Week 1: Summing up

My best congratulations on completing our first week of the course!
Now when we got acquainted we began to share ideas and help each other greatly.
I am strongly impressed by the pleasant and friendly atmosphere here. Even more I am amazed by multiculturalism of all our participants and pluralism of their thoughts and opinions.
Don't you think we are getting "hooked" on studying?
I feel I became computer-dependent (or "addicted" as several of our colleagues said).
I am waiting for comments, trying to react, checking my e-mails, reading your blogs, new posts and some links. And you know, I notice I don't have enough time during twenty-four hours.
So I wanted to sum up the results of my work during this first fruitful week:

-first logged into http://www.nicenet.org/ and introduced myself; was curious to know about all participants, my co-students
and instructors and their background;
-have done Need analysis as an important part at the beginning of any course;
-agreed upon Ground rules and Rubrics;
-downloaded all suggested materials, found even more and made readings, also read the materials our colleagues advised;
-created my blog - it wasn't difficult to register, but took some efforts to design and make some settings;
-worked on filling it with some informative things;
-learned to make an active link!!!;
-pinned my native place on the Google map;
-learned to make a list of fellow-teachers' addresses in my blog;
-read all the known blogs, comments, posts on Nicenet and again comments - so I read, read and read!
Hard work I should say but so interesting! Don't you agree? And it takes much more time than it was expected.
So we did it! Success attend us!

Week1: Creating a Blog

I've heard about Blogs before and even created one under the lecturer's guidance but I never thought about them as tools used in language teaching! Now I am proud to say that I learned a lot about Blogging, created this reflective blog myself and I am highly motivated to use blogs in my future teaching!
What is a blog?

A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.

(Oxford English Dictionary).
The possibilities of blogs are endless.
They can be used as a weekly or daily guide to what is done in the class, give students resources, links to web sites and reminders about any thing. They can be a storage for assignments, interaction with other students,can present, organize, and protect student work as digital portfolios. They are really a platform for communication, a portal to foster a community of learners.
The advantages of using blogs can be as following:
-make learning independent of time and place;
-make education demand oriented participant-centered, unlike 1-way teaching;
-encourage learners to be active throughout the course period;
-help learners to improve writing skills (Blogs allow writing more relevant to the students' 21st century lives, compared tothe traditional writing;
-invite peers to collaborate and involve international audience;
-make education more informal;
-encourage changes in thinking and practicing new things.
Types of blogs:
The Tutor Blog, the class blog, the learner blog - take time to think about the kind of blog you want to create. It's important to plan a blog carefully before you begin the process of creating one.
Creating itself
There are lots of free services out there that will enable you to create a blog: http://www.blogger.com, http://wordpress.com, http://www.livejournal.com, http://edublogs.org/ - are just examples.
Some readings about blogs:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/blogging-elt
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/47/
http://www.stageoflife.com/UsingBlogstoTeachWriting.aspx

I've made these tips about Blogging to use in my future work.
So! I've created my own blog and is full of desire to make it attractive and very informative!

Week 1:" Introductions" About me

My name is Victoria  and I am from Ukraine . I have been teaching English for 16 years.I teach children of different ages (from 6 to 17) in a school with a specialization in English. Our students start learning English from the first grade and in senior grades they have 8 hours of English per week, including special courses of Country Study, Business English, English Literature and Technical Translation.  I have both experience and energy to go on teaching in my future. As you know, professional development is the lifeblood of teaching. So I hope to advance my English, improve my computer skills and learn the most recent EL teaching methods and techniques during this intensive US-based training program. Nothing can be compared to real communication. So I can only imagine how beneficial that will be for me! I intend to share my acquired knowledge and experience with my colleagues and students.