E- ASSESSMENT

HI GUYS ! Hope you are doing well.

This time I am going to talk about E-assessment , which in other words is an electronic assessment where we can hand in different homework electronically.
As I mentioned last week , assessment is a very important part of a lesson because with assessment we can see how a student is improving, how much responsible he is, how has he/she got everything from the lesson .
The best thing as a teacher is to give the class different assessments where can be included different kind of exercises such as reading passages, listening and spelling.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF  E-ASSESSMENT ?

Here are some of them :

MULTIPLE CHOICE
This assessment method can have single or multiple correct answers. you may use multiple choices questions when there is a clear and correct option as well as viable alternatives.

FILL IN THE BLANK
This exercise can be used when you want the students to directly recall specific facts. It is very useful because when the answer is not listed anywhere on the screen , learners have to remember it without any prompting. In this type of exercise you should bare in mind that you need to allow for more than one correct answer and for misspelled words and synonyms. 

DRAG AND DROP
Drag and drop questions let learners sort, rank and group options instead of just picking them. This question format prompts learners to interact with objects on a screen , because they need to select one option and drag it to another part of the screen.

WHY E-LEARNING ASSESSMENT ARE IMPORTANT? 

Assessment are required to demonstrate how an individual or a group has reached a certain level of ability and sometimes they are required as part of a qualification or certification program .

EVALUATION / ASSESSMENT

HELLO EVERYONE!

How are you doing? I wish you are all staying safe until we recover from this situation.
Today I am going to talk about evaluation and assessment, the difference between this two the strategies of making a good judgement and  the value that each of them has for our pupils or students in the future.
I would like to say as a student that there are many times that I haven't being evaluated as I deserved and it really hurt and was as a stone in my life. It has happened to me sometimes and I just felt like I didn't want to see that subject and teacher anymore in my entire life. That is the thing that me now as a teacher  am going to do it  in the way it should be , without offending anyone and without making the students feel bad in front of the class. I think a good teacher is that person who evaluate her students and motivate them , not that one that embarrassed her students with her cruel behaviour.

So assessment and evaluation are not the same things, which should not be used interchangeably because they have different purpose. Assessment is the process of gathering data about student performance using various tools like teacher observations , activities, or quizzes to capture what students know and understand  while evaluation is the process of actually making a judgement about the meaning of the data gathered .

Let's look at strategies in order to make good judgments about our students success and instructional decisions . We need to have solid assessment and evaluation practices and that begins with establishing clear learning goals . This allows us to prepare lessons in advance with align with and support those goals and to fair and valid assessments. Good assessment and evaluation also include identifying the student level of mastery even before instruction begins . This allow us to reliably capture what students have done well and what needs to be improved based on the level of mastery we are seeking. But how do we do this? There are many tools used to help assess  student progress towards the learning goals like :
- General observation of student behaviour at work
-Observation checklists  during a particular activity or any completed student work
-Involving the students in creating the goals and monitoring their own progress helps improve learner autonomy.

The benefits of evaluation :

•  better understand your target audiences' needs and how to meet these needs :
•  design objectives that are more achievable and measurable:
•  monitor progress toward objectives more effectively and efficiently: 
•  learn more from evaluation:
•  increase your program's productivity and effectivenes

The benefits of assessment : 

Well-designed assessment can encourage active learning peer  and self-assessment, for instance, can foster a number of skills such as : 

•  reflection

•  critical thinking 

•  self-awareness

•   giving students insight into the assessment process.

Develop phase

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog. Today I am going to write about develop phase and one useful media tool in order you to use it for different reasons .

Nowadays one of the most useful tool use for teaching or do other presentation is “Prezi “. Most of the people use this tool in order to make attractive presentations and to share them or go live with videoconferencing tools. So in other words Prezi is a must . You can use Prezi for education presentations or business one depends on what are you going to present.
Prezi works with the apps you already use such as zoom , join me , Microsoft Teams.
With Prezi you can create zooming presentations that attract the audience attention.
Prezi Video creates a very easy way to create videos for lessons and to share it with your groups and they can be viewed anytime.
Also this tools help you to create professional presentations and gives you the opportunity to design charts, maps , reports, infographics , posters , dashboard, social posts , custom , slides , email headers etc.
Map - creating maps in a presentation is very attractive prezi helps to creates all the kind of maps in order to be more easy to explain and understand.
Charts - makes easy to present the data that you wanted to include on the presentation more effectively.
Reports - prezi has different templates that helps you to write your reports .
Infographics - is a visual image that is used to present information or data . It can helps the others to understand you informations very easy.
Poster - A great poster is readable, legible and well organized.
Organization and flow make the poster easy to read.
Dashboard- Provides current data on the organization that for better management
- Provides financial analysis, historical data, reports, sales, IT, etc.
Social post - prezi has different templates to make a presention for a social app
Slides - as the other tools also prezi have slides and they can be coverted from another tool.
Custom -  can create a custom starting point on any topic, subtopic, page, or animation in your canvas. This allows you to take control of your presentation's flow and direction so you can reveal content to your audience at just the right moment.
So to conclude using Prezi tool you can make you presentations in a unique an attractive way.
This are some of the most important use of this application and I hope this blog post will help you in the future :)
Thank you!

Planning and organizing multimedia projects

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog. 

The topic for this week is really interesting because I have to talk about how to plan and organize multimedia projects. To do all this I have to take in consideration the DDD-E Model , but especially the DECIDE and DESIGN parts. 

Working on a multimedia project we should consider a lot of factors that influence DECIDE . These factors are: 

1. Technology available and their location 

2. Available computer time 

3. Grouping options

4. Time needed to complete the project

5. Student's experience with computers 

These factors are quite important in planning a project because without internet connection and without experience with computers they will look really hard to be done. 

The steps that should be taken to plan this kind of projects are: 

1. Setting Instructional Goals 

2. Deciding on a project 

3. Developing prerequisite skills 

4. Assessing Resources. 

Setting instructional goals is the first step. All the teachers should write down the objectives in the beginning of the project  and these objectives should vary depending on the level of the students , available resources and learner's experience. The students should bare in mind not to over-concerned with the final presentations and to forget the purpose of the project. 

To decide on a project means to select and to design a project to meet the desired goals. 

Another element is to fulfill the presentation in the prescribed time. 

Developing prerequisite skills is a good manner to advance with the computer learning skills. The basic knowledge of the computer are important in the beginning of the project .

And the last but not least is assessing resources. Is there any internet connection?

Do all students have the necessary software and equipments to carry out the project? 

Organizing multimedia projects 

1. Examining group alternatives

2. Creating cooperative groups

3. Scheduling computer times 

The two types of group alternatives are: collaborative and cooperative learning group. 

The difference between these two groups is a very small difference because they both work on the same goal but collaborative groups work separately , so everyone gives their own opinion and in cooperative groups  the members provide academic and personal support. 

I hope this steps and points will be very helpful for you ! 

THANK YOU!

CRITICAL THINKING IN TEACHING VOCABULARY

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog . 

Today I am going to talk about critical thinking skills especially how important is it for children or pupils to develop and practice it since in the very beginning years of school. This ability to think critically is an asset that will stand your child in good stead as they move through primary school into secondary and throughout their adult lives.

Why critical thinking matters? 

Critical thinking is a vital part of children's development and learning to use it help them to make sense of the world around them. Also , it helps them make value judgements and try to figure things out if something don't make sense. 

How to develop critical thinking skills?

Children are not very capable of critical thinking from an early age , but they actually do it , too. 

For example children as young as five and six use counter examples ( Not all birds fly : chickens  are birds , and they don't fly ); draw  distinctions( Heroes are not the same as superheroes ) .  So that means that the pupils of grade 2 or 3 are better critical thinkers compared with those of the age five or six. 

Here are some advice to help your pupils  to use critical thinking as they grow ! 

Every teacher should encourage their pupils to give reasons and examples that  show agreement and disagreement about different topics and discussions. If we ask a pupil 'Why? or Do you agree? Or is something wrong or right ? and so on so forth. 

To help your child develop critical thinking skills, get into a habit of questioning them about their thoughts and opinions. There are five simple ways to do this:

• Ask why: get them to provide justification, explanation, purpose or motivation.
• Ask for clarification: ‘Can you say what you mean by…?’
• Ask for more: ‘Can you say more about that?’
• Ask for an example or counter-example: ‘Can you give me an example?
• Ask for conditions: ‘Can you say what it would depend on?

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to help your pupils  become a critical thinker is to model good critical thinking yourself,’ . ‘Notice, monitor and evaluate your own critical thinking, and, if necessary, take steps to improve it.’

EDUCATION, TEACHERS AND TECHNOLOGY !

Nowadays  university education is faced with new challenges necessary for a successful learning process because of the very rapid advance of communication technologies and information, especially in all aspects related to internet. In the near future education will have to incorporate interactive webs as teaching tools , where the web platforms will be turned into virtual classrooms with the aim of making easy the learning process. These interactive tools promote the autonomous learning and increase the student's motivation. At the university level, the goal of using these tools is not simply to accumulate knowledge but also to learn how to use these tools.

The use of audiovisual tools in teaching process is progressive due to the continuous development of technology. Videos and computer presentations are examples of these variants introduced in the field of teaching. Teachers should transfer the technological advances of the present society to the field of knowledge , and avoid the imbalance between learning method and real life. 

• Do good teachers need to use technology?

All the teachers should be open to new ways of doing things. Yes, I think all the teachers even the best one need to use technology. Good teachers maintain an avid interest in new technologies with a view toward improving the effectiveness of their teaching. Every teacher should be familiar with what's available on the Web in his or her subject area. The Web is a magnificent resource for teaching and learning. Teachers need to use technology because, by technology, they share more information and collaborate beyond schools walls. Realize that only change brings progress.

•  What technologies do you use with your students?

Good teachers should be constantly on the lookout for ideas about how to do a better job in the classroom. One of the best ways to do that is to join an online discussion group, where teachers get together in an open e-forum to share ideas about teaching and learning. I will use with my students Google Documents, Classroom app, Google Translate as far as I'm an English teacher I will allow my students to use Google Translate app in class, where they can translate new words into their native language ( Albanian ) .Social Medias such as Facebook and Twitter where students can create groups with a teacher in order to take announcement and to share with each other links related to the subject.

· Will technology replace teachers?

Technology in its way is the one which can not be challenged, but absolutely it cannot replace
teachers. Technology is just a tool used by the teacher to have a meaningful and active class. Teachers are
those who teach us how to use technology.

The use of technology in teaching process is very important and helpful. It helps the teacher to make the class more interactive and the students don,t get bored. These tools motivate the learners and make life and lesson more easy. 

Constructivism and DDD-E Model

Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog. This week I am going to talk about the Constructivism and DDD-E Model.

First of all let's say some words about constructivism. Constructivism learning theory is a philosophy which enhances students' logical and conceptual growth, which argues that people produce knowledge and form meaning based upon their experiences. According to social constructivism learning is a collaborative process, and knowledge develops from individuals' interactions with their culture and society.  Constructivist learning theory underpins a variety of student-centered teaching methods and techniques which contrast with traditional education, whereby knowledge is simply passively transmitted by teachers to students.

What is the role of the teacher in a constructivist classroom?
The primary responsibility of the teacher is to create collaborative problem-solving environment where students become active participants in their own learning. From this perspective , a teacher acts as a facilitator of learning rather than an instructor. The teacher makes sure he or she understand the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them.
In order to have a constructivist classroom every teacher should follow these steps:
1) To provide experience with the knowledge construction process. That means that students determine how they will learn.
2)To provide experience in and appreciation for multiple perspectives . In other words the evaluation of alternative solutions.
3) To embed learning in social experience , so to collaborate .
4) To encourage ownership and a voice in the learning process.
5) To encourage the use of multiple modes of representation, (video, audio, texts ect)
6) To encourage awareness of the knowledge construction process. ( for example reflection etc).

The biggest disadvantage is its lack of structure. Some students require highly structured learning environments to be able to reach their potential. It also removes grading in the traditional way and instead places more value on students evaluating their own progress, which may lead to students falling behind, as without standardized grading teachers may not know which students are struggling.

The DDD-E Model of instructional design has it's basis in multimedia instructional design. The Model stands for:
Decide
Design
Develop
Evaluate.
The decide phase focuses closely on overall assignment development . The subject , the learning standards and roles of team members are determined.
The design phase takes into account the stuctural integrity of the assignement.
The develop phase is when actual hard artifacts are created to support the framework built in the design phase. This is where video, audio and imagery are created and assigned to aspects of the design plans.
The evaluate is focused on assessment. This includes assessment for student progress through the assignment , completed student work and student engagement levels.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory and Cooperative Learning

Hello, everyone! Hope you are doing well and are staying safe at home. This week's assignment was really interesting and I enjoyed reading about Gardner's multiple intelligences theory and also cooperative learning. Well , I am going to write down some interesting facts about these topics and hope you like it. 

Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory is based on the belief that “traditional psychometric views of intelligence are too limited.” He first outlined the theory of multiple intelligences in 1983 when he published Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In his book, he discusses eight different intelligences as well as a possible ninth intelligence known as “existentialist intelligence.”

    Gardner reveals that to truly understand the full talents and abilities of people, it’s pertinent to not limit them by a single intellectual capacity. Rather, you should categorize them among multiple intelligences. He goes on to say that while a person might have one intelligence area that he or she is particularly strong in, there’s a good chance the person is strong in other intelligence categories as well.

Also, as part of Gardner’s theory, he argues that it’s not how the information reaches our brain, but what matters is what our brain does with the information once it is received.

What Are the Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences?

The eight different categories of Gardner’s multiple intelligences are:

1. Musical-Rhythmic
2. Visual-Spatial
3. Verbal-Linguistic
4. Logical-Mathematical
5. Bodily-Kinesthetic
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Naturalistic Intelligence

10. Over the years, Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory has become prized by teachers, many of whom have made the intelligences synonymous with learning styles. However, it’s important to note that multiple intelligences are not learning styles.Gardner sought to set the record straight regarding learning styles and multiple intelligences when he said the following:
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    Cooperative Learning.
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16. Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals.  Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.  It may be contrasted with competitive (students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as a grade of “A” that only one or a few students can attain) andindividualistic (students work by themselves to accomplish learning goals unrelated to those of the other students) learning.  In cooperative and individualistic learning, you evaluate student efforts on a criteria-referenced basis while in competitive learning you grade students on a norm-referenced basis.  While there are limitations on when and where you may use competitive and individualistic learning appropriately, you may structure any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum cooperatively.
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18. Cooperative learning activities would invite students to be more active participants in their own learning, to share and discuss their ideas, to engage in argumentation and debate, to play varying roles within the group, and to internalize their learning. 
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20. Teachers who wish to use cooperative learning should ideally base their classroom practices on theory validated by research.  The closer classroom practices are to validated theory, the more likely they will be effective.  When more directly practice is connected to theory, furthermore, the more likely practice will be refined, upgraded, and improved over the years.  There are, however, few classroom practices that are directly based on validated theory.  The close relationship between theory, research, and practice makes cooperative learning somewhat unique.  It also creates a set of issues for teachers using cooperative learning.
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    THANK YOU!

      

INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD

INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
New technologies play an important role in our everyday life. Today almost every lesson is in a way dependent on the use of technologies schools are the environments where modern technologies have so much to say. The interactive whiteboard is a modern educational technology allowing effective instruction of various learning activities. IWBs have a lot of benefits. Although , it may seem that during the recent years interactive whiteboard has become a perfect teaching aid for all classrooms.

It is also true that have been some researchers which proved that the use of IWBs can also bring certain limitation or even disadvantages  into the classroom. Interactive Whiteboards can be applied at all level of education for preschool children, primary or secondary schools pupils as well as university students. the benefits of using IWBs in the classroom affect both the students and teachers positively. Here, I will mention and explain the reasons why we should use IWBs . IWBs make interactive learning , bring flexibility in the classroom. Also, they are easy to use and they have proven effectiveness. An increasing level of engagement between teacher and students is another benefit of IWBs. 

IWBs allow students to interact with the learning material. they become part of the lesson and can even teach each other. Their understanding of the subject is seen through touching, drawing or writing on the board, which makes learning  interactive more fun. The flexibility of IWBs halp teachers to create creative lessons and to inspire their students. Various media types can be displayed on an IWBs. Wether photos, graphs, maps, illustrations or videos - teachers have an abundance of options. Students are more attentive in the classroom. Students learn better and remember it. When children engage more in the classroom , learning always increase. So, another benefit is that they are easy to use. Another benefit of IWBs is that it increases the level of engagement between teacher and students. Instead of making the often boring one-way presentation, a teacher can use IWBs to engage every student in the class.

Although there are many benefits encountered with paperless classroom, there are also drawbacks , some of which can surface unexpectedly and resolving them is not always possible during class. Some of the disadvantages of IWBs are technical inability, teacher's training, price and projection problems. 

Old school teachers are not comfortable with modern technology and the interactive whiteboards are not a prime. Some teachers find the device complex , while others complain about having to change their style due to the device. Teacher's training is another point. The school needs to invest time and money in training their teachers for using the device properly. This requires a significant amount of time and effort and a school should consider such factors before investing such a device. Through the cost of an interactive Whiteboard is nominal when compare it to the investment required for IT classrooms or even providing laptops to each student. Many schools are not able to afford this device. If a school has to make a choice between an interactive Whiteboard and another essential requirement they should go for what it actually requires. 

To sum up , interactive Whiteboard is an extremely powerful tool in the field of education. It enhances the experience of the student as well as the teacher by integrating various tools and enabling the instructor with them. Though one cannot deny that the device has its flaws but it definitely poles out in the light of its advantages and disadvantages of using Interactive Whiteboard. 

MY FIRST BLOG POST

 Hello everyone!

This is my very first time using Blogger and my first post. First of all I would like to wish you all and your families good health in these difficult times . I think that blogger will help us to express better our own opinions and to learn how to respect other's opinions too. This platform will  prepare us  not only in teaching the students English but also learning them how to use technology in learning new things. 

To start with we all know that  nowadays technology is becoming the most important part in our lives. Technology in education and the right devices in students' hands helps prepare them with the career and technical skills they need to be successful today and in tomorrow's workforce.  On the path to personalizing learning, technology empowers students by giving them ownership of how they learn, making education relevant to their digital lives and preparing them for their futures. With technology and access to resources beyond classroom walls , students are inspired to become problem- solvers, critical thinkers, collaborators and creators. Where technology has been successfully integrated into classrooms, students develop a lifelong love of learning. 

The other topic that I would like to mention is the impact  of technology on Teaching  Practice. The human element in the learning process, the advent of computer technology , classroom teaching and guided self- learning , provides an opportunity to reflect upon principles that enhance learner’s status and expand the teacher’s co-ordinating role. So with new methods and technology , the lesson is more interactive and the class isn’t  traditional , which means that the teacher is no more in the center of the class but the students are.

To sum up  I would like to say the expression from Anker   which was mentioned in the lecture : ‘’ A good toy is 90% child and 10% toy’’ . A good pedagogical device is 90% learner and 10 % device. I think this quote is a good way to make us underdstand how  related are to each other  technology and learning  .