Monday, November 25, 2013

Week 7: My Experience of the Week

Discussion: Learner Autonomy
Sorry, I couldn't take part in the discussion thread this time so well due to the frequent internet interruption. I had to go to cyber cafe and read them there. Anyway I copied them and brought home in my pen drive and read them. The information on learner autonomy provided by the classmates on the discussion thread was really valuable assets for the teachers. The theory, I believe, makes the class really leaner centered. Since the advent of the term 'learner autonomy' coined by Henri Holec in 1981, the term has been a 'buzz word' in second language learning. Teaching has been shifted into learning. In this regard, Henri Holec defines, "Autonomy is the ability to take charge of one's own learning."

Final Project Peer Review
For making pair for the final project peer review, I dropped a request to classmates. I found the partner there, but when I tried to sign up "docs.google.com" to write the name of our pair, it didn't open. So we exchange our email address to each other and sharing our project via email. I don't know is it appropriate way or not. I would like to ask our course instructor for the best way in this regard.
I like the way the course makes us prepare the project step-wise. It can be a great lesson for us. I think even we can select the certain topics for our students for the whole year or certain term, prepare rubrics to create a guideline for the students and to assess the students' project for the teacher, and ultimately to bring some progress in learners' proficiency in second language.

Padlet.com
I think "padled.com" (wallwisher) is another great thing I learned or got in this course. I learned that in the "padlet.com" we can create/build our own wall for certain class or topic. When we click in the "Build a wall", we can enter into a specific wall like "http://padlet.com/wall/9td39t3pz4" which can be our wall to share the information. With the double click of the mouse any where in the empty place of the wall, we can drop our information there. The information here means that can be particular task for the students or the tasks prepared by students or any links, etc. The thing we can do there are:
(a) Your name/Post title: The writer has to write his/her name, and title of the post.
(b) Write something: The writer has to mention a brief description of the post.
(c) Add a URL: The writer can add a URL (image, video, map, slideshow, document or anything else from the internet websites) related to the topic
(d) Upload a file: The writer can upload any kind of file from his/her own computer there.
(e) Take a photo from webcam: The writer can take a photo from webcam and save there.
Above mentioned are the features of "padlet.com", so we can exploit it as our assignment box. The students can drop their task there and the teacher can assess them staying anywhere in the world.