Week 10 - We're Finished!!

Hello!

The time has flown by and we are now finished with the course!

I will miss all of you so much. I wish you the very, very best in all you do.

Donna

Week 9

The worst is over--the final project or plan reports are in! Congratulations to everyone for posting them to the wiki so efficiently.

I'll be reading them this week and next week. I will email you  my feedback.

Well done!!

Donna

Week 8

Week 8 has ended, and all course participants have actively engaged in sharing feedback with one another.

I always wonder about how helpful the peer feedback is. I think with adults, peer feedback is very helpful, especially when furnished with checklists and rubrics. I don't think peer feedback is helpful with students unless the feedback is carefully scaffolded. Students really need to understand an assignment's requirements in order to give one another good quality feedback. When they are struggling to understand what is required, the qualify of the feedback is very low.

Donna

Week 7

This week is partner creation! This means that we are nearing the end of the course as course participants create partners with whom they will share their draft plan report or project reports! This is an exciting time because it means that those reports will be due very soon!

Donna

Week 6

Well . . .  this week passed nicely, with a lot of activity. This week's focus was interactive PowerPoint. When I discovered interactive PowerPoint, my thoughts changed completely about the usefulness of PowerPoint. Sitting and watching and reading a lengthy PowerPoint presentation is soooooo boring. It puts me to sleep. I am constantly amazed by the poor quality of a speaker's PowerPoint--these are people who should know better. They feel the need to cram every word possible on each slide. Bleh!!

I like minimal slides with interaction. This keeps an audience and students engaged and motivated.

To tell you the truth, I tend to judge speakers by the quality of the PowerPoint! If they have a poor quality PowerPoint, I tend to disregard the speaker.

That's my rant for the week!

Donna

Week 5

Well! We are half-way through this course already. How amazing! This 5 week point comes up so quickly. I always like this point because the course is perking along nicely with everyone knowing what to do and posting away at Nicenet, adding to their blogs, and participating in a wonderful collaborative learning community. I am always gratified how hard everyone is working and how much effort they put into expanding their knowledge base.

Well done everyone!!

Donna

Week 4

Well, week 4 is over and I'm just posting to my blog! I'm late--yikes. This course has lots of pieces.

I'm late to post as I spent last night working on the two MOOCs I'm enrolled in. One MOOC just started, and it deals with Web 2.0 tools. It's very interesting, and I'm learning about a lot of tools and resources available on the Internet that I didn't know about--just like everyone in this course.

I'm also completing a 5-week MOOC offered by my program. It was developed by my close colleague, Deborah Healey (along with colleagues Jeff Magoto and Elizabeth Hansen-Smith). This MOOC is called Shaping the Way We Teach English and is available in two 5-week segments. Part 1 is ending in a week, and Part 2 will be enrolling soon. You can do Part 2 before Part 1 (I did). To enroll, go to

https://www.coursera.org/

and search for "Shaping"

I recommend the Shaping MOOCs. They are free and entirely wonderful.

Donna