Great inspiration and motivation to learn something new...like Web 2.0!
These 71/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners remind me how to be a learner aiming for success. It was wonderful to see so many adult learners share their comments on the VoiceThread presentation. I felt like there were many others accepting the new challenges present in trying to adapt to and teach within this Web 2.0 world.
The easiest habit for me will be Habit 7 1/2 "Play". I am curious about these new skills and anxious to explore what is available for my classroom. I have a thriving passion to always adapt and improve my teaching. My classroom has some technology aspects but these Web 2.0 skills lend themselves so easily to a world language classroom. When I plan with the end in mind, I want to enable communication in another language. The Web 2.0 creates a meaningful audience for my students to use their communicative skills. There is an opportunity for real communication in the target language instead of the artificial form of the past. I love to try new things in the classroom, especially ones that are so relevant to my students. Making mistakes with technology in the classroom is easier because my students tend to be both forgiving of my errors and very willing to help me over a hurdle. It is interesting to hand over the role of "expert" to my students. I am the expert with the content; my students are the experts when I integrate new technology. I always learn something from them. I am excited to tinker with new methods that enhance their communication skills.
The most difficult habit is to "View Problems as Challenges", Habit 3. Problems tend to enter my perception more as a crisis than as an opportunity for learning. I prefer to be well prepared but I am trying to be more flexible when resolving unexpected problems. Budget cuts are increasing the size of the student population in each class... problem or challenge? Knowing that there is not enough time to work with each student as I have in the past but trying to maximize the time on task that each student spends in communication requires a shift in instruction. I hope that access to native speakers, comments to blogs, wikis, and everything else that I learn in this class will make students use more real life communication. I want these interactions to motivate students to interact with others in the target language for communication instead of just with me for a grade. I hope to get better at viewing problems as challenges by looking for different ways to teach instead of additions to my current load. Using technology to aid communication will be a change but should reshape my classroom and my effectiveness as an instructor.
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Hello MMM
ReplyDeleteI ended up with the same easy/hard reactions as you did (but you wrote much more than me). I liked your use of the word "crisis" in your hardest reaction - that's how I often feel too. Nice job thinking of technology as a help for communication when student numbers are up. I'm going to try to keep thinking that way also.
Learning Teacher (Jane)