Reflective+Learning



**Week One: Session A & B ** Throughout my current experience in CALL it has been quite interesting to see that there is a lot that can be learnt via using a computer and that it has such a great affect on the way students can learn a particular language. I have also had the ability to start my own wiki which has been really enjoyable. Not only have I learnt to open up my own web page but it will also enable me to be more organised in this class and it will be much more convenient. I have the ability to learn and gain much more ideas from my other classmates work which will help me to understand what I have to be able to look for and what I should aim for in particular exercises given in class and vice versa, I can also help my other class mates in their ability to understand and gain greater ideas in the lessons and exercises that will be given in further lessons in our course CALL.  I truly believe this class will be more beneficial for us now and for the future uses when we exercise these activities used via using computers in our careers as teachers.


 * Week Two: Session A & B **

My second week encounter of the course CALL has been more enjoyable as it comes. Each of my classmates and I have been working on our enjoyable progression of our wiki pages that has been developing more each day. We have learnt to link pages,such as this one, to our wiki pages. To be honest I was never good at computers and it's been so great to learn to make my own little web page to have a slight insight on one of our own experiences as university students in this particular class. The main reason being is because the topics we are learning in this particular course is not only practical things but most importantly it is definately things that we can use in our lives after our studies are over. We can incorporate these measures in our own teaching careers to our own students. I am enjoying this course so far and I know that we are all going to learn a lot from it for our future benefits.


 * Week Three: Session A & B**

For the third week of our CALL lesson, we had the chance to see all of eachothers wiki's and have a chance to express what we thought about each one and I had the chance to have some ideas about how to improve my wiki pages, and clearly it has helped me alot to design my wiki better and make it more attractive and help me in the future to have ideas when i use computer aided work for my teachings and my students. As a class we were able to share ideas and also work on our wiki to improve our work thoroughly where we had time in class to also work on our wiki and help eachother when we didnt understand anything, which also helped us to get to know eachother more and converse with one another with the students in our course. For our 2nd lesson of the third week we learnt that we really have to take into account that our work on our wiki ca be deleted and we always need a back up for any situation so if any of our work got deleted we can be back on track without starting all from the beginning. Unfortunately this was brought up after one of our clasmate, Vassos, lost his work and we were able to talk about how to make a solution and help him restore his work that was lost so if it happens to anther classmate they will know what to do if it happened to them.

**Week Four: Session A & B**

My Fourth week encounter of my CALL lesson we started working on a new page called evaluation portfolio where we began to make a rubic which was measured on how we will measure the work of our rubic and evaluate according to aspects of good, excellent, satisfactory etc where we can also use in our teaching expererinces to help guide our students in improving their work according to these criterias that we learnt in our lesson today. At first i had trouble understading what we actually had to do and it was nice to see that my other classmates left their work to help me understand what i had to do which showed a nice relationship developing in our lessons and another thing that i reaslised was how without realising I didnt want o leave the class because I was so interested in finishing off what i was working on. To be honest, if i didnt have a class after the call i think i would have stayed the for another hour to finish what i was working on. For the 2nd lesson of my fourth week of this semester we were introduced to a thematic unit which is a type of lesson planning or a project which would help students to have ideas written down on paper so it can help them work on their project in an orgainsed way. I came up with the idea of introducing something that is different to students if i was to teach in a class. I was brought up in australia and i think its a place where students will like to learn about.

**Week Five: Sessions A & B**

For our fifth week of our course we had the opportunity to search some very useful information on activities that are related to pronunciation, learning and speaking. What was very interesting was that there is alot of useful information on the internet to give teachers some quality exercises and ideas that can be used in the teaching environment. I also found some very interesting information on the way the Australian accent or langauge is actually pronounced with the help of the phonetical alphabet and there are very nice exercises that students can observe if they are interested in how australian words are actually pronounced. For the second session of this week we were working on finding information, activities and exercises on the speaking and listening of a language. There were incredible ideas on the internet with the aid of audio activities that can be easily used in the teaching environment. Well what i know for sure is that i would definately use these kinds of exercises to make the learning of speaking and listening in my teachinf experience a lot more enjoyable for the students and also for myself as a teacher. I learnt a very important quality while observing these exercises and sites from the internet and that is that in order for students to learn and be motivated by a lesson there truly needs to be a variety of activities needed to make lessons more enjoyable and as a future teacher i would enjoy encountering these types of activities and exercises in my teaching career.

**Week Six Sessions A & B**

The first session of this week was a public holiday, so we didn't have lessons which was very relaxing :). This week we have been working on our wikispaces and developing our research to find useful information on reading, vocabulary and writing. I have been constantly changing and fixing my wikispace, I've realised I have been spending more time on the appearence of my wiki space front pages. I've realised that while fixing these pages it helps with the coherence of moving from on link to another and I found great images to complement my links on a webpage called deviant art. I found all the neccessary images to enrich the work I have been trying to finish off. Not only have I had the chance to see great images online but the activities I have found on the internet really astonished me, there are so many useful activities that I know in the future I would definitely look at to gain a greater knowledge on the motivation and an enjoyable way to teach my students.

**Week Seven: Session A & B** The first session of this week we had the chance to see how powerpoint presentations really can help with the learning environment of students, especially when they are learning a 2nd Language and also Salomi showed us great examples of collaborative learning via being in contact with different schools that are also learning the same 2nd language as the one I might be teaching. Furthermore, we then continued to work and find some useful information on webquests. I was also astonished to see that there was alot of information on the internet about webquests and there are many people who actually have done alot of work with webquests and their are actually alot of things that we can gather from these types of webquests. The second session of this lesson, we have been working on finding useful activities on the internet about Webquest and to analyze the contents throughout each one. Salomi also used another method of teaching which she stated that we must be flexible in our teachings inorder to keep the students motivated and enjoy the class further, for the benefits of the students. I will definately take that into account :) :) :)

For the First Session of this week, well before i start anything i have to mention that I can't believe it's already the 8th week of the semester!!! OK now let me get back to how the 8th week developed. Firstly, we moved on to finishing of our webquests, and I found another two activities and I read on what actually a webquest is and what affects it has in the learning environment. There are a variety of activities that can be found on the internet in reference to how to implement such activities into the learing environment. Webquest are a broad concept, however, with such activities their can be a lot more motivation and development to students learning a new way of implementing a langauge into their lifestyle.
 * Week Eight: Session A & B**

**Week Nine: Session A & B:** We only had one class for this week where we have been working on a Web 2.0 or 1.0 technology. This was very interesting because I found some very useful information on how Facebook can be implemented in the learning environment. Facebook, being a 2.0 technology based review, there are alot of useful activities that one could use while teaching vocabulary or even pronunciation skills. Not only would it be enjoyable but motivational for students to work at home in their own free time. The interesting aspect of learning what a web 2.0 is and what a web 1.0 is because I honestly had no idea what they really were and thankful for the class I actually know the differenciation between the two and also I have gained the knowledge of how to implement them in society. The second session of our week was cancelled because of a poblic holiday :)

**Week Ten: Session A& B:**

For the tenth week of our Call Course, we were introduced to a Themantic Unit. I never knew that designing a plan or a topic organisation before a class can actually make the teacher more organised and knowledgable on what to expect when organising a new topic for the class. Not only does it organise the class better, however, it helps the teacher to come up with more motivational and enjoyable classes while taking the time to think about the benefits of what is needed for the students. For instance, learning vocabulary or just a basic nouns related classroom, students could learn these element, however, at the same time learn the aspects in a more enjoyable way by either designing a book or having more practical based activities between individuals and groups in class. I know that in the future of my carear I will be using the themantic unit not only for myself but for the benefits and the usefulness for my students. There are also many activites online that could be used to implement the main elements needed to be taught in the classroom.

**Week Eleven: Sesions A & B:** For the eleventh week of the couse we continued to work on finishing our Themantic Unit and then being introduced to the new exercise of evaluating an Online Test Review found on the Internet. I never knew that TOEIC was actually a very reliable and useful test that could aid in many important aspects of learning an English Langauge. I actually was very interested in taking the test and I actually learnt a lot of new words which I never really used on a daily basis. And we also had the chance to compare and contrast the different types of tests with our class mates which we were allocated in specific groups. This was interesting because we had the chance to mingle and learn to cooperate with other class mates to help retrieve the best results with our evaluations with one anothers review tests.

**Week Twelve: Session A & B:** For the final lesson, we observed one anothers presentations and what they experienced and what knowledge they gained via taking this course. Well I know this course was very beneficial for the future teachers we want to become. I can't deny that it took a lot out of me to catch up and be up to date, however, all the activities I found and evaluated I will use in the future to implement on my own students.


 * END OF CALL COURSE, SPRING 2009**