Reflection on the slides created by the class

The activity that I chose to use in my own class is the one that Belal posted on the World Languages Activities slides that are created by the students of this Classroad class.

Since the topic of endangered animals is not in any of my lesson plans, I will adopt this activity for other topics.  For example, my activity maybe like this:

Description: Students create a song to help others learn about the body parts and their descriptions.  For example, oval eyes, round face, tiny nose, short hair etc… 

Adaptation/Technology: The students will choose one person in their life be it their father, friend or significant other. They can include their photos if available.  Then they need to collect adjectives from their book that they've already learned.  They make a list and work with those adjectives.  If they needed different ones, they can use Google Translate  to look up rhyming ones.  When done with their created songs, they will sing the songs and record them using an online tool such as Vocaroo or Speakpipe, then they embed/upload the audio recording to their class on Moodle.  They will include the lyrics as well.   The challenge is whether Moodle will allow posting the lyrics side by side with the audio. We have to figure that one out.  Moodle is the platform that I use for my classes.  If Moodle fails, we can do the presentation is on voicethread.  The students can record the songs in a comment and type the lyrics in another comment.

Assessment II

When I started this class, I thought it was easy and simple.  I see a question on yammer, I respond to it.  It turned out that those questions are related to the modules and it would have been better to wait until I read the material for that module to respond to the questions on yammer.  Then I contacted Maria and she explained to me where to go to get information about the flow of the class. 
The reason I was confused is that I saw others responding to those questions so that didn't help, the other reason is that I got a "on task" badge from one of the teachers, so I thought for sure I'm doing the right thing. :)
Then I thought to myself, poor students of mine, I hope that they are not clueless in my own class.  I hope that they didn't experience such confusion.  To solve my issue, I contacted the teacher.  This is an advice that I always give my own student.
The other difficulty I had with my group is finding the time that is convenient for all the group members to meet.  This issue is what I have to think about when I design group activities for my online class. Students take online classes thinking that there is no restriction on time for them.  They can do their assignments at the time that is convenient for them be it after mid-night  or before.  However, when it comes to group work, this is when I hear complaints like these: 
1. We can't meet because of schedule conflict.
2. All group members can meet except for one.
3. We seem to do all the work but so and so did nothing.
Since my class is listed as synchronous on the university website, I solve the first issue by giving up class time for the group activity especially if the group have to meet physically together to tape a video or something like that.  So my argument is that the class time is a free time to all the group members so there should be no reason why you would have a schedule conflict.
For the second and third complaint, I solve it by having the group members fill out a evaluation sheet for the group activity and the group members and I assure the students that even though it is a group activity but the grade can be different for each group member if I see fit.
The assessment that I have on these kinds of activities is both formative and summative.  They will have a grade on the grade book, but they will have a descriptive feedback on their work.

Communication modes

The Arabic classes that I teach meet 3 times a week.  Each class meeting I try to design my activities so that I apply the three modes of communications.  I start my class by engaging the students with a conversation with each other.  Then check their vocabulary or grammar comprehension with simple matching, or putting a check next to the correct expression.  Then I put a question on the board that prompts them to have a conversation with each other by responding to the question and then practice asking each other the same question or similar ones.  Each chapter in the book has a story.  So everyone gets a chance to read part of the story.  I separate the students in breakout rooms so they work in groups.  They either answer question about the story that I have prepared or they form some questions about the story themselves.  The work can be saved from each room.  Then when we come back to the main room, each group will present their work and we all discuss them one by one.
With these kind of activities, I believe I implement the interpretative, interpersonal and presentational and presentational modes. 
I can improve or extend this activity by asking the groups to create a similar story which they either present verbally to the class or in a written form.  They can record themselves in a video or they can create a skit to act out the story.

PLN

As a language teacher, what would be the value of connecting with others in the way educators in the various videos for this section have described?
*What are you already using? or What platform do you think would be best for you and why?
*Based on what you have learned, have you joined any PLNs or discovered any PLNs that you would like to join? Why or why not?

As a language teacher, it is very important to connect with other teachers in the field.  For a while, I have been using gmail with some teacher I know.  With smart phones available anywhere these days, and since I prefer to talk with the person I'm connecting with, I use viber on my phone or Skype.  I actually use Skype more often because it gives me a chance to talk to the person and see him or her at the same time.  I have used the "share screen" feature on Skype to show my desk top and share stuff from my computer with my colleagues to show them how to use something on the computer like how to add a multiple choice test on Moodle.  
I have used google docs with a colleague where we brainstormed ideas to develop the contents of a class and some activities.
Out of what I have learned in class, I joined Pinterest because it was assigned to my group.  I liked it, but I don't think I'll use it for my class.  When exploring it, I was searching for a certain language, among the pictures and links that I saw, there were links that were indecent to me with sexual contents.  I didn't think that they were related to what I was searching for.  As an educator, I wouldn't refer my students to use it for liability reasons.  

Reflection on what I learned from discussion with my group

One of my group members teaches at a high school.  So her teaching is face-to-face.  She posts some assignments online so that the students do them.  She uses ed-moodle for that.  So her teaching is a blended teaching.  The other member of the group teaches online and uses blogs and hangouts and google docs etc...  Her teaching is asynchronous.  I on the other hand teach synchronous classes online where I meet with my students at the class set-time on set days in a virtual class via Centra.  So our methods of teaching is different.  So we discussed these methods to come up with the best one to teach.  We agreed that online teaching is the way go go in this time and age. 

To me a combination of synchronous and asynchronous teaching is ideal for my introductory level language classes because I teach Arabic.  The teacher and the students should meet in a virtual class in this situation so that they hear the sounds of the letters and the way to write them and so that the teacher listens to the students one-on-one to listen to their pronunciation and correct them on the spot.
In the intermediate level Arabic, the students can work by themselves online because by this level, they are able to write and read.  They should be able to do their assignments with less contact hours with the teacher.  Either way, meeting face-to-face physically should not be a must when we can meet online and see and talk to each other.

Meeting with my group

Today I met with Rana and Marcia.  Rana set up the hangout meeting.  There were no problems communicating with her.  We met exactly at the time that was decided.  I guess it worked fine because I was the first one she called to the hangout meeting.  Marcia joined few minutes later. It was a great meeting.  I enjoyed talking with the two nice ladies and good teachers.
From Rana, I learned about Vocaroo which is a place on the internet where students can record themselves reading.  I thought this was great to assess students' reading skills using this website for free.  From Marcia, I learned something called Teletandom which is a program where students from different countries can be paired together on this platform to teach each other their own language.  So an American student would be paired with a student in Brazil and they can chat together exchanging language learning. 
We discussed each other's teaching methods.  We also talked about the difference between synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning.  Since my school provide a system for my online teaching, mainly Moodle and Centra, I never felt the need to use google hangouts or blogging. I found out from Marcia that she uses google hangouts and blogging with her online teaching and she love it.  We all think that the online teaching and learning opens the floor to the students to learn from the world by exploring the internet and posting their findings to share with their classmates.
I look forward to meeting with them again.  We weren't able to connect with a fourth member of our group, hopefully we will for our next meeting.