ABCD
At first I had some trouble with it but then I found a great link and it all became very clear. It took me some time to post my objective as it was evaluation week at school and I spent all my time in meetings and writing reports and trying to pull myself together again after 3 days in Seville with 45 kids and 40.ºC. (By the way, Seville is wonderful!) Then I started reading all posts and I thought the people in this course are quite motivated. It was a bit hard to follow the posts - I'm a visual person and not too good with names and miss connecting the posts to people (faces). Fortunately, people's blogs are making that easier for me. I wrote my objective, got nice responses to it and felt fine.
SEARCH
It was nice to try new search engines. I like searching as I always find surprising things that are useful for my lessons or simple fun or interesting on a personal level. I have a problem with speed, I mean, when a website is slow I get impatient and sometimes give up on it. I realised I was using google all the time and I'll try to ensure some variety in my search from now on.
PROJECT
I guess I started a project without even thinking about it. All of a sudden I asked 7A kids if they would like to have a blog and it was like setting fire to dry hay - it went faster then I ever expected. Even though it was a bit rushed, I don't regret it as now they are eager to go back to English lesson after Easter. ;) Besides, I've been reflecting on it and I promise I am going to plan it really well.
WEEK SUMMARY
I was tired and overworked so I didn't take as much time as I wanted to go on nicenet and keep up with posts. I read all the posts (I really did!) and I think the people in this course are really GREAT. I was amazed at the number of students in most classes. I had never imagined people could have so many kids in a single class and I felt very lucky (We have to value the advantages we have) and now those teachers are hero-teachers to me - they never give up, no matter how difficult things are.
FINAL REMARK
A Portuguese Pedagogist called João de Deus said in the 19th century that "love is the only pedagogy" and I think he was right - only by loving what we do, can we do it fully.
Sara
ReplyDeleteNice post. It is fun to read about your insights, as well as your travel. It must have been a real heatwave on your trip?
I think it is never too soon to start your project. Still I hope to emphasize in this course that it is good practice in general to start with a need, then find a tool to address that need. Many people start with the tool, then try to make their class fit the tool.
Robert