Peer review and Nicenet week 8

Regarding  my project American Holidays, I started a second group:

1.       Registered 10 students

2.       7 students are participating actively

3.       I have created a Hand Out, and changed the instructions on the course site

4.       I send alerts , and try to keep in touch

5.       I think results and feedback will be on time to evaluate the project  for the final report to our  teacher Robert Elliot

This week I had the chance to read Said’s project, he is going to implement it on his school in Egypt, and I learned many things, also from his comments on my project:

•      Teachers commitment is not restricted to class hours
•      Technology can be used to help change teaching style, Said will try a major change on the logic of grammar-translation and exam focus strategy used now, toward a communicative approach
•     Said blended the course content of his class with the project,  that is something we learned with Robert, and  is turned from theory to practice
•      Said recommended me to do things on an easy way, so students can more easily engage in the activities, I will keep his advice in mind.

I also reviewed Angels work, in this case not a project but an activity on a school in Spain:

•     It is possible to combine English with other subjects, as Biology, using in this case a Webquest for children
•    Multiple intelligences approach is possible with technology: Graphs, Videos, drawing are examples of different approaches used by Angels
•     Angels, recommends to work closer with the Institution to ensure students access to the Internet, and it is implied also that internet access should be part of the planning.

Finally, this week we concentrated on the Projects, but we had some Readings.

 I found it very useful to receive instructions about Nicenet. Although we use it almost daily since the course started, I hadn’t explored it properly. This week I created a sample course site for Debates, with the idea of helping student improve their writing skills. This is the course key: E346908O50

Luis