My reflections on Week - 3 - Web Skills

Hi Courtney and other colleagues,

Greetings.

I am really happy to post the reflections of my practices of different tasks of Week 3 Assignments.

Firstly, I am really happy to cope with the pace of this course like all the colleagues competing each other.  I read all the three articles on 'Teaching Aural / Oral Skills' thoroughly.  Though all the three articles are most important, I was very much impressed with the first and third articles ' Developing Listening skills through authentic materials' and 'Implementation of CALL' because both of them were dear to my heart.  I do practice this everyday in the engineering classroom (through theory and language laboratory activities).  Though I do practice it, these articles have further  sharpen my skills of teaching through up-to-date information of the  methodologies to improve the listening skills (especially through pre, during, and after listening activities).  For that, I used Randall's Cyber ESL - Lab activities and found excellent results and received wonderful feedback from the learners.  Then, I was very impressed and obsessed with the implementation of CALL to improve the Speaking skills of the learners.  I employed the skills of speaking through Group discussions based on the content and context available in Randall's Cyber Lab and TED videos to the advanced learners of the first year engineering students and very happy with the outcome.
Further, the questions raised by the instructor especially based on the article 'New perspectives in teaching pronunciation' provided an insight on teaching of pronunciation.  Though I do not teach 'Pronounciationi' in an engineering institution, I am very much agreed  with the suggestions to improve pronunciation.

Secondly, based on Task -2, I  created an account in 'delicious.com' and found the on-line bookmarking very interesting.  Earlier, i created bookmarks only on a specific computer.  But  creating an account in that which will facilitate the basic methods of adding a link and provide tags both single and bundled tags to the added website are awesome.  I have uploaded around 20 web links and provided various tags to those web links. Further, I read the entire posts of all the colleagues and how impressive and unique each colleagues shared their experiences and added their links in delicious.  I have gone through the majority of web links created by them amazed with the different links provided them.

Thirdly, I started reading sample final reports of Batch-2010 and found the task well cut and demanded the skills of assimilation and deepen our thinking as learner-trainers.  I selected the report of Camelia Pagila of Romania and found awesome methodological implementation of the final project. Her ideas of creating a class blog and linking audios and videos  provided an excellent platform for the technology driven classroom especially in engineering education environment.  I saw the nuances of preparing the different tasks for each class and made the learners as the embodiment of responsibility.  I learned the techniques of preparing an effective course plan and linking various web sites to make the learners access the works.  Further, I was impressed by the documentation of various web links used in the project.  The report asked me several questions to internalize the concept of preparing an excellent report at the end of the course.

Finally, commenting on some others blog is a task that made me identify the image of mine. The third week of Web skills is really fruitful and productive because the tasks are systematic and made me enjoy as well plough my skills under scrutiny.  The preparation for the final project has made me to stretch one step ahead.  I learnt the techniques of incorporating speaking and listening skills into the classroom and made me very creative to reach the excellence....

S.Sankarakumar

My Reflections on Week 2 - Web skills

Hi Courtney and dear colleagues,

Warm greetings.

It is a wonderful experience to come closure to the Second Week of this Web  Skills course.  I found myself excited to write  my experiences with others.

1.  I studied several information about web searching through Healey's article on 'Tech Tips' that is the basics of web searching.  We normally type the key word or the whole sentence in Search information bar.  Many a times, we receive the article based on the most relevant from google  or yahoo search only.  But we do not go beyond two pages.

2.  This noodle tools search engine, which is really an excellent  search engine.  I visited so many web links which provide accurate and up-to-date authentic information.  I shared this web link to my students of first year engineering and to my colleagues.  They enjoyed this  so much and I am planning to  provide some more web link.  Based on these web links, I plan  to conduct on-line quiz to the students.

3.  Plan to the final project-Step 1 is a wonderful experience.  I explained to the entire group about my learners and under which conditions they are eager to accomplish their task cut.  I learned the step by step process of creating the final project work.

 These practices which I believe are very handy and train us exceptionally ahead....

S.Sankarakumar

Introduction to Communication Session Plan

Dear Prof. Rustum and Aashish,

Your comments are really wonderful and thanks a lot for sharing your input too. When I conducted this activity, I invited a faculty, from Engineering Department, who was familiar with this process of teaching learning or may be received some training through WIPRO Mission10X programmes and I made him as observer.  The outcomes or observations (Specific) made by the students are as follows:

1. Shy learners do not come initially 
2. The teacher may not complete this activity if too much time is taken by the students

3. The outcome is really felt by the shy learners that they have really improved their skills

The observer's comments

1. Preparation of the session plan is really good
2. Conduct of one – minute and two-minute role play activities to motivate the learners is excellent
3. Teacher’s involvement is more
4. Identifying a colleague from the core department to assess the presentation of the students is first of its kind.

I do hereby attach the  session plans for "Introduction to Communication" and "Group Communication".  I believe that the teaching fraternity would be more benefited.  Let's share the god-given gift of Knowledge others...

I do come and attach the plan for "Group Communication" when my special coaching class is over by 4.00 PM (IST). 

This is the session plan for 'Introduction to Communication" and you can conduct the session for One and half an hour...

Time (in min)	Content	Learning Aid and Methodology	Faculty Approach	Typical Student Activity	Learning Outcomes (Blooms + Gardeners)
05	Introduction to Communication	Presentation	Introduces, Compares	Observes Answers Participates Defines	Knowledge Comprehension Analysis Linguistic Application
10	Different Universals of communication	Board Activity Presentation Chart	Presents Shows Demonstrates Facilitates	Observes Demonstrates presents	Application Understanding Creates Visual
10	Sender and Receiver	Role play	Facilitates	Participates	Application
10	Communication Context	Presentation Quiz	Explains Conducts	Participates Restates	Knowledge Understanding Application Evaluation
05	Encoding and Decoding	Presentation Short speech	Facilitates Guides	Identifies Participates presents	Application Knowledge Evaluation
10	Competence and Performance	Discussion Case study	Discusses Directs Instructs	Discusses Identifies debates	Application Synthesis Evaluation
05	Noise	Role play	Facilitates	Participates	Application
05	Feedback	Presentation Quiz	Explains Conducts	Participates Restates	Knowledge Understanding Application Evaluation
05	Field of Experience	Presentation Short speech	Facilitates Guides	Identifies Participates presents	Application Knowledge Evaluation
20	Barriers to Communication	Case Study	Directs Instructs	Identifies	Application Synthesis Evaluation
05	Conclusion	Group Activity	Facilitates Guides	Discusses debates	Application Synthesis Evaluation