Life After Webskills

I am a little disoriented. I feel like I haven't been online for 10 weeks.

In fact, I was online all the time. When I wasn't working, I spent every waking moment online, typing, reading, playing with web tools. I was online, but I didn't update this blog. I didn't visit Facebook or tweet. I didn't participate in my forums and I didn't leave comments in your blogs.

I spent every single moment of my time online in my Webskills course. I even blogged elsewhere.

Webskills is a long-distance course offered through the University of Oregon's Linguistics Department/American English Institute (UO AEI). The full course name is Building Teacher Skills through the Interactive Web and you can find out more about it here. This is one of the seven courses offered through the E-Teacher Scholarship program. You can find out about other courses this program offers here.

It was amazing. That is all I am going to say at this stage. I will not even try to cram the 10 weeks of this wonderful course into a single blog post. That will not do the course justice. I want to take time and share at leisure. One thing I learnt in Webskills is that, every time we reflect on something we did or something that happened to us, we learn something new.

I can't promise that I will do this in an uninterrupted series of posts. There are other things that I want to write about as well.

If you are impatient, you can read my Webskills blog. However, it is a very reflective blog (even more reflective than this one) and it was aimed at other participants of the course. In order to share what I learnt with a larger audience, I have to start from scratch and present, rather than reflect.

If you pay attention to the Wordle I started with, you will see that it resembles a jigsaw puzzle. That is because going through the course felt like putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and, once the last piece was in, I could see the big picture.

I was going to write more about the course here, but I would like to try something else instead. I would like you to look at the Wordle-puzzle from the beginning of this post and tell me what you see. Listed are the topics we covered, some websites we used and some practical tasks we did. If you could describe this puzzle with one word or one sentence, what would it be?

I know this is a very difficult challenge. After all, I just spent ten weeks learning about something and now I want you to figure it out from a single Wordle. It is a crazy idea and it came to me while I was writing.

I hope this will at least peak your curiosity. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: TEFL, Webskills

Ladies and Gentlemen, My New Podcasting Blog

Photo on Flickr by John Thurm

It has been a week since EVO sessions have finished and I haven't had time to post. I haven't finished all my Classdigitools assignments and I am really planning to. Once I finish all Week 5 projects, I will post about them here.

I have, however, completed all my Podcasting tasks and I proudly give you Natasa's Podcasting Blog. The blog, exactly as it is, is the final product of the workshop, an eportfolio. This doesn't go to say that it will always remain as it is now. I am planning to add more pages once I start working on my future podcasting projects, but at this stage, everything you see there has been created during the workshop.

Here is a preview:

Natasa's podcasting 2012 blog

View more PowerPoint from lunas994

The blog contains three pages - About Me, My Podcasts and My Podcast Projects. I will share some highlights here:

Here is something about me, but I mostly talk about my school:



My interview with Janet Bianchini:

Podcast Powered By Podbean

My Mystery Person:

My future podcasting plans:



Finally, my "Animotocast":





It is not difficult to create an "Animotocast". You just create an Animoto clip the usual way and, instead of choosing their audio, you upload your own. The trick is to have enough photos ready to last you until the end of your audio. Otherwise, your podcast will be cut short. It goes both ways, so be prepared to sacrifice some of your photos if the audio is short.

You can create the audio for your Animoto using any of the podcasting tools, but I am hooked on Audacity. If you think Audacity is scary or too difficult to use, I advise you to attend the next Podcasting EVO session. You won't regret it. I feel that


Original image on Flickr by Floeshie

Technorati Tags: podcasting2012, podcasting, TEFL

Classdigitools Week 4 - Speaking

Photo on Flickr by visual.dichotomy

By the time I post this we will be well into Week 5. However, I am very, very busy with my Webskills course. Not to mention Podcasting.

I didn't devote as much time to EVO as I usually do, but I am glad that I didn't give up completely. I learnt a lot and, even though I am late with some tasks, I am going to continue working on them after the session is over. One thing I am really sorry about is that I had to sacrifice the interaction, which is always the best part of any online course. But I did most of the tasks.

This week in Classdigitools we did tools for speaking. My main problem is my webcam, which is very old and very cheap. I need a new one and it is on my priority list. I couldn't do some of the tasks because of my camera and I had to modify others.

One of our tasks was to talk about why we became teachers, using Recordr. It is a handy tool and luckily lets you choose whether you will record video or audio only. Here is my audio:

Week 4:Task 2 recorded by lunas994

Another task was to go to Intervue.me and talk about how we spend Christmas with our family. I bravely recorded my video with my terrible little camera, but it wouldn't work. So, I modified the task. Before I show you what I did, let me tell you that I am going to use Intervue.me a lot when I buy a new camera. It is easy to use. The teacher puts a question at the top of the page, and the students answer talking into their webcams. You can listen to what other participants said here.

And this is what I did:


Photo on Flickr by Milica Sekulic

We were very busy this week. Task 3 was to draw our family using Educreations. It is a very user-friendly tool and I can recommend it warmly. Here is what I did:



Task 5 was to create a lesson plan using one of the tools offered. This is where I am going to "borrow" my Podcasting lesson plan. Though the template is different from the one provided in the Classdigitools wiki, I hope it will do the trick:

Podcast Project Plan
Title: MY FAVOURITE PLACE
Main objective: Participants describe their favourite place.
Level: Intermediate
Class type: adults
Aim: Describing a place
Activity focus: Speaking
Time: Max 3 minutes
Material: Computer with access to Internet / Headphones (which students use from home)
Procedure:
1. Teacher and students practice describing their favourite place in class. Teacher introduces relevant vocabulary.
2. Teacher posts an example to the class wiki. Teacher also posts a screencast explaining how to use Audioboo.
3. Student signs up for an account in Audioboo.
4. Student records the Boo. 
5. Teacher posts a screencast explaining how to post a link to the Boo in the class wiki.
 6. Student posts a link to their Boo in the class wiki. 
7. Teacher posts a Screencast explaining how to write/record a reply to a Boo.
8. Teacher posts the first reply to the student’s Boo. 
9. Student chooses a classmate and listens to his/her recording and writes/records comments or questions in their classmate´s Boo. 
10. In class, teacher and students discuss the experience and what they learnt from it. 
11. Students brainstorm ideas for the next Boo. 
12. Students choose the best idea for a new podcast.

As you can see from the plan, the students will do the task from home, which is why I have chosen Audioboo, since it is very user-friendly.

And here is the Boo I made for my Podcasting class. It is called My Mystery Person:



Apart from being very easy to use, Audioboo allows voice comments as well as text comments and this can be great for class discussions or interviews.

I am going to stop here for now. This post is very long as it is and it probably took ages to load, considering everything that I have embedded into it. However, there were some tools in our Classdigitools wiki that I would like to explore further and I am going to do that in one of my next posts.

Technorati Tags: #tools12, speaking, podcasting, TEFL

Week 3 in Classdigitools

Photo on Flickr by emilybean

It is week 3 in all my workshops. I have a brand new Podcasting blog and I am really, really busy in Webtools. My Webtools forums are bustling with activity and I am having the fun of my life. Meanwhile in Classdigitools we are doing sites for listening comprehension.

Since it is already the second part of the week, I will do all my Classdigitools tasks here in one place:

Tasks 1 and 2 - Find a listening resource that we could use in class. Review the resource.

I am between terms and there are no classes at my school, but I did this task with my Advanced class in mind. Here is what I have found:

Time 10 questions is, in their own words: "A selection of reader-submitted questions on TIME.com serves as the basis for a candid interview with each newsmaker." It is really good for adult learners. The questions are often provocative and I really like the journalist. One way to use the site would be to let the students choose a clip, listen to the interview and report about it in class. As I was "in a hurry, preparing for my class", I chose the video:

I don't think I have to explain why I chose this video, but if you insist - I love the man. And so do my students, as most of them are girls. Apart from that, both the questions and the answers are very interesting. I would have the students write the questions down as they listen. They are not implicitly asked, so the task is not that easy. After that I would let them discuss Sting's answers.

Task 3 was to combine the site found first with one more site offered in the wiki and to combine them into a lesson plan. I will not write a full lesson plan, I'll just think out loud here.

The second site I chose is TED. Most of us have watched TED videos and I think they are a wonderful listening resource for adult students.

This is what I chose:

Discussing this video would probably take one whole class, but since I am going to combine the two together, this is what I would do:

After watching the video where Sir Ken Robinson is discussing education and creativity, I would ask the students to find similarities between his talk and Sting's interview. Are they talking about similar things? How would Sting rate in Sir Ken's school? What sort of school do we need for people like Sting?

I would ask them to come up with ten questions to ask Sir Ken Robinson. Then I would ask the students to write 10 questions to interview each other.

As a follow-up, I would ask the students to find interesting TED talks and to present them in the next task.

Task 3 - Listening List

I will not go into the complexities of this task. Let me just tell you that I need to come up with a list of 12 things I could do with these 2 resources. I have already mentioned the first four.

1. Watch a 10 Questions video and write down the questions asked.

2. Come up with 10 questions for the TED speaker.

3. Find the connection between the two speakers.

4. Interview each other, using the 10 questions format.

5. If you had to give a TED speech, what would it be about?

6. Prepare a short speech on something you feel passionate about.

7. Write a letter to the TED speaker, telling him/her what you think about his/her speech.

8. Which famous person would you interview for the 10 questions site? Write 10 questions for them.

9. Write a new set of questions for the person interviewed in the clip. What do you think their answers would be like?

10 If the people from the two videos met, what would they talk about? Would they like each other?

11. Write 10 questions for your teacher and interview her (ouch).

12. Write an elevator pitch for one of the videos. Why should people watch it?

I could go on, but I believe I have just completed my tasks for this week.

Technorati Tags: #tools12 TEFL

My 2012 Birthday Special

Photo on Flickr by Jon Large

It is my birthday today. Another reason to celebrate is that on this day four years ago I started this blog.

Normally I would share my last year's posts here (see what I did a year ago on this day). Luckily, I already reflected on my last year's posts in My 11 from '11. I say "luckily" because my Webskills course is keeping me very busy and I am somehow managing to follow what's going on in Podcasting and Classdigitools. So, I am afraid that this is going to be a very short birthday post.

What I have finally decided to do here is to share a single post for every year of this blog's existence. There is a catch, though - the four posts I have chosen are the ones that mean something to me personally. Well, it is my birthday, isn't it? So, they might not be particularly useful to you, but those are the posts that are important to me for various reasons. Ready?

Year 1: I was still searching for my voice here. I wasn't quite sure why I had started this blog or what I was going to use it for. So, the topics during the first year vary. I had difficulty choosing something that would look presentable four years later. I chose the post that describes my first EVO sessions. It is called How to Become a Webhead. It is naive at times, as I had no idea what I was getting myself into and how addicted I was going to become.

Year 2: The blog has now found its purpose. This is now a TEFL teacher's blog. The post I chose is called Park Wisdom. It was written during the summer break and it is mostly humorous, but in the second half I reflect on my teaching and letting go of control in the classroom and learner autonomy and... Well, just read it.

Year 3: I had no doubt here. The post I chose is called I Have to Be Who I Am. It could easily be my favourite post ever written by Yours Truly. When I forget who I am, I go back and read it.

Year 4: I wrote What is Your Computer Metaphor for my Multiliteracies class last year. I ranted a little, reflecting on the life on the other side of the digital divide and the general state of digital literacy in my country.

And that's it. I am happy to be here with you four years later. My dear PLN, thank you for listening to me and for sharing with me.

A Five Card Story - The Wall

It is Week 2. I mean, it is Week 2 everywhere - in Classdigitools, in Podcasting and, of course, in Webskills.

In Classdigitools we are doing tools for writing. Our task was to choose one tool and review it. I chose Five Card Stories. My intention was just to review it, but as I chose my pictures, I knew I had to write the story. The story was screaming to be told. So, here it is:

THE WALL

---

Five Card Story: The Wall

a Five Card Flickr story created by Natasa Bozic Grojic

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by D'Arcy Norman

flickr photo by bionicteaching

Mike was waiting patiently as his son Tom took photo after photo of the same brick wall. Earlier that day his son had given him a small sea-urchin that he had brought back from the sea-side. Mike felt the urchin's tiny needles press into his palm, the bittersweet reminder that the two of them were soon to part. On his way back home, Mike was thinking about his last conversation with his son. Mike had tried to explain to Tom that the fact that he was divorcing his mom didn't mean that he would disappear from Tom's life. Daddy still loved him. Yet, he couldn't forget the expression on Tom's face as he turned away to go. "You have betrayed me", the boy's eyes were saying. "You have abandoned me."

---

Then Five Card Stories offered me the option of telling a different story with the same set of pictures. I couldn't resist:

YOU HAVE ABANDONED ME

Tom never forgot that day. His father had given him a brand new camera and he still remembered how he kept taking picture after picture of the same stupid brick wall. He had given his father a sea-urchin earlier that day. The needles pricked him, but he was a big boy now, he could handle it. His father kept talking to him for a long time. He couldn't understand a word, except that his father was going to leave him. He wanted to shout out" "You have betrayed me. You have abandoned me. I don't want your stupid camera and I am too big to keep taking photos of this stupid wall." He wanted to shout that out, but he didn't. He didn't say a word.

I really like this tool. The way you 'draw' your pictures is fun. I tried it a couple of times more and each time I had a story in my head. As students are often reluctant writers, having something inspiring to get them writing is great help.

You can embed your story, link to it, or tweet it. It would be interesting to give the same set of pictures to several pairs of students and see what they come up with.

Technorati Tags: #tools12

Rocketing Into 2012

Photo on Flickr by Steve Jurvetson

The beginning of a year is always hectic for me because of EVO sessions. I usually sign up for too many and then I have to deal with the stress of trying to juggle between them. This year, however, I have a real challenge to face.

I was awarded a scholarship for the online course called Building Teaching Skills through Interactive Web, or Webskills as we call it. One of the requirements for this course was creating a new blog, so please welcome Natasa's Webskills Journey. If you want to follow me along this 10-week online adventure, please feel free to keep reading. I will post there at least once a week.

Elsewhere on the web, I enrolled in only two EVO sessions this year - Podcasting and Classdigitools. I was trying to convince myself that the wise thing this year would be to skip EVO sessions completely, but I just couldn't resist. I decided to do as much as I can in these sessions, go into the lurking mode if I have to and even (oh, horror) drop out completely if I am forced to.

I was also thinking of putting this blog on hold while I am busy updating the other one, but I just couldn't resist. This blog's fourth birthday is approaching fast and I'll try to be here then and afterwards... We'll see. I post so rarely that people will probably not even notice if I am absent for a while.

So now just a quick update:

Week 1 is usually all about introductions and in Classdigitools we were asked to use a web tool to introduce ourselves. One of the tools on offer was Animoto and you know how much I love that particular tool, so here is my introduction:

If I had a bit more time on my hands, I would develop this video into a full lesson plan, but I think you can see its potential even without my explanations.

In Podcasting we used Glogster to introduce ourselves. From what I understand we will use that same Glog to add a podcast later. Inspired by that I used an old Glog of mine and added the Animoto video:

I never thought about Glogster as a tool for creating a mini-portfolio, but it's an idea.

What is great about most web tools is that, once you master them, you can combine two or three into one and get something completely different. You can add a podcast to Animoto (as an "audio" from your own computer), you can add the Animoto to a Glog, you can add the Glog to... you name it. But if there is One Tool to Rule Them All, please let me know.