Week 10 reflection

Dear Donna and colleagues,

Without any doubt this week is the saddest one for me because it is the end of this course where I met wonderful colleagues and instructors, shared ideas by participating in great discussion in nice net. I gained a lot of things in this course including many teaching spices that help shape the way I teach. I experienced many tools that were new to me, and explored some very interesting sites like delicious where you can stores hundred of links that interest you. This course really represents a great experience for me, an experience that I will never forget in my life. I will miss the wonderful instructions of my instructor Donna Shaw and the great comments of my colleagues in the Nicenet discussions and in my Blog. We really formed a big and solid family during this course.

I would say that all the topics presented in this course were so interesting to me, they added me a lot. But among the topics that struck me the most are: learner autonomy, multiple intelligences, assessing learning etc. Reading about learner autonomy made me think about ways in which I can help my students learn independently and be responsible for their own learning. The great articles on multiple intelligences gave clear idea that students are not stupid but just have different learning styles, some learn by seeing and listening and other by touching or drawing etc. so paying attention to this idea, will help me more in involving all my students. The good ideas from using rubrics helped me a lot with the assessments. Students used to complain a lot about their grades telling me that they didn’t deserve such or such grade but since the day I read about them and knew how to create and use them, I am at peace and there are no more complaints.

Concerning the tools, I had the chance to discover so many tools in this course among are blogs, webquest, padlets, delicious, ANVILL by Jef Magoto, etc. But the one I will really use in my class are Blog and padlets. Blog are great way for a teacher and students to share ideas concerning the class and also student can discuss topic on the class blog and then make some presentations in the class about those topics. Padlet on the other hand is a great tool that allows teachers to share materials related to the class with their students like documents, images, web links, documents and videos etc.

I suggest all my colleagues to use SKYPE and EDMODO; they are great tool that teachers can use in their teaching. Skype is a great way to bring a guest speaker in one’s classroom without any transportation cost. Edmodo is a site that I like the most since I was student because of my teacher. He used to send us there our assignments and lessons sometimes. You just go to www.edmodo .com and create your personal and favorite account that can make you the feel of face book with the educational perspective.

Looking forward to sharing more with you,

Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

     Mauritania

Week 9 Reflection

Hello Donna and colleagues,

I can say that this is the most wonderful for me because it the one before the last (maybe the one before the easiest one as Donna mentioned). But also it represents the saddest week for me because it is almost the end of the nice teaching spices that we are experiencing in the course. I really loved the week because it tackled the most important issues which are the use of technology tools and technology to address the learning styles.

The week is so resourceful. I have been given chance to explore another great web tool called ANVILL by Jef Magoto. The tool is just great I created my own account as a teacher but still I am learning the tool to be more familiar with it. It really gave me a headache before creating the new account, I tried many time but in vain and every try it said that the enrollment code is incorrect. But final I understood the process. As a teacher I love using technology tools in class because it makes my easier and the class more interactive. But this week told me that using technology tools is very important but also paying attention to the students’ learning is also important because what works for John as students might not work for Clara as student.

Students are not that stupid but just perceive things in different ways. Some learning by seeing and other learn by singing etc. so a teacher knowing all these things mean a successful class where all the students feel alright about what is going around them. The best thing as mentioned in the article of Felder is to make a balance.

Looking forward to sharing with you more next week,

Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

          Mauritania

Week 8 reflection

Hello Donna and colleagues,

This week was somehow tough for because it required me to spend hours and hours exploring some online tools and also working through the draft of my project to meet the deadline and also editing my partner project. I created a padlet that I could share with my colleagues on the wiki group. I also read some great ideas of my colleagues about how to use online tools and their constraints and the way one could follow to overcome those constraints.

Online tools are nowadays are making it easier for many teachers. Teachers used to spend time and times on some specific work without even giving their students the opportunity for learning independently. But with the help of the many technology tools, we are able to see some spices that we can add to our way of teaching. And to link these tools to the learner autonomy, we see that students are doing the half of the work which means that they learn more independently than it used to be. But still there is a big problem about the link between the learner autonomy and these online tools. Teachers cannot control whether the work is done by the students themselves or their colleagues. And also when doing the work like correcting students assignments, reading their productions etc. teachers should log on to the internet regularly to do so.

As I stated earlier, I have spend more time this week writing my project and reading it over and over. And also reading and editing the one of my partner. I really loved the idea of sharing the draft of my project with other course participant (my partner Mohammad Azizul Hague) to be edited. I love his draft and I loved also editing it. This is a great experience in my life. I will never forget it.

Looking forward to sharing more with you,

        Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

                    Mauritania

Week 7 Reflection

Hello Donna and colleagues,

As I stated in one of my previous posts in the previous weeks, the more weeks we enter, the more knowledge to gain and new things to discover. This week also added a lot of new things to the arsenal of my teaching methods. As new teacher, I used to always think about what kind of methods should I used to be a better teacher and avoiding using the ‘’ CHALK TALK’’ method. But since I entered this course, I gained a lot of spices that I could use to enrich my way of teaching.

 This week I read some very interesting articles about learning autonomy, one computer classroom and good strategies of using mobile phone to teach language. Autonomy is the best thing ever we can help our students with because if a student become autonomous then the teacher feels the ease of teaching. Teacher should help their students understand the concept of being an independent learner to their students so that they are involved in making decision and taking care of their own learning. I have never really tried the ways authors in the articles talked about in using mobile phones to teach language, I had some ways which are different from what I saw in the article for example, I used mobile phone to practice listening i.e. I give my students an audio lesson or song to listen to by the sending it to them to their phones and then we discuss about that in the next class. But after reading articles about the use of mobile phones to teach language, I really loved it I will try to adopt those ways next time.

 And also I saw some very interesting things like Pad lets, they are really a great way for a teacher and student to discuss something related to their lesson, share web links, documents and videos etc. it is really simple to use and les time consuming.

I am looking forward to sharing more with you,

    Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

           Mauritania

Week 6 reflection

Dear Donna and colleagues,

Week six was really a great week for me because I discovered many things in it. These things will really play a great role in my teaching career and the one f my colleagues. Through them I will be able as my friend Kiran mentioned in his Nice net post replace the ‘’Chalk-talk’’ method by the new techniques. And among these things are:

Teaching large classes: teaching large classes is something that is so challenging as most of my colleagues know. When teaching a large class, there are always some disadvantages to be encountered like the boredom of the class and the lack of contact between the teacher and the students etc. I indeed teach large classes and had some of the techniques that I shared with my colleagues in the discussion but also I gained a lot of techniques in this week about teaching large classes.

On the other side, came using technologies to enhance students’ engagement in the class: within this I was asked to create a PowerPoint. It is really something that I have never done before. I know about PowerPoint, its purpose and how it is used but never tried to create one. This week’s tasks really pushed me to create my first PowerPoint slide. It really took me a lot of time thinking about how to create it and choose the right template for it but with the article and the additional resources I came out with something that I could share with my colleagues.

Looking forward to sharing more with you,

Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

    Mauritania

Week5 reflection

Hello Donna and colleagues

Here again another week full of learning spices. I really loved this week because through I found some interesting solutions for my way of teaching. For instance, the rubrics, I used to hear a lot of complaints from my students concerning the grading systems. Every time one will state that such grade was not what they expected and so on so forth. But this week gave something which can heal all those wounds and which also help my students be more autonomous.

Besides, I also loved the PBL which is a great way to enlighten the teaching methodology. It is also a good way for teacher to shift from the old fashioned way of teaching which focus only in class. I think Elsa book's title: Making meaning, making change said it all about PBL. Through it students will learning meaningful language and build a strong community among themselves.

Creating an online rubric and a webquest page was really something new to me but made me feel so proud of myself because it is not something easy at all. It requires some computer skills that I and many other teachers luck. Coming every week to the same place would be somehow boring but coming to the same place with some new ideas every week is never boring. These weeks will really represent a turning point in my life and the life of many colleagues.

Looking forward to sharing more with you for the weeks to come,

Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

       Mauritania

Week 4 reflection

Hello Donna and colleagues

Another great week also full of knowledge and experiencing. The more weeks to come, the more things my colleaugue and I experience. This week i explored some very interesting websites about reading and writing building skills and shared with my colleagues some very interesting links about the skills. And the most important things is the ABCD Objective that i was asked to create. This time i did it so quickly without having to redo it again like the previous weeks which mean i have really leaned from the previous weeks.

  Creating a technology enhanced lesson plan was really something new to me and bit hard, I didnt used to it. I just had the idea of creating simple lesson plans but by following the tips and advice given by the team, i arrived to create one using the template given and i hope my colleagues will benefit from it.

And the last but not the least, was writing the issue or problem for my project. This was not that hard for me due to the reading of Aleyda project that i did. It really helped me a lot. Thanks also to my colleagues for their motivating comments on my blog, they really give a force to continue doing my best.

Looking forward to sharing more with all of you.

Brahim Abdoulaye Thiam

     Mauritania