Week 5: Hope Restored !

Dear webmates!

Obviously, we are at the right place! Week after week, we are adding to our experience.

Indeed Week 5 has been another useful learning experience.

Here are my comments:

1.       Alternative Assessment – Project Based Learning – Rubrics – WebQuests: obviously, Week 5 laid emphasis on the learner: this week’s activities reveal the importance of putting the learner at the center of the learning process thus helping him/her achieve autonomy and gain interest into learning.

As I concluded in my Discussion, “all three techniques could be powerful sources of motivation and autonomy in learning for my students. A wise combination of Alternative Assessment tools with either Project based Learning or WebQuests can be help resolve some the problems pointed out in Project step 3 ( motivation, lack of time, variety of levels, ) because of their intrinsic qualities:

• ·         They focus on communication skills building, are centered around the learner, ensure learners ‘involvement in the setting of criteria, offer learners opportunity to  evaluate themselves ( Alternative Assessment)

• ·         Learners can participate in the choice of projects that must be of interest to them ( Project Based Project)

• ·         They are ideal for areas of activity learners are already accustomed with (WebQuest on  Environment, Water, Energy, Civil Engineering issues) “

2.       I also enjoyed discovering the website for generating rubrics (Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/), something I did not know before. Now I’m thinking of the different possibilities this resource can offer.

I won’t omit to mention Workshop: Webquest (http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub3.html), which provides step by step tips to implementing a Webquest.

3.  

     Project Task 3: learning the above mentioned techniques gave me an idea of the  “technology-related change “ I could do “implement to help with some of the issues mentioned before”: A priori, I think a WebQuest could be interesting to overcome the limited number of teaching hours  ( learners can work on projects spread over 5_6 weeks with weekly support from the Teacher) and motivation ( WebQuests seem ideal for learners’ areas of study ( Environment, Water, Energy, Civil Engineering), of which they already have some knowledge.

Additional sources of motivation for implementing a WebQuest are: availability of WIFI connection, learners having individual laptops, their level of computer literacy, etc.

Finally, a balanced composition of teams could help resolve the major weakness (student’s varied English Proficiency levels) and Threat (Technological problems: WIFI connection breakdowns, general lack of time).

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to complete the Extra-credit task, but I’m still working on it, and I  think I’m having an idea of what I could do in my final project.

I can conclude that, compared to Week 4 when I had some apprehensions, Week 5 has helped me dispel my doubts, so: Hope is Restored!