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
Hello Nsah Mala,
ReplyDeleteI like reading your reflections because I highly appreciate your style and messages.Thanks for giving a helping hand to colleagues who sometimes are in trouble.
With these search engines we will make a difference. Sure.
Oliver
Burkina Faso
Thanks for visiting and commenting here. I am glad you find my posts helpful, with messages. I was on your blog this morning. I really enjoy your sense of precision and concision. Remember I promised to come back to your wonderful blog. I will surely do so. Be blessed.
DeleteNsah Mala
Cameroon
Hello Nsah!
ReplyDeleteI was really curious about your work conditions and I read the description about your class. It is a huge difference of reality and I was wondering how would you work with technology if your students has limited access to internet?
This will be challenging, and you as a teacher has to cope with it with a lot of creativity and innovation.
I'm looking forward to follow your work and your class improvements with technology during the course.
Cheers!
Lorena Mello
Brazil
Hello Lorena!
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting. I am grateful to be part of this wonderful online class. As you rightly said, it will be pretty difficult to implement technology-assisted teaching/learning in any of my classes in Cameroon for reasons like the lack of basic technological tools such as laptops, desktops, android phones; poverty; lack of motivation; etc., but my presence here means things can and should change for the better. I count on the support of all us here to assist me in drafting a good project plan for my class and to finally implement it when schools resume in September 2015. Together we can make it. I believe. Do you believe too? Or what do you think?
Be blessed!
Nsah Mala
Cameroon
Nice reflections Nsah. I enjoy your posts. I believe we Africans with lots of challenges have to be more creative in applying technology to our classes.
ReplyDeleteAll the best.
Hi Namse!
DeleteI'm very glad you were here. I am okay with you that we need to be sufficiently creative in our approach to technologies. This should not only be in education but also in business and other sectors. By so doing, we can be sure to make "Africa the real continent of the future". Again, classrooms are microcosms of our society; so using ICTS in classes is using ICTs in life. I hope I'm right. Thanks once more for commenting.
Be blessed.
Nsah Mala
Dear Nsah Malla!
ReplyDeleteI am really impressed by your skills and learning from the very day one. As a writer and teacher I hold you in great esteem and awe, and cherish a deep held desire to go through your publications, the publications of my virtual fellow.
"I agree with the idea that a blog is an online journal", the blogs I have so far visited, almost all have gifted my with one or two ideas worth learning, apart from contents, the expression exposes to variety of expression gems.
Your idea of continuing this community affiliation even after this course is an ice breaker. I endorse it, and add my request with it. For our intention is to impart quality education through learnable, entertaining and enlightening environment. Thus sharing our expertise, experience and skills will be a yeoman's service to the supreme cause of education and student rights.
Thanks for mentioning helping me fix my picture at the right place. Though I have mailed a word of thanks, yet I feel it honor to repeat it. A best friend is one who points you out your mistakes. Hence , I must be thankful to you for it.
Hope and request a healthy coordination.
Ali
Pakistan
Hello Ali!
ReplyDeleteYour comments very insightful. Thanks for endorsing my plea that our community should live on after the course. You are so nice a person, accepting suggestions with a lot of appreciation. I salute that attitude of yours and can only say I am glad you found my advice helpful in fixing your photo on the right spot. I am glad to meet you on this course.
Feel free to email me privately for details about how you can read some of my publications. I would also appreciate it if you help review and write, say, blurbs for some of my works.
Be blessed.
Nsah Mala