Week 5 #1: WebQuesting and Designing Alternative Assessment Rubrics to Enhance PBL

Hello everyone!


This is week 5 of our course, exactly have the duration of the course. Time really flies!

I have read about Project-based Learning (PBL), alternative assessment, rubrics, checklists and WebQuests.

PBL is an offshoot of inquiry learning and, for me, WebQuests constitute the web-based versions of PBL. With this approach of teaching/learning, standardized traditional tests like MCQs, fill the gaps, answer true or false etc. cannot effectively measure performance because PBL activities go beyond the simple, routine memorization of formulas and rules. This is where alternative assessment via checklists and rubrics sets in. Content, assiduity, respect of deadlines/timelines, interactivity, to name but these, are some of the components of PBL for assessment. In this regard, I have learned that well conceived learning projects and evaluation rubrics formulated by teachers in synergy with learners bring about learner autonomy and  lead to better outcomes/end products. The motivation aspect of this cannot be overemphasized. After all, who does not know that our present-day learners are largely (becoming) digital natives and are so enthusiastic and motivated to learn on their own and thanks to digital technologies?

Just take a look at the following photographs of my Cinquieme (the second grade in Francophone secondary schools in Cameroon) students at Les Armandins High Yaounde. I took the photos with my laptop around April this year...

Did you notice that the students were scrambling and crowding in front of the camera? Did you notice that they are so excited to be photographed in class? They have never scrambled or crowded like this in front of their textbook when I move round the class showing them things therein. This shows that they are motivated, enthusiastic and excited about new technologies. In spite of poverty that limits their access to these gadgets, they are all eager to become full digital natives/citizens.

Now, just suppose I sit down with them, introduce them to WebQuests, draft assessment rubrics with them and send them to do the following WebQuest on Present Simple Tense at Zunal.com. You can then imagine the amount of motivation this will generate among the students and the fun and ease with which they will master and practice the present simple tense far away from their (largely scarce) textbooks. Such is what this week has taught me. What did you learn on you part, dear blog visitor?


In addition, this week also gave me the opportunity to do the forth tasks en route to my final project plan for the course. We were asked to describe ONE technological tool that we will use to resolve the ONE issue or problem we identified in our class last week. For me, my students' reading and writing skills are poor and I have described how I will using blogging to remedy this situation.

I also created some assessment rubrics for evaluating a narrative essay on Rubistar. The experience was fantastic, quick, smooth and enriching. Similarly, I created a WebQuest entitled Trip to America at Zunal.com and this earned me five extra credits. The process was fun but also demanding and time-consuming. However, I will never quit because winners never quit and quitters never win.


Tinatin and others, I hope you are happy I brought back photos to this blog. I now know that you enjoy them. Perhaps, you are good visual learners (or I should say teachers?).

Thanks for visiting and  commenting. Be blessed.

Best of love,
Nsah Mala
Cameroon

Week 4 #1: Reading, Writing, Vocabulary; Lesson Planning and Problem/Issue Identification Week

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the fourth week of our exciting Web Skills Course. 

One of the greatest discoveries I made this week was that I came across two articles that completely revolutionized my beliefs and the stance of the Cameroon government regarding the use of phones by learners in primary and secondary schools in our country. The first of these articles is "Use of Cell Phones at School--25 Tips for Teachers and Students (at http://www.useoftechnology.com/cell-phones-school/). The numerous ways in which cellphones can enhance teaching/learning on this page have compelled me to start reflecting on possibilities of convincing the state of Cameroon to wave off the ban prohibiting primary and secondary school students from bring cellphones to schools. For now, Cameroonians keep stressing the bad sides of these gadgets in schools, but Meg Ormiston, author of the second article titled "How to Use Cell Phones as Learning Tools" (at http://www.teachhub.com/how-use-cell-phones-learning-tools) rightly argues that: 

      We didn't ban pens in our schools because students can pass notes during class. The pencils                have also survived even though you could poke someone in the eye. And the amount of paper             that is generated in most schools is almost criminal.
Besides the reading articles for this week, I also explored nice pedagogic websites like Children's Story Books (at http://www.magickeys.com/books/) and Reading On the Go (at http://americanenglish.state.gov/ebooks). I also found very useful material about English-French bilingual teaching like translations of basic conversation words at http://iteslj.org/v/fr/cm-conversation_basics.html. My students speak French as first official language. Thus, this will help them so much in improving their English, especially vocabulary.

Story Bird and Advance English Lessons are other great websites that I discovered and explored and hope you will all find them amazing.

As a researcher, I found some good journals where I can publish my papers without paying any publishing fees and I quickly bookmarked them on my Delicious page. I also bookmarked all new good sites that I discovered and exploited this week. In all, I added more than 10 new links to my Delicious page. You can check them at My Delicious Page.

Any challenge of the week? Yes, there was one; I struggled to narrow down my task problem or issue. Thank God Donna was there and prompted me to the right track as usual. Her comment on my Nicenet task problem/issue helped me to formulate my class problem in one sentence. It now reads like this: 

      Thus, the problem with my students is that their reading and writing skills are poor and I intend to       use blogging (perhaps accompanied by social media) as a technological tool to improve this                 situation. 

Did you miss my photo on this blog this week?

Thanks for commenting. The best is yet to come.

Nsah Mala

Cameroon

Week 3 #1: A Delicious Week for Aural/Oral Activities

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my Week 3 post.

Permit me call this a "Delicious Week for Aural/Oral Activities". I have learned interesting tips about teaching aural/oral activities in my classes. I now know I can use MP3 or MP4 functions in a simple phone to bring technology into my class. I have also learned that the ultimate goal of teaching pronunciation must not necessarily be perfection; it should aim at mutual comprehension.

I have explored websites like One Stop English, ESL About.com and ESL Galaxy which provide excellent lesson plans for speaking and listening (oral/aural) activities. These websites are must-consult pedagogic resources for English teachers. Though I fell in love with ESL About.com, I strongly recommend all three sites. There are adaptable, printable lesson plans and worksheets on these sites for me to use in my classes and I will forever be grateful to this course for leading me to them.


All the new things I learned this week have been as "delicious" as rice and beans. Do you know why? It is so simple; I created my account on Delicious.com titled Kenneth Nsah's Delicious Page where I can now bookmark any interesting web site or page for future use. In this way, I will never again lose my bookmarks when my PC gets bad. Bookmarks on Delicious.com are reachable from any computer that is connected to the Internet.

I have also read some past report projects and one of them by by Nadina Nicolici, Lorin Salagean Technical High School, from Romania.  In her project, she identified lack of interest in reading and decided to use technology to improve that. Consequently, she created a class blog to improve their access to the internet and their reading skills. Although I going to write a report plan (because my students are on holiday now), her project report and that of Tendouinde Bruno Nikiema, American Language Center, Ouagadougou, from Burkina Faso, have greatly inspired me. 

By and large, this week has made me discover websites and other web-based resources to consult for me lessons, to create an online account for bookmarking on Delicious.com and to be able to create authentic video and audio materials to use in my classes. 

I am so thankful to all course colleagues who have been helping build my web skills by commenting my Nicenet and blog posts.

Here below is my photo as I typed this blog.

Be blessed.

Nsah Mala
Cameroon 

Week 2 #1: Reflections on Week Two of Web Skills Course

Hello everyone!

Week two of our course is ongoing and revealing lots of new things and concepts to renew our teaching skills and enliven our classes. Here I am, in my poor house, glued to my laptop, reflecting on already acquired skills and waiting for more to assimilate. You see these two eyes below this thick dark hair? They are focused on the screen on which the present post is being typed. It is week 1 of our course that taught me how to add photos, links, etc. to my blog posts. Isn't it fun? Indeed it is.

Since Monday 29 June 2015 when week 2 of this course started, I have learned many new things. Until then, did I ever know that besides Google and Yahoo the world wide web is full of other search engines in the likes of Bing.com, eHow.com, About.com, etc.? The Search Engine List has already been bookmarked on my PC. I need  not overemphasize its usefulness. Noodletools.com brought me to another useful compilation of search sites to which I will always return throughout my career.

I now know the fundamental difference between Google.com and Bing.com. To borrow from my Nicenet post on Web Searching, "the former is people/social-oriented while the latter is research/information oriented, though both still converge in their services."

During my training, I learned how to draft lesson objectives, but the ABCD approach has come to complete any gaps I still had in that regard. By breaking down my objectives into four parts now, I will always be sure to come out with achievable and measurable pedagogic objectives. Lovely Donna has pricked my attention to formulating serious degrees (D) of evaluation for my objectives. Thanks a lot, Donna. My lesson objectives will never be the same again. I have also revised my knowledge of Bloom's taxonomy.

The various class descriptions posted on our Nicenet class have also exposed me to the variety in our teaching contexts: there are poor classes with almost no textbooks (like mine), classes with access to WhatsApp (like Lorena's), university classes, secondary school classes, to name but these.

Many other course colleagues of mine have commented my posts on Nicenet and referred me to many more useful sites and links like archive.org (and flickr.com) that helped me discover free books in e-libraries of some Canadian and US universities. Our learning community is more than just beneficial. It should be maintained after the course. Possible? I have also visited and commented on the blogs of a couple of them and will keep doing so. I have even promised Olivier Sondo and Lorena Mello on their blogs that I will come again. Can you guess why I have said so here? So that I do not forget to go back there. Is it not said that a blog is an online journal? It can also serve as an agenda, at least for me.

Through Nicenet private messages, I have been assisting and advising my colleagues who place their photos on the wrong spot on our class wiki to upload these photos to the right spot under Photos of Us. I hope to continue to be useful to my classmates on this course the way they  already are to me.

Thanks a lot dear course colleagues for visiting and commenting on this blog. The course and this blog continue!

Best of love from,
Nsah Mala
Cameroon