I see White… White, White Everywhere

Snow Storm in Lebanon, March 2012-
Stuck on the roads

This week I felt like buried under the white stuff. I don’t mean the snow storm that we experienced here in Lebanon this week, which we haven’t have for a long time. I remember having lived through one or two in my lifetime here. White, white everywhere.. I felt buried under stacks and stacks of white papers between the reading material and all the documents windows opened on my laptop trying to manage and jumping from one to another.

Snow Storm in Lebanon, March 2012

I wish I was 'boarding' on the 'fluffies'

My week started with trying to comprehend what is required from us in the different assignment by visiting and revisiting Jodi’s emails, the two class wikis and Nicenet. Having set my priorities for this week, I dived straight into the Final Project Plan in an attempt to finalize a draft by the deadline and submit it for the peer review. My plan was to leave the rest of the tasks to the second half of the week.

Snow Storm in Lebanon, March 2012-
The bell is silent!

Here, I would like to halt to send a big thank you to Valentina who is such a great study partner, providing the outmost support, encouragement and professionalism in the required task. I would like to thank Jodi for her continuous guidance and encouragement too. Both were very helpful and ready to interact when I needed them.

My project deals with reducing Teacher Talking Time (TTT) and increasing Student Talking Time (STT) using technology. It is a challenging topic and despite the abundant hours spent searching about this topic I couldn’t find any material to guide through my project or to provide a good lead or ideas. I felt left to my creativity, critical thinking and good judgment. Hence, I could proudly classify my project under innovative Project, which lay a great responsibility on my shoulders to perfect it.

Having survived the first ‘snow blizzard’, I had no time to rest before facing the second one: learning about Online Tools to Enhance Learning enough to join in the discussion on Nicenet. ANVILL was the start of the week, with all the effort of our guest moderator Jeff Magoto, the director of the YamadaLanguage Center at the University of Oregon, who successfully introduced this great online tool through his contributions in the BB threads and the Friday Webinar. Other tools were on my agenda to explore too, mainly, Easy Test Maker, HotPotatoes, Crossword Puzzle Games and other provided by Tools for educators’ website. This activity was time consuming and required lots of digging and shoveling.

I finally decided to work on a Class Wiki as a hands-on practice to Online Tools to Enhance Learning, fulfilling the task of the week, complimenting my final project plan and responding my immediate class need.

Snow Storm in Lebanon, March 2012

Designing a Class Wiki demands hard work and great deal of attention to details. Initially, it is easy to create one using the template provided by the site, but the editing and filling out the content is tricky business. It is my first attempt, I am sure there are lots of learning in the process, which will make it easy for the second one. I already tested the efficiency of the Class Wiki from the student’s end here with the Websills course and I am impressed. I still have to test it from the teacher’s seat and observe its efficiency in enhancing the class management and the learning experience. Hope it would be worth all the efforts.

By the end of this week, I feel exhausted, drained, freezing cold and sleep deprived. I am afraid to plunge into ‘the jaccuzi’ to unbend and white-out the well needed momentum to finalize my project plan and wrap up the course with the best learning experience.

Hassan