Week 8 Reflection

Falling behind so much is not good at all. I am trying my best to cope with all things that I failed to manage last week. This Week 8, I notice that there are 4 tasks I have to work on; the Nicenet discussion, blog, task to create class site, handout or exercise, and project task.

The first thing I worked on this week was continue working on and trying to solve uploading problem on the padlet wall. As the result, I could manage to add links, which did not work the days before. I am a bit happy that at last something works on my padlet. I was half way to completing the third weekly assignment, the task.

I still do not feel satisfied though with padlet learning I have gone through . I could not uploaded images on the padlet wall, nor the Microsoft words, PDF, and PPT as well as smaller files. I am wondering whether 27 KB is too big for padlet uploading file.

The second assignment I have done was the peer feedback activities for the final project. I decided to focus working on peer feedback for Annusha's project. This is because I do not want to cause her problem as the effect of my failure to cope with the Week 7's expectation. Therefore, I have to postpone working on my own project. It is also better to do so in order to be focus on my own project plan.

I worked on my own draft after I completed the feedback. Both Annusha and I had missinterpretation of the feedback form. While working on the second feedback form and reading Annusha's draft, I realized that I only need to  do the project one because she made project with her class. I kept working on both feedback forms and uploaded both.

I work on something absolutely different from the planning that I have started in Week 4. I was not certain about which class I suppose to teach in the near future so that I made different planning for different classes for every week's assignment. Yet, for my final project, I choose to work on planning project for my classes in Electrical Engineering which will stat by March 2014.  It takes more time though. It does not only require simple things writing a planning. I have also work on creating materials, media and other related preparation. It is really time and energy consuming. Again, in order not to cause another problem for my peer, I decided to uploaded my unfinished draft for her to read and give feedback.

Since I am working on my draft for final project, I also need to provide all material preparation. I have tried to use all links provided by the course instructor, Sean McClelland. I have signed up for http://www.toolsforeducators.com/, http://bogglesworldesl.com/, http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx, hot potatoes, http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html, Web Poster Wizard, and smile. Yet, I found most of them are more suitable for General English Teaching. I decided to create something more ESP related material on those links. Unfortunatelly, most of them required upgrading to plus or premium version in order to create things I need for my teaching context; a simple ESP materials for my low proficiency vocational college students.  I also tried to use ANVIL but I have problem registering myself as a teacher. It does not recognize the province I live in in Indonesia.

Week 7

I wanted to start this Week 7 earlier so that I can continue doing it next week.
 This week 7 will be the hardest period for me to manage. There will be so many activities I have to go through and so limited time to work on... (17 February, 2014 at 11.37 am Indonesian time)

I realized that it is very late for me to continue working on Week 7 assignment but I just do not want to be left behind too much. It is not just the Webquest and Rubistar that I could not fully use well but also this Padlet. I spend so much time on creating walls on padlet and uploading the file but it's all failed.

 No matter small the file I uploaded, I always get the "There is an error uploading.." message popping up. I have resized the image, added links, uploading smaller Microsoft Words document, PDF, and slide PPT. Browshing for information online did not also help....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuzciL8qCYM

 Nothing works.... It really stresses me out.

I had realised earlier that not only that Edmodo is not that familiar for my students but also other factors that hinder my expectation that my students would be able to be autonomous learners. I realized that facebook is much more fun and motivating for them to use as their learning media.

    

                   Being similar in colour does not make it encouraging for students to access to enhance their learning.  

Padlet, I expect, will be a motivating learning media to make them aware and conscious that they need to near n share on the padlet wall. I wish and will learn more about padlet to be able to use it well with my students. 

          

Week 6 Reflection

This Week 6 is, again, a real hard week for me, especially because the  day of conference is getting closer. I have to complete 2 researches on writing, peer feedback and motivation, write the report, prepare for the presentation and arrange everything for traveling to CamTESOL Conference in Cambodia. (http://www.camtesol.org/2014-conference/conference-flyer)
 It is really hard for me to manage the time for doing the assignment.

I could not find my project on wiki for rubric, reading links, and WebQuest. I spent most of my time today searching for my WebQuest project and continue working on my Interactive Powerpoint.

After searching for more that 3 hours, I realized that I have not completed

working on the WebQuest for my "TV Pproduction" class because I noticed that it was an extra credit task and I was running out of time. Therefore, I did not complete the project. I saved it for later, for my real class.

I just realized that I also missed working on Sean's class Wiki for adding my rubric. While searching for this WebQuest, I managed to find the rubric that I made last week but I could not access the website for logging in. I could not find a way to re-access my document on that website. Fortunately, I was able to search my rubric and could manage to add the link to the Class wiki. It was rubric for teaching Job Interview for Electrical Engineering students. In addition, I can go back to the Nicenet to copy my assignment on Week 4 in order to add it to the Wiki for the "Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, and Grammar Links".  Because of this un-completed task I did last week, I can learn more about Google Drive, Google Document, and Google Circle. I got to know one of the last term Webskill student's blog.   I got to know that she was my lecturer from Bachelor studies. She was Rina Marnita.

The first Nicenet assignment I did this week was the discussion on "Technology Tools for Creating Student-Centered Classes, Including Large Classes". At the beginning Sean did not divide this discussion. It was stated that we need to discuss only 1 topic, either the "Powerpoint Increase Interaction" or the "Engaging Students". I managed to give response on Jurga and Lupita's assignment. I always like the way Jurga wrote her assignment. In addition, I thanks Foli for giving feedback for my assignmen on Nicenet.

The next assignment I worked on was the Interactive Powerpoint. It took me 3 days to complete. It was the longest period of slide preparation that I made. I learnt more from all the reading and links provided by Sean. I rarely used the hyperlink on my previous slides. Furthermore, I got to understand the use of blank slide. I never let any blank slide on my slides but now I understand, it is aimed at well attention gathering. Thanks, Sean. I do learn a lot.

I wanted to complete my all assignment today so that I can be focused on my research and presentation preparation for the conference during the weekend. However, I found that the "Project Task 5: Begin to Implement the Change" was to be done, not to be written as the Nicenet assignment. I am really not happy about this actually, I do not have any classes since 20 January 2014, it was the Final Semester period and now students are on their semester break. I used to have more than 25 hours teaching in a week and it was hard for me to focus on 1 classes in working on my Nicenet weekly assignment.

This project 5 for me will be for continuing to refine my project plans, adding more details about at least one of the changes. As it is instructed, I should work on details that is resources that I plan to use, references for the planned change, rubrics/other planned assessments, or follow-up activities. I realise I should discus this  on this topic. However, I want to apologize for not being able to do do it this week.

I wish I can ask for permission for late submission.

I notice that on the https://sites.google.com/site/webskillsuo/home/assignments/week-6 is written that "Your draft report is due to your partner by  Wednesday week 8, and the final report is due by noon on Friday week 9."