This week,
I’m learning new and interesting things again.
I never
thought there would be a lot of great web search engines apart from Google.
It’s amazing there are more than a hundred possibilities regarding that. I
would never be aware of that if I weren’t part of this Web skills course and I wouldn’t
stop expressing my heartfelt gratitude to all the team and staff who made this
opportunity happen. The materials, guidelines and help it provides really
motivate and encourage me to grow more in my teaching skills.
Five days ago, through
the different readings in the course website (URL:https://sites.google.com/site/webskillsuo/home/assignments/week-2) I learnt that there are a
lot of engines I can use to search for different materials for my class and for
my own resources. I also got some really useful tips on how to search for what
you want more effectively and specifically. We were asked to choose some of the
engines we hadn’t used yet to explore and try; and I chose a few of them but
these are my favorites: SweetSearch (URL:http://www.sweetsearch.com/) for teenager class and Google
scholar (URL:http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=fr&as_sdt=0,5&lookup=0) and iSeek (URL:http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page) for any other academic search. I could find materials
for all skills such as listening, grammar lessons, readings … in them. I’ve
started to apply the web search tips in my searches as well and they really made
a difference. The results are more relevant.
As a teacher, I have to be creative and always need to find new ideas to improve my teaching and make the class more interesting; and what I’ve acquired so far will help me to
do so. Therefore, I’ll continue to use them for my class and in the preparation
of my teaching (to search for lesson and practice worksheets, audio files for
listening, texts, videos…). It’s also a great idea to share all these new things
with my students as they will help them to become independent learners, and
that is an objective to reach.
I’m sure
that everything we have learnt this week also brought good things to all the
other teachers participating in this course. Good luck everyone!
Ravaka
from Madagascar.
Hi Ravaka,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely that it is important to make our students "independent learners". I have tried to inspire my students to research more by themselves and frequently give them small projects where they need to come up with ideas of their own. This makes them more confident too.
Happy teaching!
Best,
Sharmila from India
Hi Sharmila,
DeleteThank you for sharing the same point of you. Yes, you're right. It helps them be self-reliant. You've done a good job in involving your students in small projects where they have to work independently. I'll do the same with my students. Thank you for the idea.
Hugs,
Ravaka