3rd week reflections

I started this week with the sadly news of the death of one teacher in my school. He was close friend for me indeed. 

What are some of the feelings that one might feel when a friend passes away? When someone that is special to us is gone it can be difficult to continue living life. Things that were special to you may begin to seem pointless when you don't have that special person to share it with. All of the things that you did together are reminders of the loss that you have suffered. Do yourself a favor and take the time to mourn your loss. 

But life goes on as this sadly week went. 

• In this week we had Discussion: Aural/oral skill-building in which we had to read articles about CALL for listening, speaking, or pronunciation skills, and take a quick look at some of the lesson plans. I found this is really interesting topic; I have found some great websites can help me as a teacher in teaching listening, speaking, or pronunciation skills. So I posted in nicenet.org the following words ( On the this page of speaking http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/ there are many amazing websites add variation and get students' interest & add  fun to lessons.http://blabberize.com/ this website allows you to upload an image, have the mouth’s image move in a comedic way, and then “speak” your voice. Students can use their own photos, or a famous person, cartoon character, etc. Blabberize can be used in the same way ESL/EFL teachers sometimes have students use puppets — students can feel more comfortable speaking when it’s not really “them” doing the talking. 

                    I like the website. It can be used for basic education system in Omani schools   requires using technology tools to apply the new approach for teaching the English language which focuses on the use of language for communication. Students are noticed to be more motivated to learn English with the use of multimedia and technology tools in cycle I (grade 1-4 ). This website is as I believe really useful for students in cycle I schools they are about 6-10 years old. 

·         Task: Delicious.com Social Bookmarking Delicious is a way to save web links (Favorites/Bookmarks) and find them from any computer on the Internet. It also lets you share links easily with others. It was easy to create account in Delicious.com and start saving links and stacks .In a few minutes i had 3 Stacks and 1 link in my page http://www.delicious.com/yasir320/ 

• ·         We had to choose one sample project reports from past Webskills classes. Read the final project report, and comment on that report in nicenet. Briefly describe what the person did in his/her project, and discuss what you liked about the project. It wasn’t easy at first but while working things got more easy and the post of my colleagues gave me a big picture about the project reports. 

 

week two Reflections

by this time i just finished my posts at nicenet.org 

This week was a bit different from first week; things are clearer in posting and searching for information in the net. By the way we had this topic about search engines. It was DISCUSSION i post saying that Google is my best search engine which I consider as smart one.

Also we had two other related topics about describing one of the classes that you teach. A new writing objective model was introduced called ABCD model. So i search for this model and find some interesting information:

The ABCD model for writing objectives

 

Introduction

• Objectives will include 4 distinct components: Audience, Behavior, Condition and Degree.
• Objectives must be both observable and measurable to be effective.
• Use of words like understand and learn in writing objectives are generally not acceptable as they are difficult to measure.
• Written objectives are a vital part of instructional design because they provide the roadmap for designing and delivering curriculum. 
• Throughout the design and development of curriculum, a comparison of the content to be delivered should be made to the objectives identified for the program. This process, called performance agreement, ensures that the final product meets the overall goal of instruction identified in the first level objectives.

Characteristics of objectives

• Observable and measurable
• Unambiguous
• Results oriented / clearly written / specific
• Measurable by both quantitative and qualitative criteria
• Communicate a successful learning in behavioral terms
• Written in terms of performance
• May be presented in 2 levels: 1^st level and 2^nd level
• 1^st level: identify the overall goal of the instruction for the program or instructional event
• Sometimes called terminal objectives
• 2^nd level: identify the goals required to meet the 1^st level objectives
• Sometimes called enabling objectives

Samples

• Given a standard sentence, the English 101 student should be able to identify the noun and verb without error.
• Given an assortment of EMS equipment to pick from, the paramedic should be able to identify all of the equipment necessary to perform rapid sequence intubation without error.
• The EMT-B participant in this pediatric workshop should be able to identify at least 4 warning signs of possible child abuse from a family member’s interview that contains 5 warning signs. 

4 Parts of an ABCD Objective

• Audience
• Behavior
• Condition
• Degree
• The objective does not have to be written in this order (ABCD), but it should contain all of these elements

Audience

·         Describe the intended learner or end user of the instruction

·         Often the audience is identified only in the 1st level of objective because of redundancy

·         Example: The paramedic refresher participant…

·         Example: The EMT-B student…

·         Example: The prehospital care provider attending this seminar…

Behavior

• Describes learner capability
• Must be observable and measurable (you will define the measurement elsewhere in the goal)
• If it is a skill, it should be a real world skill
• The “behavior” can include demonstration of knowledge or skills in any of the domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor, affective, or interpersonal
• Example: … should be able to write a report…
• Example: …should be able to describe the steps…
• Cognitive domain
• Emphasizes remembering or reproducing something which has presumably been learned
• Deal with what a learner should know, understand, comprehend, solve, spell, critique, etc.
• Psychomotor domain
• Emphasizes some muscular motor skill, some manipulation of material and objects, or some act that requires a neuromuscular coordination
• Concerned with how a learner moves or controls his/her body
• Affective domain
• Composed of two different types of behaviors: reflexive (attitudes) and voluntary reactions and actions (values)
• Stages: perception, decision, action and evaluation
• Interpersonal domain
• Emphasizes learner skills (not attitude or knowledge) associated with interpersonal exchanges
• How a learner interacts with others in a variety of situations

Condition

• Equipment or tools that may (or may not) be utilized in completion of the behavior
• Environmental conditions may also be included
• Example: …given an oxygen wrench, regulator and D tank with oxygen…
• Example: …given the complete works of William Shakespeare…
• Example: …given the following environment: 10PM, snowing, temperature 0 degrees C…

Degree

• States the standard for acceptable performance (time, accuracy, proportion, quality, etc)
• Example: … without error.
• Example: … 9 out of 10 times.
• Example: …within 60 seconds.

First week Reflections

this is week 1 reflections

things by the time being more clear to me 

at this week we were asked to :

1.  complete the course survey

2. Make 3 posts on Nicenet (one for each topic)

3. Create your blog and post it to our course wiki (you need a google
account to do this, so if you don't have a google account yet, do that
first).

(Some of you have shared your blog link on Nicenet, which is great.
Please try to also post it on our wiki. If you have problems doing
this, let me know and I can do it for you.)

4. If you have time, start to check out your peers' blogs and post
comments (this will be a regular assignment starting week 2)