WEEK 10 REFLECTION : Advice to Future Participants, How I Will Integrate Technology

 

The Webskills journey is abruptly coming an end today. What a hectic race!! Personally I know and feel that I have learned  much from the 2014 Webskills Course. It has upgraded my knowledge and built my capacity in technology. Now I can say that I am proud of having been able to complete this 2014 Webskills Epic Journey. I have learned and gained much about the web tools ( the Noodle tools), websites (Google docs, Google sites, Ncenet, Wiki, blogger,  padlet, delicious, webquest), logging in/out, quick password creation, PowerPoint creation  etc.  Good health, organization, time management, adapting , computer literacy, patience, determination to succeed have been key elements . I give credits to Sean, our course instructor and mentor, his availability, and  his quality as course manager… and to you coursemates for your tenacity and enthusiasm throughout the course.

Thank you Sean for taking us to the next technology level!! Thanks to this 2014 Webskills Course I strongly hope to take my students to the next technology level too.

 By the way I have composed a poem for us all to celebrate the success:

Dear colleagues,                                                                      

Thanks a million,                                                                      

for your endurance,                                                         

for your collaboration,                                                              

for your resistance to stress,

for your courage to work against time,

for your promptitude to respect deadlines,

for holding each others' hands to the destination,

for being a friend, a source of inspiration and support,

Thanks Sean for being the best tour guide in the journey,

Thanks UO, thanks US Embassies, thanks US Department of State.

Here are two inspiring graduation speech extracts by people you may know

Steve Jobs, (Stanford University, 2005) Whenever people talk about inspiring graduation speeches, Steve Job’s speech instantly comes up. In this speech, Steve shares his life lessons via 3 stories in his life. 1. His birth, 2.  when he got fired from Apple, and 3.  when he found out about his cancer. These 3 stories were extremely inspiring – most people knew Steve as the hot-tempered yet charismatic CEO who headed Apple, but who would have known that his birth parents gave him up for adoption? That he quit college because his college fees were sucking up his parents’ savings? That he was once fired from the very company he founded? And that he diagnosed in cancer in 2004, and by a stroke of fate, survived it?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Arnold Swarzenegger is an international movie star (Conan, Terminator, Commando) and the current Governor of California. I found his speech very inspiring – he’s living proof of how one can overcome all odds to achieve one’s dreams, as long as you set your heart and mind to it. Arnie shared how important it is to not be afraid of failure. He shared his personal stories of how he overcame resistances from everyone and achieved his dreams, one after another, by first having that crystal clear vision of what he wanted, then going all out to achieve them. Truly, there’s no such thing as “can’t be done”. If you really want to achieve your dreams, they will be yours for the taking.

“You’re going to find naysayers in every turn that you make. Don’t listen. Just visualize your goal, know exactly where you want to go. Trust yourself. Get out there and work like hell. Break some of the rules and never ever be afraid of failure.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Foli, Burkina Faso

Week 9 Reflection : Learning Styles, Project Plan Completion, Sean's Course Evaluation, Eftekhar's Project Draft Feedback 

Sean's Course Evaluation

Honor to whom honor is due! Thank you Sean, for your tactful step-by-step guidance, for your "uncomplacent" feedback !

Eftekhar's Project Draft Feedback for Foli

Thank you, Eftekhar for the feedback. I have appreciated your invaluable suggestions and prompts! Thank you!  

Learning Styles

The hot discussion topic this week has been about Learning Styles; the teacher and the students’ Learning Styles. The teacher’s Learning Styles influence his teaching Style, which may be innate  or acquired through life experiences or the system we live in. It is now demonstrated that the teacher’s teaching style has a strong bearing on students’ performance.

According to Georges Lucas  "Traditional education can be extremely isolating -- the curriculum is often abstract and not relevant to real life, teachers and students don't usually connect with resources and experts outside of the classroom, and many schools operate as if they were separate from their communities”.
The tendency today is to move from the traditional, one-way, lecture-based, teacher-Mr.-know-all-centered teaching to the interactive-lecture, student-centered teaching practices. Thus, teacher and students engage in a market exchange of ideas, a sort of rendez-vous of give and take where everybody learns happily. Here the introduction and the help of technology is of paramount importance to bring the teaching and learning out of the classroom walls and create what is termed as a classroom without borders. In fact, technology is not “the be-all and end-all in teaching and learning, it is just a tool, a means that the teacher judiciously chooses and uses for his/her students’ needs.  Ultimately, the teacher is the MC in class, the prime mover, the principal actor, the “master”, the teaching and learning service provider in classrooms and in schools.

Project Draft and full-fledged Project submission

The most stress-generating task of the last two week has been the submission within deadline of the Project Draft for peer review and feedback (week 8) and the full-fledged Project for Sean’s feedback (week 9). Fortunately, I have made it. Many ( 13 other coursemates ) have made it too. I hope that those who haven’t submitted theirs yet, will soon do so too.

The Webskills Course journey will soon come to an end……
Foli.