Hello y’all!
In this week 5, Donna presented us the topics about PBL,
Webquests and Alternative Assessements.
The reading about these topics were very interesting
and gave me some hope that my classes can be different, as they can answer many
questions about my own teaching procedure and mainly my student’s needs.
One of the readings that I liked and also surprised me
and my colleague Daniel, was Susan Gaer ‘s article "Less teaching and More Learning".
After reading it, I could see the same needs of my students that she faced in hers. And her solution guided my eyes to a different way to
see the problems in my class.
Susan Gaer’s solution was based on PBL. Using this, her
students could make the link between what they study with their reality,
creating enthusiasm and motivation in order to accomplish the suggested tasks. And
it was so successful that other projects like hers were launched and making
these students’ learnings meaningful.
Alternative assessments are also another possibility
to our students be aware of their learning by assessing each others. One
succesful example happens with our
colleague Daniel. He shared with us his experience on a reading activity using alternative assesment
and also using rubrics. And he tells us that his studens could reach a good
level of quality in their learning. Also through rubrics the learners can
clearly see what they are asked to do and it also helped him to assess specific
learning outcomes and performances.
And what about Webquest?? The title of my post was inspired
on it because with so many resources that technology brings us, the sky is the
limit! I really loved it.
The website http://www.zunal.com/ presents a variety of devices to produce a
webquest and I couldn’t decide which one
to use. I’m gonna come back there to improve my webquest.
When you are producing a webquest you can use many
resources and two of them that I liked were Voki (http://www.voki.com/ ) and
Glogster
(http://edu.glogster.com/) .
You can use Voki to improve oral presentations using avatars and Glogster you
can use to create an interactive poster.
As my colleague Livia believes, one of the teacher’s
role is to help students to create their own image and improve their
confidence.
I’m sure that with all these tools the future of education is promising.
But, I don’t want to be like this man observing while the train passes.
I want to be inside and enjoy the view...
Claudia
Hi Claudia,
ReplyDeleteYou are looking great inside the train! ………..Just kidding!!! I like your train metaphor. 5 weeks back, we were a bystander and were simply observing the train and were thinking what it would be like to go inside and enjoy the journey.
Wow! It’s really exciting to be inside the train of webskills. It’s fun, isn’t it? We have gone through so many stations, right. Just recalling this week, we visited alternative assessment, rubric, project based learning and webquest. And so many exciting lessons are yet to come, it’s fun being in the train of webskills. I really appreciate your train metaphor.
By reading your blog, I could know that you have done great job. Keep it up! Your experience with voki, gloster, must be amazing. I think your students are lucky because they will find different Claudia in 10 weeks. But sometimes, I wonder if it was possible to embrace all these technologies and apply them all in our class.
Sitaram
Hi Sitaram!Thank you for your compliments.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite sure that in 10 weeks all of our group will be very different.
The technologies are available to use and after this course we will be able to check which ones are interesting and use them appropriately and enjoy the view together with our students.
That will be a nice trip!
All the best,
Claudia