ICT- British Council Proyect / U.E.M. "Juan de Dios Guanche"

Since last March 2006, I started to work with blogs and publish our web-based lessons. This was part of British council project.it was extremely hard because the ICT language project was divided into two phases. Phase I participated in a workshop given in the British Council premises. I was taking this course in two days with some ICT tools and learned how to design web-based lessons using Internet. After this, I gave a session with some of students of 7th grade (about 15) demonstrating what I learned in the British Council lab. Ater that my tutor Miguel Mendoza and me planned the second phase of the project: using ICT with the students in the school lab.

Lab sessions took for about one academic hour (45 minutes) on a weekly basis in the school labs and about 17 students from each section participated in this part of the project. I will briefly describe the steps followed to design a web-based lesson using blogs in this pilot project. First, let's start with a definition of blogs.To understand what a blog is and its power as an ICT tool, I will compare it with an EFL printed book. In a blog, the web-based lesson is a single entry where you have the activities you want your students to do whereas a lesson, in a printed book, is comprised of several pages. Activities, in the blog, have hyperlinks that take your students to other websites or exercises you have designed yourself. That is, activities are no presented in a linear fashion as in a printed book. Both the printed book and the blog class can have pictures, illustrations and graphics. The only difference is that in the blog you can choose images from the web (e.g. Google images) or design/edit them yourself (e.g. Photoshop). Furthermore, while in a printed book, lessons are organized in an orderly fashion (lesson 1 to 12), in the class blog lessons can be archived monthly , generally, in a chronological reversed order. Also, students cannot write comments about a lesson in their printed books .

In this case in a class blog, students can (interactivity). Only a limited audience have access to the printed book: the student himself/herself, teacher and parents from a certain school. The blog can be accessed by anybody or restricted to other students/teachers/parents from other schools around the world. Books can get lost or deteriorated easily. Blogs do not. Experiences of the students lived through this pilot project using class blogs


This part of information about how to create a blog was taken from british council web-page.
Blogs can be used as reflective journals, class or shared blogs (Richardson, 2006). For this project, we used the class blog.1. They got a Blogger account2. Once they had their account, they clicked on “New post” in the dashboard and explored how they could add content to blogs. The only IT skills they needed to use Blogger were those required for e-mailing.3. After exploring and learning how to post entries, they got ready to design their web-based lesson! To design the first web-based lessons, they needed the teacher trainer technical support. To do this the teacher trainer devoted about 3 hours per teacher on a weekly basis. Two hours FtF and one on-line.Important tips to design a web-based lessonteachers should keep in mind that the web-based lesson...1. reinforces a lesson already taught in the classroom (e.g. Animals, colours, numbers, etc.)2. is based on tasks (Check material from teacher training session).3. has three basic stages: pre-task (warming up); task; post-task (follow-up)Besides, before the class, they should test the lesson themselves or asked a colleague/ teacher trainer to make sure instructions were clear and links worked. Experiences of the students lived through this pilot project using class blogsStudents 1) got engaged;

Coments; they feel with enthusiasm and motivated to exercise the activities in the blogger
blogs in this pilot project. First, let's start with a definition of blogs.To understand what a blog is and its power as an ICT tool, I will compare it with an EFL printed book. In a blog, the web-based lesson is a single entry where you have the activities you want your students to do whereas a lesson, in a printed book, is comprised of several pages.

Activities, in the blog, have hyperlinks that take your students to other websites or exercises you have designed yourself. That is, activities are no presented in a linear fashion as in a printed book. Both the printed book and the blog class can have pictures, illustrations and graphics. The only difference is that in the blog you can choose images from the web (e.g. Google images) or design/edit them yourself (e.g. Photoshop). Furthermore, while in a printed book, lessons are organized in an orderly fashion (lesson 1 to 12), in the class blog lessons can be archived monthly , generally, in a chronological reversed order. Also, students cannot write comments about a lesson in their printed books .


This part of information about how to create a blog was taken from british council web-page.
Blogs can be used as reflective journals, class or shared blogs (Richardson, 2006). For this project, we used the class blog.1. They got a Blogger account2. Once they had their account, they clicked on “New post” in the dashboard and explored how they could add content to blogs. The only IT skills they needed to use Blogger were those required for e-mailing.3. After exploring and learning how to post entries, they got ready to design their web-based lesson! To design the first web-based lessons, they needed the teacher trainer technical support. To do this the teacher trainer devoted about 3 hours per teacher on a weekly basis. Two hours FtF and one on-line.Important tips to design a web-based lessonteachers should keep in mind that the web-based lesson...1. reinforces a lesson already taught in the classroom (e.g. Animals, colours, numbers, etc.)2. is based on tasks (Check material from teacher training session).3. has three basic stages: pre-task (warming up); task; post-task (follow-up)Besides, before the class, they should test the lesson themselves or asked a colleague/ teacher trainer to make sure instructions were clear and links worked. Experiences of the students lived through this pilot project using class blogsStudents 1) got engaged;

blogs in this pilot project. First, let's start with a definition of blogs.To understand what a blog is and its power as an ICT tool, I will compare it with an EFL printed book. In a blog, the web-based lesson is a single entry where you have the activities you want your students to do whereas a lesson, in a printed book, is comprised of several pages. Activities, in the blog, have hyperlinks that take your students to other websites or exercises you have designed yourself. That is, activities are no presented in a linear fashion as in a printed book. Both the printed book and the blog class can have pictures, illustrations and graphics. The only difference is that in the blog you can choose images from the web (e.g. Google images) or design/edit them yourself (e.g. Photoshop). Furthermore, while in a printed book, lessons are organized in an orderly fashion (lesson 1 to 12), in the class blog lessons can be archived monthly , generally, in a chronological reversed order. Also, students cannot write comments about a lesson in their printed books .

Coments;

1)they feel with enthusiasm and motivated to exercise the activities in the blogger

2) became aware of things they were learning (metacognition)

Coments;

1) They did´t need too much practice to learn what they liked .

2) developed IT skills (life-long skills);

Coments;

1)They integrated and communicated between themselves


2) They became in charge of their own learning.

Coments:

1)they learned and enjoyed their activities at the same time.

2) They worked at their own pace Coments ;
3) They relaxed working without presion and they never felt evaluated .






My experiences lived through this pilot project using class blogs. and the ICT program-

1) ; Students felt in a cyber but getting the teaching in front of a computer 2) I notice that students' behavior was less disruptive;
3) They developed IT skills and more interaction in the group ;
4) The students showed enough interest in learning much english
5) I was surprised with students' attitude towards learning English

6) they relaxed working without presion and they never felt evaluated .