This site is supposed to help one with writing skills...

.http://esl-wow.org/

Week 10: In the making of a perfect E-Teacher

Hello Everyone,

This week is the closing week of the course. So besides trying Levels of Technology Integration (LoTI) and giving advice to the future participants, I was reflecting on my journey through the course which I will share here.

But besides that I would also like to share that there was only one task that remained to be done and that was creating a Webquest on Zunal which I did this week on teaching "Ode to a Nightingale" Please have a look and comment on the same. 

When I began the course, I thought I would look something like this:

But during the progress of this course, I realized that it was nothing so complicated but was there to empower both the students and the teachers. It will not be able for me to describe here all that I have learnt in the course in toto but I will briefly discuss the topics that were covered over the weeks. What began in  Week 1 as path full of apprehensions and fear as to "Will I be able to do anything in the course, or will I fail?" and "What if my internet fails me?" etc. (but God be praised, nothing amiss occurred) is now sucessfully completed. 

It was the first "virtual" or online course that I did and completed successfully.

In fact it was some sort of extra work for me initially but during the course of it around week 4, I started enjoying it and got hooked to the computer most of the time. It became a part of my routine to sit at the computer for hours and look at the resources introduced, try something new and adapt it to the class that I was teaching.

 In a way, I have lived this course because the way it required to introduce things to the class one was teaching. The project is not something that one had to think and write. I have thought about it, implemented it, felt it, realized it and seen the effect of it. 

I am really thankful to RELO for giving me the opportunity to do this course. 

I am also thankful to my colleagues of this course for being very cooperative, kind and helpful.

Finally I would like to thank my Course Instructor Ms. Courtney Cunningham for being such a gem of a person and a teacher. Hats off to her. Had it not been for her guidance, I would not have been able to complete this course, successfully. Her directions and instructions were clear and precise. During the time of any confusion she came to my rescue as a lifeboat and a lighthouse to give me directions. 

Though the course is over, but the learnings of this course will last me a lifetime. 

I would like to close with this quote, "A good-bye is never painful unless you’re never going to say hello again."

Do stay in touch. 

Best wishes Everyone

Ashish Pande

Ode to a Nightingale Exercise

Dear Students,

Though the Semester is over and all of you have done well in the semester end examination, I would like you to attempt an exercise on "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats using "Webquest" just for fun.

You can go to the exercise that I have created by clicking on this link.

After this you will complete the task by writing and publishing on this blog under this heading.

Happy Learning!

Best Wishes,

Ashish Pande

BA-Semester II: Selected Novels and Short stories

Dear BA-1 students, 

Happy holidays and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

This is to inform you that the following novels and short stories have been selected for the next  semester. It would be good  if you could do a background reading before the classes formally begin on January 1, 2013. 

NOVELS

1.      Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte

2.      Animal Farm: George Orwell

3.      Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

4.      The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde

5.      The Mayor of Casterbridge: Thomas Hardy

6.      Hard Times: Charles Dickens

SHORT STORIES

1.      “A Rose for Emily”: William Faulkner

2.      “The Terror”: Chekhov

3.      “Metamorphosis”: Franz Kafka

4.      “The Furnished Room”: O Henry

5.      “A Horse and two Goats”: R.K. Narayan

6.      “The Lost Necklace”: Guy de Maupassant

7.      “Chrysanthemums”: John Steinbeck

8.      “Light is Like Water”: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

9.      “Araby”: James Joyce

10.  “House of the Fallen Usher”: Edger Allan Poe

11.  “The Purloined Letter”:  Edgar Allan Poe

12.  “Mr. Palomas on the Beach”: Italo Calvino

Reading list

1.      Allen, Walter. The English Novel. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1954. Bradbury,

2.      Malcolm. The Modern British Novel. London: Heinneman, 1994.

3.      Leavis, F. R. The Great Tradition: George Eliot. Henry James, Joseph Conrad. London: Chatto and Windus, 1960.

4.      Peck, John. How to Study a Novel. London: Macmillan, 1995.

5.      Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Writers from Bronte to Lessing. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977.

6.      Van Ghent, Dorothy. The English Novel: Form and Function. New York: Rinehart, 1953

Best Wishes, 

Ashish Pande. 

Reflections Week 9: Multiple Intelligences and Final Draft

As the penultimate week of the project comes to an end, a sense of completion and achievement is being felt amid a feeling of nostalgia. There were two important things that were done this week. One of them included the submission of the final draft of our projects. The other was being introduced to Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences.

By the end of this week, I also happened to check the examination answer books for my students for the semester end examination. Reading their answer books (especially the BA-1 class: Introduction to Poetry- The class on which I did my project) I was able see the marked difference in the way they had performed from their first internal assessment. There was a marked changed in the way they wrote their examination answers and the linguistic performance had improved significantly. I am glad I did this project. 

Project Final Draft

Thanks to my partner Nino that I was able to fill in the lacunae in the project and make important changes in the final draft. There were many things that had to be thought out and implemented before submitting the final draft of the project. One of them included the question as to how would the learnings of the project influence my teaching style in future. I had to arrange an informal meeting with the students to decide the outline for hte next semester. It was decided that in the next semester 6 novels and 12 short stories that would be taught would be done with the help of technology. After ensuring this, I was able to incorporate the same in the final draft of my project. 

Multiple Intelligences in Classroom and using Technology to cater to them 

The topic of discussion and the reading material that was made available was on Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. The following diagram is an excellent representation of the varying kinds of intelligences. 

However, this was not 'the' focus of discussion. Courtney had clearly instructed us on the discussion forum to  

focus on the technology aspect. 

The resources for the week included the article "Technology and Multiple Intelligences" (http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm) which was a very informative article and helped me understand how to use technology for each kind of intelligence. In my analysis of the multiple intelligences and adopting technology for each kind, I was able to suggest ways for using tools of technology to address the needs of  different kinds of learners. Going through the discussion forum and reading Cherry's remark that my post and the comments associated with it helped him allay apprehension of integrating MI and technology in the language classroom. There was another article shared by Raj entitled "Multiple Intelligences and Technology" (http://www.casacanada.com/multech.html). The article talked about integrating technology into the classroom for the following seven kinds of intelligences namely Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Visual/Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal and Intra-personal.

The other articles and resources include the following:

1. Multiple Intelligences after twenty Years by Howard Gardner: (http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf)
2. How Technology Enhances Howard Gardner's Eight Intelligences (http://www.america-tomorrow.com/ati/nhl80402.htm#
3. Learning styles online quiz - learn about your own learning style. A very good quiz that can be taken by anyone.  (http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz)
4. Howard Gardner Video on Multiple Intelligences (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iYgO8jZTFuQ#!) shared by Raj. 
5. Sailing with 5Cs with Learning Strategies (http://www.nclrc.org/sailing/)

I would like to quote Jasmina who writes that teaching is like cooking that includes, "A little bit of everything, mixed appropriately, seasoned to taste, prepared and served with patience and a good dose of encouragement will melt down even the grumpiest student."

Looking forward eagerly to the final week. 

Ashish Pande. 

Week 8 Reflections: More tools and sadness creeping in

Before writing the reflections for this week, I decided to read what Jasmina had written. It brought about a sense of nostalgia before actually experiencing it. She had talked about only two weeks to go before finally all of us go our separate ways which kind of brought about a sense of sadness especially because I had felt an absence of it for the first four days of the week. I did not feel it much till Wednesday since I was busy like everyone else in drafting my project report, but still there was a feeling of something not right. I really felt it hard on Thursday morning and afterwards when there was a sense of ennui. There is a good feeling also that till now one has been able to learn a lot and has been able to apply it to classroom teaching successfully as well. Like Jasmina, I also want the rest of the classmates to be in touch even after we graduate this course.

Project Report

Nostalgia apart, the week was very fruitful for me personally. I did not think that I would be able to draft a report so quickly. It was very easy because of the simple reason that this course has been designed in such an organized manner that one keeps doing the groundwork every week for the final run and it does not seem to much labour towards the end. My parter Nino and I have already shared our first drafts on the class wiki and I am eagerly awaiting for feedback from all quarters. I would request everyone who reads this to please have a look at my project report and suggest changes and corrections no matter how minor they may be.

Peer Assessment as a Part of the Project

One of the fulfilling things this week that worked for me was organizing a peer assessment exercise for my class of Poetry i.e. BA Semester-I on Monday, November 20. It was held in the computer lab at 3:00 p.m. and was a thought out exercise in which each student was to be assessed on his/her post on Practical Criticism of the poem "The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth based on the interactive power point presentation that I had made. 

The task was done in such a way that all the students were assessed by two peers who were assessed by other peers. In this way any scope of benefit to each other was ruled out. To ensure objective assessment, a rubric was also provided to the students. Despite this, I could see that there are marked variations in the assessment done by the students. It was for this reason that it was announced initially that the peer assessment will be reviewd by the teacher.  I have also realized that I am very lenient in my marking scheme.

Tools

Besides the tools discussed this week, I realized that the biggest tool is the internet. As I posted on the Nicenet discussion forum as well that it makes me feel jealous with the present day students because I remember the struggle one had to make in collecting material for my MA classes especially in a paper on Greek Mythology and Drama. The books on the topic were so rare and costly that it was not possible to buy them. If I were doing my MA now, I am sure there would be no problem in getting the material.

The other tools that we were introduced to this week are:

1. SMILE: http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/mimea/smile/v2/index.php
2. Hot Potatoes: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
3. Easy Test Maker: http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx. I was also able to make a very simple test with the help of this tool and post it on our class wiki. 
4. 4Teachers: A very good educational resource that has a great pool of other resources within it like Rubistar, Quizstar, Academic Skills builder etc.( http://www.4teachers.org/tools/)
5. Dvolver Movie Maker: http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/index.html
6. Crossword Puzzle Game: http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html
7. Web Poster Wizard: http://poster.4teachers.org/
8. ANVILL: A National Virtual Language Lab. (https://anvill.uoregon.edu/anvill2/)
9. Tools for Educators: http://www.toolsforeducators.com/
10. Boggles World ESL: It has a huge amount of resources for teachers including worksheets and lesson plans. (http://bogglesworldesl.com/)

I could not explore any other tools as we have semester end exams at our university, but will certainly do so in due course of time during and after this course.

Looking forward to the final draft of my project and an exciting week 9. 

Peer Assessment Results

PEER ASSESSMENT RESULTS

Dear BA-Sem-1,

The results of the peer-assessment are as follows. You will notice the pattern of marking varied despite providing you with a rubric. However, these marks are not final and are subject to review by the teacher i.e. me. 

Name of the Student	Assessor I	Assessor II	Total
Akhil Vasudevan	Sweta-7	Vijay-7	14/20
Ankita Sundriyal	Sweta-8	Vijay-9	17/20
Ayushi Singh	Ankita Sundriyal-7	Akhil Vasudevan- 8	15/20
Faiiz Hussain	Ankita Sundriyal-7	Akhil Vasudevan- 8.5	15.5/20
Faith T Varghese	Ayushi Singh-7	Faiiz Hussain-8.5	15.5/20
Hakim Omar Nisar	Ayushi Singh-5	Faiiz Hussain-8	13/20
Kartik Kashyap	Faith T Varghese-5	Hakim Omar Nisar-5	10/20
Neha Pande	Faith T Varghese-6	Hakim Omar Nisar-7	13/20
Ram Singh	Kartik Kashyap-8	Neha Pande-6	14/20
Roushan Roy	Kartik Kashyap-8.5	Neha Pande-5	13.5/20
Sana Haider	Ram Singh-9	Roushan Roy-4.5	13.5/20
Sayantan Das	Ram Singh-8.5	Roushan Roy-4.5	13/20
Shramona Roy	Sana Haider-8	Sayantan Das-9	17/20
Shubhadarshini Mallick	Sana Haider-5	Sayantan Das-7	12/20
Shyam	Shramona Roy-7	Shubhadarshini Mallick-7.5	15.5/20
Swastika	Shramona Roy-8	Shubhadarshini Mallick-7.5	15.5/20
Sweta	Shyam-7	Swastika-7	14/20
Vijay	Shyam-8	Swastika-8	16/20