Week 8: Reflections - Wonderful Experience with e-tools for Educators

Dear Donna, Jeff & and e- friends,
This week we got the opportunity to be acquainted with different e-tools which are very useful for the teachers involved in teaching in general and language teaching in specific. We were given a number of tasks like discussion with different tools for educators, creating a nicenet for the class that we participants teach to, creating our own wiki for the online course, creating a blog for the class that we teach and most importantly to join with ANVIL.

Firstly I consulted with the 'Tools for Educators' (http://www.toolsforeducators.com/) that we were given. I found a number of exercises like 'Free word search', 'Free Cross Word Puzzle',
'Free Bingo Maker' and so on very useful for the language classes. They are precious to motivate the learners in learning. LANTERNFISH (http://bogglesworldesl.com/) is another tool which consists of printable materials. 'Easy test Maker' (http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx) is another tool which helps the teachers for generating tests for evaluating learners.

Secondly, I created a nicenet account for my class. I designed some exercises for involving the learners in nicenet discussion. No doubt, it a precious tool for involving the learners in written tasks.

Thirdly, I updated my class blog and shared with my respected teachers and e-participants. I think it is the best tool for letting the learners post comments and take part on the discussion.

Fourthly I created a sample wiki for online course. In the beginning I faced a number of problems as I had limited technical knowledge but later I got a success on it. I created it and designed an online course for the intermediate learners. I designed some exercises for reading and learning English.

Joining in ANVIL creating the teacher account is another task I did this week. I found ANVIL a boon for teachers. The credit goes to our respected instructors Jeff and Donna for exposing it to us. It is the best tool for exposing our learners’ speech. Listening and speaking skills can be taught successfully with the help of ANVIL.


All these tasks are very important to enhance learner autonomy.

Finally, I prepared the first draft of the project plan I am going to carry out and posted for peer review. I also went through the Project Plan carried out by Hari Maya Sharma. As we both are quite familiar with the ground reality of the teaching learning environment in our context. We are constantly sharing our ideas for make our project plans applicable.

Greetings
Kamal