The course of New Technologies in TEFl was one of the
most overloaded courses for me. One huge technology was following the other
without giving any time to breathe. When I imagine the amount of information
that I managed to get during this time I feel confident. Truly speaking, I didn’t like to get
information through readings. I mostly preferred the practical part of it, when
we were applying the technologies in groups in class or individually at home. Or at least I liked to watch tutorials
due to which I could use the time more efficiently. Also, class discussions and blog posts contributed to the better understanding of the material because they served as a source of revision of the material and a means to reflect on the technologies trying to integrate them in the Armenian TEFL environment.
While having all the above mentioned sources of information at my disposal I managed to learn some specific skills such as:
- making Igoogle my home page
- add and use RSS subscriptions
- linking RSS to igoogle
- connecting twitter to the cellphone
- creating an audio episode and posting it to the class podcast by installing Audacity and Lame encode to save audio in mp3
- using Wiki
- creating a digital story(moviemaker, powerpoint)
- creating video footage
- creating an account in Second life and using it
- adding blocks in the Sandbox
- using animoto
- creating games with special apps
- creating a Googledoc
Not all the above mentioned skills proved to be suitable to use in the Armenian TEFL environment or at least I wasn't eager to do it both as a student and as a teacher. First of them was second life
and another connecting cellphones to twitter. Anyway I don't exclude using them in future.
Also, I failed to create any game. It seemed rather difficult.
But on the other hand there were such skills that I have managed to apply successfully in my learning and teaching processes. As a student I use Igoogle as my homepage, I have lots of subscriptions to RSS, I have created digital stories and as a teacher I used animoto, powerpoint, Google doc and many others.
The course totally changed my profile. Before this course I tended to avoid typing but now I started to avoid writing. No lesson is conducted without at least one technology now. And computer doesn't make me so tired as before. Before this course I was trying to keep computer away from my children considering it to be dangerous for their health but now I encourage them to use it to contribute to their creativity and desire to make explorations in this Flat World.
The course totally changed my profile. Before this course I tended to avoid typing but now I started to avoid writing. No lesson is conducted without at least one technology now. And computer doesn't make me so tired as before. Before this course I was trying to keep computer away from my children considering it to be dangerous for their health but now I encourage them to use it to contribute to their creativity and desire to make explorations in this Flat World.