Last week Susana Jensen called me asking for information about my syllabus for the EAP Course in Casa Grande, which she would like to use to defend her thesis. I have not taught that course since 2006, and remember that my computer died on me this year so I was not able to retrieve most of my teaching material from the hard disc. So I had to pull out my old folders and see if i had any printed syllabus forms. I found one from 2006 which was actually based on her original syllabus from the previous year.
So we meet for a few minutes in Casa Grande during the Christmas party and I showed her what I had, which was no help at all because she thought that I would be more up to date than she was. But after a short discussion, we have come to a few conclusions about the EAP Syllabus that I will be designing in this "Educacion Virtual" Courses, to improve it so that it meets the needs of our students.
Based on the information that she has acquired with questionnaires for her thesis, she will send me the results of the students needs for studying English with her recommendations. We believe that the course should be designed to meet the needs of our students and teach them what they need to be able to function in their work lives, as well as in a university. I hope to create this new online EAP syllabus after receiving her recommendations.
In general, we agree that the process of writing essays is still an important part of the EAP Course. But this process can also be applied to the daily needs of our students such as writing letters in English. Also we agree that spending more time reading is an important part of learning this writing process which has to include note takaing and writing summaries.
I am happy to know that I will be receiving real input from our students and from Susana to design a course that hopefully will be beneficial to all of the students. I will keep you posted on my progress.
Margie
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
I am going to try to post 2 YouTube Videos on Global Warming with opposite points of view.These could be something that I can use in the future in my EAP classes because it is a subject that will be current for the next couple of years.
It did not work. I will try again later after i watch Justin's how to blogs.....
It did not work. I will try again later after i watch Justin's how to blogs.....
Sunday, December 13, 2009
MY FIRST REFLECTIONS
OK. These are my first reflections on our course of Web.2.0 and my first blog page where I will try to write my personal goals. This is a rough draft and I hope to improve it and update it weekly.
Since beginning this course, I have realized, learned or reconfirmed certain aspects of my character that are going to influence how I learn what I need to create this EAP Course for online teaching. I am a task based person, who likes to do one thing at a time using a list or steps or follow a logical process. I am a pencil and paper person who loves to hold the paper in my hand and write all kinds of notes, before putting my ideas in order. Also I am known as a highly sensitive person who is easily upset with too many external factors such as movement, sound, too much information at one time, light and temperatures. All of these qualities make it frustrating for me to learn the new technology tools for online teaching.
Fisrt of all, I will need to learn how to multi task and not lose my concentration. I do not know how I am going to achieve this yet. As of now, when I go online and start working, on say reading about blogs to get ideas on how to create mine, I get sidetracked and start looking at all kinds of articles and see something that looks interesting and then after an hour or so, have forgotten what my original task was or where it is. So I get frustrated.
Secondly, I have to learn how to read by scrolling up and down and across or on the next page without losing concentration and how to highlight and post notes on an article. As of now, I prefer printing out the pages, so I can write notes and reread it many times. I do not know yet how I can learn how to do this without becoming frustrated.
And thirdly, because I am too sensitive to outside elements, when I see a page online with topics on the top, and then a list on the right hand side and then some other boxes on the left and another group of web pages on the page with various options to choose from, it just makes me want to close the page and not even look at it, although I know I have to. I need to learn to focus on only one item at a time without getting frustrated.
So these are my present goals.
-to be able to multitask
-to be able to read and edit and highlight and post notes on line
-to be able to focus one an item on a page
- and all of this is without becoming frustrated. I want to learn how to overcome all of these disabilities, in order to function online and create my EAP Course for online teaching.
Since beginning this course, I have realized, learned or reconfirmed certain aspects of my character that are going to influence how I learn what I need to create this EAP Course for online teaching. I am a task based person, who likes to do one thing at a time using a list or steps or follow a logical process. I am a pencil and paper person who loves to hold the paper in my hand and write all kinds of notes, before putting my ideas in order. Also I am known as a highly sensitive person who is easily upset with too many external factors such as movement, sound, too much information at one time, light and temperatures. All of these qualities make it frustrating for me to learn the new technology tools for online teaching.
Fisrt of all, I will need to learn how to multi task and not lose my concentration. I do not know how I am going to achieve this yet. As of now, when I go online and start working, on say reading about blogs to get ideas on how to create mine, I get sidetracked and start looking at all kinds of articles and see something that looks interesting and then after an hour or so, have forgotten what my original task was or where it is. So I get frustrated.
Secondly, I have to learn how to read by scrolling up and down and across or on the next page without losing concentration and how to highlight and post notes on an article. As of now, I prefer printing out the pages, so I can write notes and reread it many times. I do not know yet how I can learn how to do this without becoming frustrated.
And thirdly, because I am too sensitive to outside elements, when I see a page online with topics on the top, and then a list on the right hand side and then some other boxes on the left and another group of web pages on the page with various options to choose from, it just makes me want to close the page and not even look at it, although I know I have to. I need to learn to focus on only one item at a time without getting frustrated.
So these are my present goals.
-to be able to multitask
-to be able to read and edit and highlight and post notes on line
-to be able to focus one an item on a page
- and all of this is without becoming frustrated. I want to learn how to overcome all of these disabilities, in order to function online and create my EAP Course for online teaching.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)