Week 5

...multitasking...


It is said that women are good at multitasking.... I guess any teacher who has worked long enough, develops these abilities...






I definitely have done lots of multitasking this week: constantly thinking about the class problems, while leading one, searching in one's mind the best solutions and IT tools that could help solve one or another problem... while still correcting the mistakes, checking the works and doing all the ordinary teacher works... in addition to these tasks searching for empty slots in a computer lab classes was added. 
However, as I have noted before, teacher's work can hardly be described a calm one :)




That is why I constantly tell my friends and colleagues that probably no one could find more creative, versatile and imaginative work, than being a teacher.

One example of this is a WebQuest. A great tool of promoting learners' independent or group working skills, expanding critical thinking capacity and ability to surf the net.

Of course it is really time consuming for a teacher to design one -- which would suit the class needs perfectly, however I think that it is one of the best teaching tool. Not is it is on my list of things I should try in my class.... Have I mentioned multitasking?, I think my class will be soon working on several different levels as well.... Probably I should be careful not to overload them too much work...



Alternative assessment is another great thing for multitasking teachers, who constantly have to assess different skills and want to teach their students all the skills possible. This actually helps the teachers to concentrate on what they truly want to assess on a particular lesson/project. Moreover, it is also very beneficial for the students themselves as this keeps them from being overwhelmed by the number of requirements. Thus creating rubrics, is a wonderful idea.




good luck and lots of stamina
for multitasking teachers ;)

2 comments:

  1. I love your Narnia project! I took a look at the students blogs and they are very sweet. However, I have a few practical suggestions for you in the future that may help.

    Having one blog that you and the students can work on makes it easier for students to read each others blog posts and comments without surfing all over the place --> concentrated blogging. This can be achieved by inviting users and giving them editor privileges. It is much easier for the teacher to follow updates this way and control the content. Of course it limits the creativity of the students a bit, but offers a more of interactive environment.

    Another helpful idea might be to create a link list of your students blogs on the right side bar in order to help navigation.

    Right now I am trying a combination of a Teacher/students blog and students' blogs as a link list. Let's see how it works out! http://fabulousfutures.wordpress.com/

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    Replies
    1. thanks for your tips Anna, have never thought of the possibility of giving the editor rights to everyone... Yet, as you have mentioned, we chose this idea, of having individual blogs, as everybody is so full of ideas what they want to do and how.... that one page would become a battle field instead then... or I would have to move to a nicenet instead then ;) And yes, the list is created on the main page, so that they would not even think of skipping their friend's blog ;)

      have a nice week,
      Lina

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