Tech Log Week 2

This is only Week 2? It seems impossible!! I feel I “know” everybody for a long time and I already got addicted to our Nicenet discussions. :-) Everybody shares their experiences, their motivation and their goals and we all learn from each other. For me, that is the best part of it all. Learning through collaboration and sharing of different worldviews makes us understand the real potential of the web as a communication and learning tool. The way the participants comment on each other’s posts, giving suggestions, praising, encouraging is fantastic and a lesson the whole world should learn.

Week 2 signaled the beginning of our Project Task/Plan, and I’m really anxious for the next steps in this process. I’d love to develop something which would join Technology and Solidarity. I’d like my future students to engage in some sort of web solidarity project, perhaps related to the right of children to education, street children, women’s rights… Don’t really know what yet, but with everybody’s help and Donna’s guidance I’ll do it. ;-)

I was already familiar with the ABCD method and I do believe it is of great importance when writing our learning objectives. Still, D hasn’t completely convinced me… I do think it needs a different formulation. If it “identifies the standard that the learner must meet to reach acceptable performance” (URL), then we could ask what “acceptable performance” means. As Donna said “the degree of mastery is very context specific. It really depends on what and where you are teaching” and I couldn’t agree more. I continue to believe that there is some confusion between a learning objective and assessment. While preparing my reflection post I did some research on this and found this interesting site, which links the learning objectives with the assessment rubrics, as I think they should be: “Ideally, learning objectives should be accompanied by measurable outcomes, which describe ways in which students will be asked to demonstrate that they have achieved the learning objectives. Methods of assessment of student learning can take many forms—exams (written or oral), papers, oral presentations, team projects. Criteria for success (often called rubrics) should be developed so that students understand what is expected of them, and so that they can use feedback to see where they need to strengthen their performance.” (URL) So, a learning objective should be followed by a rubric and both given to the student.

My moment of Zen :-) was the revelation of NoodleTools. My eyes sparkled at the sight of that enormous quantity of search sites. How I reveled in trying some of those amazing sites! I usually present workshops at the annual conference of our Portuguese Teachers of English Association and write articles for its magazines and I already have a fairly good idea of what I’m going to prepare for the next event. ;-) Also, I will use some of the sites to prepare my lessons, as I found extraordinary things, as I mentioned in the discussion thread.

Can’t wait for next week!