not too long for your possible future tourists not to get bored. Place your ad in the wiki space and encourage voting. Every participant of the project should vote for a certain ad to discover who the winner is! Your task is to make others visit your place!!! GOOD LUCK!
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Hello, dear participants!
I've placed the note about our project, with its description and target audience, in our teacher’s blog.
And I'm publishing our extended variant in my blog. Please, send your materials to fill in the project, find an appropriate place and put it in.
Co-operatively yours ;)
Alena. "Digging Deeper in Great Britain" Description: We believe that while studying any foreign language, it is important to learn not only the rules of its organization, but also the country where this particular language is spoken. Knowing more about the people, their traditions, customs, way of life, interests, mentality can help substantially in developing language skills. This project is aimed at developing students’ skills and abilities to communicate with representatives of other cultures, search for historic and cultural information, select the necessary information, arrange and present it in the proper way. It also develops students’ creativity via the final task of arranging presentations. Target audience: Students of the senior classes in specialized schools; British Studies of I or II year students. The project: The student is encouraged to make a virtual trip into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Kingdom. Virtual tour at http://www.britainexpress.com/where_to_go_in_Britain England:
1. Heathrow.
2. London. At Heathrow the students can buy the map of the city and decide what places (3-5) they will visit, put the numbers and after that give some comments (as for the site, I haven’t look through it yet). Before visiting parts of Britain students can make an interview about what is associated with every region (food and drinks, traditions, traditional clothes, symbols, writers, famous people and places, mysteries…).
At the end of the journey the can make a table to compare these parts, smth like this
Region/
parameter England Wales Scotland Northern
Ireland
Population
Capital and major cities
Symbols
Traditions
Interesting facts
3. Oxford \ Cambridge.
4. Stonehenge.
5. Liverpool.
6. Loch District. Visiting forum http://www.onestopenglish.com. A script of the discussion is placed in the blog.
Scotland:
6. Edinburgh.
7. Loch Ness.
8. Highlands. Highland Games.
Visiting forum http://www.onestopenglish.com. A script of the discussion is placed in the blog.
Wales.
9. Snowdonia.
10. Cardiff.
11. Eisteddfod.
Visiting forum http://www.onestopenglish.com. A script of the discussion is placed in the blog.
Northern Ireland.
12. Belfast.
Visiting forum http://www.onestopenglish.com. A script of the discussion is placed in the blog. Final activities
- Before leaving Gr Britain you are to buy some newspapers and magazines (the sum of money is limited). What shall you buy and why? (eg The Times site can be used http://timesonline.co.uk/)
- The final activity can be making a presentation of 10-12 photos presenting places the students have visited. They should describe every picture and give some comments on their feelings and emotions.
- Also one of the groups can make a short dictionary of British curiosities (or interesting facts), where the students can describe the symbol or give a word definition and give a reference (resources where to find additional information about this place or fact in the Internet). The dictionary can be devoted to 1 theme, such as traditions, festivals, food, or include terms connected with 1 region and so on.
For example:
- Eisteddfod – annual Welsh festival, http://www.eisteddfod.org.uk
- Dummy – a doll, mannequin, connected with Guy Fawkes Night celebrations http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/
- Cymry – Welsh people call themselves so… (Cymru=Wales)
Any directories can be found at http://www.uk.com/directory/
Information about regions at http://www.britainexpress.com/where_to_go_in_Britain/ (for ex, about Lake District), at http://www.atuk.co.uk and at http://www.bbc.uk (to search about cities).
!Also http://www.english-forums.com/forums/
And http://www.aardvarktravel.net/atuk-forum give this opportunity.
Wales (all the activities here can be referred to other parts of Britain, Wales is just an example).
- http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/wales.htm
(general information about Wales - as well as about other parts of Gr Br - including Welsh male-voice choirs)
- Wonderful opportunity to have a Here the students can read the information about Wales regions, castles, history. It’s possible just look through some places you’re interested in, not all given at the tour.
The activity here can be to write an essay about 1 place you’ve visited.
Also we can suggest students to make their own tour guide about Welsh castles, or traditions using pictures.
Here it’s also possible to find information about the car rental centre.
- One of the activities connected with Wales can be following: to decide what kind of transport to choose for travelling from London (or another part of the country) to Wales. One of the examples is booking train tickets to Swansea at http://www.great-western-trains.co.uk/
Mysteries
- to discuss at any forum the mystery of Nessy Monster or Port Royal (the city connected with pirates, Henry Morgan and now replaced by Kingston), may be Great fire of London, or Stonehenge, analyse the ideas, make a diagram of suggestions and write a short essay which can be corrected by others, not to forget about your own version .
Transport
http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/transport - here students can find general information about transport system in Britain, kinds of transport (trucks, vans, railway etc.)
Racing and Motoring (you can get some advice where to buy or rent a car you’re interested in, some accessories or what model is the most popular now)
http://www.raceclubs.com
http://www.ladbrokes.com
http://uk.com /directory/cars
http://www.bbc.uk/motoring
http://timesonline.co.uk/global
http://www.autotrader.co.uk
http://www.uknetguide.co.uk
Sport
http://www.uk.com/directory/sports
Festivals
http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/holidays
Current Mood: creative
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Hello, dear group-mates!
Now, I mostly address our group-mates:
Elena Krutko
Elena Soltovets
Maria Sidorova
We've had a chat with you about our project, and, since it is not the easiest thing to organize a multi-chat, I'm placing the drafts and thought about the project here, so that everybody can come, read, think and leave a comment.
1. Project name - "Digging Deeper in Great Britain"
2. Activity: creating a site (provided students are of higher level and there are no technical difficulties)
Here it's significant to pay more attention to the content not to the design.
3. The project is a route about Great Britain viisting places of interest and doing certain tasks on line,
using all the tools we can incorporate.
(I'll work on it and place the details in my blog)
4.Elena Krutko is willing to take art galleries.
What will you take? I suggest you take London, as well as other capitals of Britain, etc
What are your thoughts? Please, feel free to edit,
comments are very welcomed,
yours Alena.
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Hello, dear course participants! Here is the time be an expert. So, let me introduce my personal evaluation of the existing methods, available due to Internet. ACTIVITY № 1. - Name of the activity: Project work: Living History Through United States Government. - Source: webpage Web Quest Page at San Diego State University; namely: http://members.cox.net/kpeterson35/index2.htm - Audience it is designed for: This course is designed for average level twelfth grade students. - Brief description of the activity: Each student in a team is requested to participate in a round-table discussion and talk-show format by presenting and discussing a chosen historical political figure from the U.S. history, participate in a question and answer dialogue with audience, in character, as the figure selected. To enhance the presentation of this character, the student needs to: 1. Prepare a 4 page brochure in a desktop publishing for the talk show host, as well as distribution for future requests. This will include a digital picture of the character (student in costume); a biographical sketch; an eye-catching cover; a minimum of 10 images (clip art, jpeg’s, bitmaps, digital images, etc.); font style, size, graphics, and color to enhance your publication. 2. Create a 60 sec video commercial to be shown as a profile highlight of your character. The commercial should reflect the individual and “sell” them to prospective markets interested in requesting a “visit” from this character. 3. Create a 4 page newspaper using desktop publishing, word processing and Press writer software. This publication will depict events of the era selected; interview of your character. 4. Create a multi-media Power Point Presentation of 10–15 slides featuring and the historical events surrounding the era your character lived/lives in. 5. Create and add to a database of information as your research progresses, including a minimum of 30 URL’s with a 3 sentence description of the site compiled in notebooks, a minimum of 50 images saved to the database. - What skills/competences it is intended to develop: Linguistic, socio-linguistic, socio-cultural and strategic competences are developed. This activity stimulates cognitive skills, as well as provides technology-based learning as a strategy for application. It will also require reading and research outside the classroom. Students will read, analyze, inform, interpret, synthesize, and apply their knowledge. It also involves team-work. - Suitability evaluation: I presume the activity is quiet suitable for the audience it is designed for, although I would try this with younger students as well, especially in America, since I see inter-subject aspect here (English+History) and I am convinced that we need to emphasize the studies of history (especially, when it is native history, or the history the country, whose language you are learning) - Authenticity evaluation - does it provide an opportunity for a learner to receive some authentic language input? Does it engage students into activities or put them in (simulated) situations similar to those in the out-of-school context? I agree that the presented activity is a good chance to make a profound research into the history of the country, whose language the students and learning together with plunging into comparatively difficult linguistic material that involves taking possible challenges of authentic text. In my view, the authors are too driven away by the technical side to the prejudice of linguistic side. Although, I presume that this activity could be more effective if the opportunity for wider interaction via Internet tools would be provided. Videoconferencing on the part of the characters seems suitable to me. I would add certain points to the scenario of this activity, adding tasks connected with posing certain problems and suggesting group work for finding solutions, which would satisfy all the characters involved. Probably real questions can be posed and later the analytical comparing of the students’ and actual politicians’ decisions should be made. That will include identifying and articulating errors in one's own or others' thinking together with analyzing the perspectives. ACTIVITY № 2. Name of the activity: Giving online advice. Source: webpage and book http://teenadviceonline.org/ Activity suggested by Dede Teeler and Peta Gray “Use the Internet in ELT”, Longman, 2000. Audience it is designed for: Teenagers. Brief description of the activity: Before moving on to the Internet, the students are divided in small groups and each group receives several titles from the advice site archive, whose name should not be self-explanatory. The teacher explains that these are real problems, written by teenagers who want advice. In their groups the students are brainstorming the titles, guess what the problem really is by answering certain questions, such as Who are the people involved? What is their relationship? What exactly is the problem? Finally, they give their solutions. Then the groups go online to the archive to check their guesses. Follow-up activities may include e-mailing their own problem or advice, using a chat program to share their opinion. What skills/competences it is intended to develop: Linguistic, discourse competence, socio-linguistic, socio-cultural competences are developed. Students train speaking via discussion of real-life dilemmas, past or present, giving solutions; reading via skimming and scanning texts, as well as reading for detail; writing via defining problems, sharing of opinions and asking for advice. The activity also involves team-work. Suitability evaluation: To my mind, the activities this site is presenting are perfectly suitable for the mentioned audience of teenagers. Authenticity evaluation: This activity gives a wide range of tools to use both inside and outside the classroom. It provides a perfect opportunity for a learner to receive some authentic language input via talking to their peers. It can also include learning some colloquial expressions and slang. The students can compare the ways different language types handle asking questions and giving advice. Afterwards, the teacher might attract the students’ attention to grammar and talk about collocations, frequency of use, together with discussing if grammar’s wrong usage prevents understanding. The suggested activity definitely simulates situations similar to those in the out-of-school context. Such conversation can happen in every day life, so this is a great chance to train foreign language in real-life situations. ACTIVITY № 3. Name of the activity: Creating an on-line newspaper. Source: webpage and book http://crayon.net/ Activity suggested by Dede Teeler and Peta Gray “Use the Internet in ELT”, Longman, 2000. Audience it is designed for: Students of intermediate and advanced English; From 12 years and up. Brief description of the activity: Creating a daily newspaper, that students can read all over the world. CRAYON or CReAte Your Own Newspaper is a special interactive site activity, which allows you to select the content of your own newspaper from an incredible array of news sources. Students can choose from as many sources as they wish (or as their teacher asks) and place reports, world or\and regional news, sport events, comics, pictures in the preferred order. What skills/competences it is intended to develop: Linguistic, socio-linguistic, socio-cultural competences are developed. Writing skills are emphasized here; speaking and listening skills are trained through the editorial board discussions; reading skills are involved in peer-reading part. Suitability evaluation: The audience is determined by me. Authenticity evaluation: I believe such activity provides the necessary materials for training students’ linguistic skills on authentic materials, but this training is partial. Learners can read authentic texts and compare their styles with their peers, but this activity can be much more productive if combined with international editorial board activities, interviewing coeval form other countries, talking to real journalists etc. Although, this activity does simulate situations similar to those in the out-of-school context. Current Mood: creative
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Hello fine people,
here I would like to place my comments on ICQ chats in general and ours in particular.
So generally speaking, ICQ is undoubtedly a valuable tool, providing instant access to your partner(s) and a good chance to discuss something, not caring about how to actually SAY the words, but just printing them. And, as Cicero put it, "Epistula non erubescit" or paper can bear anything and does not blush :)
It still has certain minuses that can actually be compensated by other Internet tools.
For instance, a person you would like to talk can be off-line while you are expecting an immediate response;
you would love to hear the intonations and the facial expression of your partner;
sometimes thoughts fly faster than words you can possibly type.
Our conversation of Group 4 was, to my mind, a more or less successful start our "business relationship".
There surely were certain misprints, but fortunately they did not prevent understanding of the whole idea.
A difficult thing is to arrange a synchronous chat, since the time zones together with convenience time can be different.
But we will try our best to succeed in future attempts!
Sincerely,
Alena.
Current Mood: awake
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Hi! This is a brief ICQ chat we managed so far, but hopefully it'have it's continuation in future. Iris (07:04 PM) : Hi, Elena! If you can, probably we can exchange some of the points in our future unit plan. I've chatted with Mary and agreed on the topic. I love it! Selena (07:04 PM) : So do I actually Iris (07:05 PM) : Good to hear from you! Who will be our target audience? Senior students and adults I presume? Selena (07:06 PM) : Aren't we to agree on it all together? Selena (07:10 PM) : did you get my invitation? Iris (07:25 PM) : Yes, we are to agree on it. I do agree, hope you and Mary do the same. What invitation? Can you kindly remind me? Selena (07:25 PM) : ok I'll repeat Iris (07:26 PM) : Please! Selena (07:27 PM) : I'm trying to invite you to a multichat with me and Elena! :-( Iris (07:32 PM) : I'd love too? How can we do it? Selena (07:33 PM) : her number is 363-884-962 Selena (07:34 PM) : can you find her and add into contact list? Iris (07:34 PM) : Done that! mary (04:33 PM) : Hi< I'll be here ater 18 Iris (06:51 PM) : Hi, Mary! mary (06:51 PM) : Hi, we've discused a lot Iris (06:51 PM) : I'm here for another 6 hours, so any time you and Lena can - join in :-) Iris (06:52 PM) : What is the synopsis? mary (06:52 PM) : the topic will be connected with company structure and corporations, may be international Iris (06:54 PM) : Ok, that's a nice thing to develop, rather extensive. Hope, we'll have fruitful work all together! mary (06:54 PM) : We'd like your ideas about tools to be used Iris (06:56 PM) : I was going to suggest something for senior students and adults. Probably that can be a Business course collaborative project? Iris (06:56 PM) : I thought of other students, studying the same and approaching this together via I-net. mary (06:58 PM) : To make a plan and develop it? Iris (07:00 PM) : Well, I thiught of including several points in the unit plan, connected with I-net cooperation, like synchronous chat, brainstorming of ideas on Business in some other message exchange system where more than 2-3 people can cooperate together simultaneously. mary (07:00 PM) : Sorry< I have to go Current Mood: determined
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Hello, dear friends! Here is Elena Paritskaya's wiki-article wit some minor additions of mine, based on my personal thiughts and experience. I would like to thank Elena for interesting information provided. Some Aspects of Distance Learning The main goal of distance learning (or distance education) is to give people opportunities to gain the kind of education they need at this or that stage of their lives. The teacher’s tasks in distance education are to modify a course taking into account students’ needs, to provide advice on personal curriculums, to guide learning projects. According to the method of getting information there are synchronous and asynchronous learning systems. The first foresees the simultaneous participation of both teachers and students, e.g. interactive TV, teleconferences. The latter includes courses with printed materials, audio-video tapes, CDs. The exchange of information is done via the Internet and e-mail and doesn’t require the simultaneous participation, the students decide themselves on the time and curriculum. There can also be mixed learning systems. Universities that offer such educational forms use different technologies, which can be divided into 3 main groups: case technologies, network technologies and distance proper ones. The core element of case technologies is independent students’ work with printed and multimedia materials. They can consult using the e-mail, participate in conferences, download the information they need from the university’s server or from electronic libraries. Network technologies are based on teaching programs, electronic textbooks available via the Internet or local computer nets. Students meet teachers only at the final examinations. Interim computer tests can be done at home. Distance technologies proper – education via TV and satellite channels. Different forms and means of communication can be applied according to the content of lectures. For example, introductory lectures can be given by highly-qualified teachers and shown on satellite channels. Another kind of lectures can be a video film or a record of discussion of prominent scientists. Students have to present their course papers orally - either to submit them in the form of a video film or to present them at the face-to-face meeting. It’s necessary to mention that only universities which meet state requirements have rights to provide distance education. But to create successful distance education programmes, the universities might try to start these programmes as an addition to the generally set curriculum. The students might be provided with the alternative to take either distance or regular course. While such a training sample version students can provide a good response to certain points, enlarge and edit the course to their needs, thus being the co-creators of it. That can appear to be a valuable experience for both sides. Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Elepar" Sincerely, Alena. Current Mood: working
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Hello, my dear friends!
Before I start doing business, I just wanted to tell you, that I placed some pictures of in the gallery, so if you are interested go and hopefully, you will get pleasure. Also, I wanted to share with you the emotion of living in a very special time - here, in Moscow we bit the record of 1954 in temperature - we are having + 4-6 degrees, which is 10 degrees lower than it should be! Well, I honestly love spring and summer better, but winter should be winterlike :) I already start missing snow and forgetting how it looks like :) Soon, we will be like the British - betting on "whether it will snow on X-mas or not?" :)))
Now, back to studies.
I have browsed the Wikipedia SLA (Second Language Acquisition) and decide to write my own one on the topic "Pedagogical effects". After reading the article on this topic in SLA, I was boiling with certain thoughts and ideas on the discussed issue, so I made up my mind to let them go and let you know.
I can fully agree that "language acquisition seeks to measure or evaluate the effectiveness of language teaching practices". It has also been discovered that "many traditional language-teaching techniques are extremely inefficient". No doubt the time requirements should be met by teachers since they are dealing with a very fragile and significant thing - our children, our future. So systematical questioning of the existing methods and checking their effectiveness should really become a habit, in my view.
Expanding my thoughts I would like to pass to the present day realities, compared to those of yesterday. I won't discover America saying that our age of technological innovations require computer literacy and utilization of computer-based activities in various fields of studies. Consequently, integration of technology and traditional means is unavoidable. A teacher is this paradigm is viewed more like an instructor, trainer or a manager of the project. His role is to guide, while most work is on students.
But not only it is the question of convenience, speed, easiness, freedom of expression and creativity. This format of technologically oriented studies can very significantly improve the situation with the enthusiasm and students' inclination to study in general, and to study better. Meeting new friends, chatting on-line, exchanging pictures and thoughts about certain events, knowing more about the country of the language not from boring books with gloomy black and white pictures, but from the real people, of their age - those are the things to raise interest. A teacher in this case is regarded more like a friend, giving useful words of advice.
Teachers' literacy and familiarity in these fields is appreciated a lot. To my mind, one should work really hard to guide accordingly, to care but not to be driven away by huge opportunities not actually aimed at any language perfection.
Concluding all this, I would like to underline, that a contemporary teacher should do his or her best to fit in the new digital environment and feel at ease there. From my viewpoint, we should try to avoid the situation, when a student knows something a lot better than we do. Since when a pupil finds out the sphere where he knows more than a teacher does or moe experienced than a teacher is, he or she is inclined to lose respect. So join in and be a part of this world. The world wide web :)
Alena.
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Good afternoon! Here is my table of +\- of blogs: Pluses are: 1) Stimulate creative approach. 2) A chance to receive comments quickly and from limitless sources. 3) Freedom of expression. Minuses are: 1)People often place a lot of rubbish ina blog. 2) People might use it in unfair means and just earn money. 3) Information of your blog might be seen by someone you wouldn't like. Personally I presume pluses of a blog overbalance a lot :) Yours, Alena. Current Mood:  contemplative
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Hello, dear co-students and dearest Teacher, I had a terrific and valuable experience of browsing certain new information which provided me with huge resources. Thanks for hinting at such a chance. I'm more inclined to think that these tasks can be authentic. Students are involved in the activities that are much closer, as I presume, to them, than sitting in a library or copying extracts from books. What is important, to my mind, is not to forget about possible emerging difficulties. According to the information on the site there can be problems in case school on the whole or student in particular -) do not have a reliable computer; -) access e-mail; -) willingness to commit time to the project. As it was wisely noticed "Some projects that look easy on paper may involve unforeseen activities." But that should not in any way discourage us! Let's work for the best. Sincerely, Alena. Current Mood: excited
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