Day 4

This was my first day at NILE as I arrived later than my friends due to an exam I had to take. I met our trainer Russell Stannard, an award winning educational technologist. I am really happy to be in his course as I had known him from my previous MA course on materials design in which we had to go through his website teachertrainingvideos.com. I strongly advise his website to all the teachers no matter what subject they are teaching. He keeps you up-to-date with technology with his short but strikingly effective instructional videos on how to use educational tools. 

The day started with an introduction of myself through todaysmeet.com. It was a really fun way of introducing myself because it wasn't a kind of traditional introduction. My friends from the course asked me questions online ananymously via todaysmeet.com and I answered their questions about myself. 

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

Edmodo

We were introduced to Edmodo, an educational platform resembling social networking sites like Facebook. The difference is that it makes the content appropriate for a classroom and  makes it easier for teachers to promote Blended Learning in their courses. Through Edmodo, students and teachers can reach out to one another and connect by sharing ideas, problems, participating in polls and quizzes, commenting on photos and videos. Teachers can also assign and grade work on Edmodo, which allows them to track students' progress. 

What technologies have you been exposed to?

We dealt with Edmodo mainly. We have also covered how we can integrate content from Youtube, Google Slides, Google Docs, or from any other website or document that might be useful to include in our classes on Edmodo.

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

I think many of the things you can do with or on depends on teacher's creativity because you can do lots of things through integrating other technological tools and educational websites with it. I will definitely use it to create a learning community where students can achieve a sense of achievement, to share content with my students, to track their development through assessments, and to give feedback. 

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

I believe that using Edmodo and promoting Blended Learning will promote teacher-student and student-student interaction. I also believe I will be more able to create activities tailored for students levels, interests, and needs. Additionally, it will allow teacher to provide individual assistance. I think I can also achieve a classroom atmosphere where they feel that they belong to a learning community and learn from each other. 

What challenges do you foresee?

The biggest challenges might be the technical problems. It requires PC, laptop and internet connection, so the classroom should be well-equipped in terms of these. It also requires lots of practice on teachers' side along with a considerable amount of preparation time.