It is Time to Mix!

As I gave myself more time to explore more tools, I decided to mix two of the 12 images provided in Tasks 1 & 2. One of them is wordia.com and I talked about it a lot in the previous post. The second tool is Time 10 Questions.  10 Questions provides unique access to world and business leaders, major entertainers, and other influential figures from around the world. A selection of reader-submitted questions on TIME.com serves as the basis for a candid interview with each newsmaker. Really, I admired this channel. It includes authentic input for my EFL students. I thought that these real persons and shows will help students to improve their listening skills. They will be familiar with the real situations and responses. By this tool, I can bring real life into my poor classrooms. 

Task 3 Listening Math:

My Choice is:








= 13



Here is the Lesson Plan using these images above:

Digital Resources:

1. Time 10 Questions: www.youtube.com/show/10questions
2. Wordia: wordia.com
3. Computer Lab with internet access
4. Headsets for recording
5. Movie Maker Program for creating videos
6. YouTube accounts for uploading videos

Class Level:

• 11 Grade (Between 17-18 years old) Advanced Level Students

Time Frame:

• Two 50-minute classes

Lesson Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, students will:

•  listen to the lives of some famous people through YouTube.
•  listen to these people to identify 10 difficult words.
•  search for these difficult words using wordia.com.  
•  create a biography about a famous person using these words.
•  use Movie Maker program to tell the story and upload it to YouTube.
•  listen to their colleagues’ biographies and give feedback.
•  embed revised videos in their class wiki.

Steps:

1. Using Time: 10 Questions www.youtube.com/show/10questions, the teacher asks the students to listen to 2 shows about the lives of two famous persons (e.g., Mike Tyson & Condoleezza Rice).
2. The teacher asks them to listen to these two shows again and identify 10 difficult words that they hear them for the first time.
3. The teacher tells the students to work in groups of three and start to search for these words using wordia.com. In wordia website, there might be some videos clarifying these words.
4. The teacher asks the students to think of a famous person they know and start creating his or her biography. Students should put in mind the parts of biographies and using the words that they searched about their definitions earlier.
5. Once students decide on the information that should be involved in their biographies, the teacher asks them to use Movie Maker program to create a video including recording this story, adding music and pictures related to this person, and adding the words of the biography.
6. After finishing their videos, the teacher asks the students to present them in front of their peers to give some feedback.
7. Each group revises its video and uploaded it to YouTube.
8. The teacher tells the students to embed their videos in their class wiki.

Issues to Consider:  

The teacher must check if:

• The headsets and internet access at the computer lab are all working.
• The Movie Maker program installed on the computers.
• The students write difficult words while listening.
• The students work in groups while creating and recording their biographies.
• The students have YouTube accounts before uploading their videos.
• The class wiki is open to embed the created videos. 

Task 4 Go Beyond with your Listening Math:

The most difficult task started when I got my math result. It is 13. This means that I have to find 13 ways to help my students enhance their listening skills using the resources and websites I have explored in my treasure hunt. I will go beyond my baby treasure hunt and think about what I can do with the 12 treasures that our moderators provided us in this week. 

Here is my listening list:

1. Using Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Blog,  I can ask my 11 grade high school students to watch Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief video to pick up the grammatical rule presented and write its parts with some examples from the video. I believe that EFL students can pick up language and this is the first step towards acquiring not just learning the English language. Of course, this is according to the Natural Approach by Stephen Krashen.
2. Listening to the same video of Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief involved in Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Blog, I ask my students to listen again to complete the condition with general truths about Medusa as a practice.
3. As my students love watching videos, I  can ask them to watch two or three interviews using Time 10 Questions about famous people. Then, I ask them in pairs to prepare some questions about a certain person they want to know more about him or her. They can use the internet to find answers to such questions. Once they have the answers, they play the roles of the interviewer and the interviewee recording their speech by Audacity program. We can use such recordings in other classrooms as a model or in listening lessons.
4. As an ice-breaking or warm-up activity , I can ask my students to watch a video from Time 10 Questions to know something about famous people before reading a text about a certain character. So, they can listen to real voices and read more details about them. I think I can find some interviews that are suitable for the course I teach.
5. Using the Blank Mode of Listen and Write website, I can ask my students to listen to an audio or a video to fill in the blanks. It is some sort of practicing new words and listening to specific items. Here is a video explains how to use all modes of this wonderful website.
6.  AMNY includes authentic materials where New Yorkers talk about themselves. I can ask my students to listen to anyone of them and jot down all what they knew about this person. Then, I ask them to work in pairs. Each one will talk about the person that he or she listened to. They can also check if they say right information by listening again to their persons.
7. Backbone Corpus Search is a very rich website. I can download some audio files and their transcripts for my students. I can use them when I teach a lesson called "The World of Work". This lesson is about jobs. Among the titles that attracted my attention in this website are lawyer, police officer, taxi driver, translator, web designer, an Irish farmer .... etc. I will ask my students to listen to such persons, then, choose one job that they would like to be in the future and talk a little about it from his/her own point of view.
8. I have a small dream. I wish my students meet one of the TED speakers and ask him or her some questions about their lives, jobs, achievements, ... etc in just 15 minutes online. I'm sure that this will enhance their listening skills and encourage them to be concentrated while asking and listening to the answers ... who knows?
9. Listening to an audio text from the course, I ask the students to write down difficult words while listening. Then, I ask them to go to Wordia search site to find their meaning and any details about them. They can also find videos and games that explain these words.
10. If there are no videos about the new words for which the students search in Wordia, I ask them to go to YouTube to find some videos that are suitable and upload them to Wordia. They can also create their own videos about these words after getting the meaning. This will help other students later.
11. If there are no games explaining these words, I can ask my students to use Kudo Game Lab to create their own games and upload them to Wordia. I'm sure that this will make my students creative and innovative as they play with language.
12. My students can create their walks or echoes using Woices. I ask them to record and upload their description of the places where they live. Then, they can listen to their voices many times. We can create a library about our city "Sohag, Egypt". This will help me in teaching other classrooms and will develop their speaking and listening skills.
13. As an introductory activity for our Class Wiki, I can ask my students to record something about themselves using Myna (an online audio editing tool). Then, they embed their audio files in the introduction section.

At last, I finished all the tasks of week 3. Yes, there are a lot of listening treasures. I just need more time to discover them. I also need to go beyond these traditional uses. I have to find some innovative ways to use them and make my students live in a real world.

Tools for Listening

 

More Fun & Fruits

Again and again, I started the third week so late.I try to catch up all the wonderful things my colleagues have done. Week 3 deals with one of the most important skills that we should give it more attention in our EFL classrooms. My students have no input to listen to the English language except for their teachers' voices in their classrooms. Thus, as an EFL teacher, I search all the time for tools and authentic materials that can help my students develop their listening skills, but in a funny way. I just want my students feel happy while learning. Really, this course provides me a lot of tools and treasures that can help me to achieve my goal. Let's know what I have learned during this week.

Objectives of Week 3:

During this week, participants will:

• have an overview of online tools that can be used to develop learners' listening skills.
• choose, at least, two online tools that might be used for listening skills and compare them.
• share their findings with the group.

 

Week 3 Tasks:

Task 1  Listening Treasure Hunt:

 

 

In this task, we were asked to find a hidden listening treasure by clicking on some images in just 30 minutes, then, take notes on what sites/resources I found interesting, their advantages and drawbacks. Actually, our moderators provided us with 12 images and gave us 30 minutes to do so. Really, I liked the idea of the alarm clock. It makes me be concentrated and wanted to find something at the end. 

 

Task 2  Listening Review:  

 

During this task, we were asked to share our listening treasures with our colleagues in our Edmodo group. To be frank, I found a very baby listening treasure. You know, I try to find something interesting, funny and suitable for my students' levels. I clicked almost all images, but No. 10 extremely attracted my attention and interest. It is http://wordia.com. Wordia is a games-based learning resource and video dictionary, which brings words and meaning to life. At the heart of the site is a powerful search engine. You can type in a word that you are exploring in class and it will find as many resources as it can! The search results will include the dictionary definition of that word and, where available, videos that explore the word and its pedagogy. They also include some games which feature the word in a teaching capacity. If there are no games or videos for the exact word, similar words will be shown instead. For example, the search term for 'sea' would also find words about 'ocean' and 'lake'. 

Advantages & Drawbacks: 

One of the drawbacks of this website is that there might not be a video for every word your class is using. In this case, you can encourage your students to explore the meaning of that word, and upload it to the site so that other students may learn from it. Also, I think that it is not suitable for higher levels like high school students. However, it includes a lot of words and videos that can be used by my students. However, I'm sure that my students will love learning by videos. They can listen to the correct pronunciation of words and see pictures that can identify them. All what I think about this website is that my students will learn new vocabulary in a funny way watching videos or playing games. It is a great fun. 

Starting task 3 , I found that 30 minutes are not enough to explore a hidden treasure. Thus, I decided to give myself extra time to know more tools and websites that can enhance my students' listening skills. I will talk about a mixture of two tools in the next post.

Tools for Writing

Again I started this week so late. I have another course that is really fantastic. However, DigiTools course is fabulous too and I liked it so much because I can find time to explore and experiment new tools and exchange experiences with my colleagues. In this week, I tried a lot of tools concerning Creative Writing; one of my interest areas. Before I reflect on my second week, I want to tell you something that makes me a little bit sad and disappointed. You know that everyone has his/her unique ideas and experiences. What do you feel if someone copies your idea and pastes it in his/her connected world as his or hers?  .... so astonished ... so sad? I have a mixed feeling. I'm trying to forget that now and start accomplishing the second week's tasks. I'm so sorry my dear colleagues to say that, but I found myself can't complete the tasks. Maybe, talking about this matter makes me feel relaxed.

Let's start reading my reflection ...

Objectives of Week 2:

During this week, participants will 

• explore some digital tools for writing in the classroom.
• see examples of how these writing tools can be used in the classroom for creative writing and research projects. 
• share ideas on how they would use those tools with their learners.

Week 2 Tasks:

Task 1: Creative Writing: Character, Setting, and Plot:

During this task, I selected three pictures (one character (1B), one setting (2A), one plot (3C)), then wrote a 50-word story-starter. 

Here is the Introduction to my story:

"So strange man with big glasses and cat eyes broke the silence of darkness and said to me "Come with me". I felt scared and ran madly along a narrow street. Suddenly, a yellow bus stopped and somebody dragged me inside. In a minute the bus flew as a bird."

Although it seems easy to write a 50-word story-starter, it took a lot of time to make it creative and funny at the same time. I enjoyed reading my colleagues story starters. All of them are so creative and I'm eager to see how they will end up.

Task 2: Creative Writing Tools Review

In this task, I discovered some new online tools for creative writing clicking on each of the three pictures I chose for my character, setting and plot. Then, I shared two of them with my colleagues in our Edmodo Group. Here is a description of what the tools do, how I would use them, what age group I would recommend the tools for, what is unique about the tool and possible problems or limitations I see:

a) Creative Writing Prompts http://www.creativewritingprompts.com

It is a website including some creative writing prompts that help the students to create their stories. It gives us some starters to begin our stories. I can ask the students to choose a starter that suits them and start their story. I can type these prompts and print them for the students to choose from. This website is suitable for the intermediate (13-15) and secondary (16-18) students. However, I found some starters that suit the primary students like “Use these words in a story or a poem: grandfather, photo album, post office and folder.” I think that I can adapt them to suit all age groups. I don’t like to adopt activities. I have to add my touches. It includes varied 346 starters from easy to difficult. Thus, it matches a lot of students. One of its limitations is that all the prompts are not downloadable. You have to be online and choose your starter. You are going to point your cursor to any number, read the prompt and then write your story. So, if I’m going to use them in my classrooms. I have to type them first and then print them to the students.


b) Bitstrips for Schools http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/

 
It is a cool educational tool that engages students using medium they love – comics. It is 100% web-based with nothing to install. There are hundreds of curriculum-connected activities. As I like to mix tools, I will use both the “Creative Writing Prompts” website and “Bitstrips”. After students’ selection of the suitable starters from the “Creative writing Prompts” website, I ask them to work in groups of three to create a comic narrative with at least 12 panels and multiple characters. The story will be based on the starters that they selected earlier. This narrative must include a middle (a variety of events) and an end. The narration must be in the past tense (Inspired by one of the ready-made activities included in the website of Bitsrips). 

This tool is suitable for primary, intermediate, secondary, university students, and children with autism. In addition to engaging students in their learning process, it teaches them a wide range of critical skills, e.g., reading, writing, social skills, critical thinking, emotion recognition, inference-making, collaboration, and digital storytelling. Moreover, it is a safe learning environment where students can work and create. You have a news dashboard showing you the latest students’ activity. You can also find curriculum-related activities by grade, subject and popularity, assign them to your students, review their work and provide individual feedback. One of the most wonderful features is to create and share your own activities. Another feature is to add classrooms as much as you want. Each classroom includes 40 students. Unfortunately, this wonderful tool is not free. You have just 30-day free trial and after that you have to upgrade.  

Task 3:  Collaborative Writing

During this task, we explored a variety of online tools, e.g.,

• BubbleUs Brainstorming made simple
• Entri  Get feedback on rough drafts / Jot down ideas and share through Twitter
• Google Docs Collaborative writing 
• LiveTyping Collaborative writing
• MixedInk Collaborative writing for groups
• Novlet Collaborative writing of nonlinear stories
• ThinkFree Online Virtual office / Edit documents in your web browser
• Type With Me Collaborative writing
• WriteBoard Sharable web-based documents
• Zoho Writer Online word processor - create, connect, collaborate

I explored all these tools. Most of them are like MS Word, but online. I liked to try new things with my students. That's why I selected  MixedInk. It is very useful for educators. You have to give it a try. Anyway, for this task, I decided to use Anna Conway's starter "The two-year-old boy was trying hard to understand why his mother had turned into this narrow street they had never been to before. The street finished abruptly, and his mother stopped in a place where nothing could be seen. His mother coughed and suddenly a non-existing door opened" and this cool tool. First, you have to create an account to collaborate with me. Also, you have to watch this video ...... http://vimeo.com/2674991 ....... before you start your collaboration to write A Strange Day Story. Here is the link to my story http://www.mixedink.com/#/BeCreative/Astrangeday. Then, I shared the link with other participants in our Edmodo Group. I'm waiting for their collaboration. 

Please wait for my next post in which I will talk about this marvelous tool 
called "MixedInk"

Action Plan

I'm so happy this week because I tried a variety of tools. The most important step to me as  teacher is "HOW" not "WHAT". Actually, this is the last task of this fabulous week. Here is what was required from us to do after experimenting and exploring some tools:

==========================================================

This week you've come across:
Edmodo, Animoto, About.me, Flavors.me, and Prezi

1. Think of how you could use one of these tools with your students.
2. Add your ideas to your own digital portfolio (Consider language goals, digital tool to be used, time frame, steps).

==========================================================

What a surprise for my students!

I'm sure that they will be very happy with all these tools. We will start the next term with a revolution in our classroom. All these tools are fantastic and can break boredom and demotivation inside our traditional classrooms. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to make use of them in a beneficial way. I think that integrating technology doesn't mean the overwhelming use of it in all areas of the syllabus. If we do this, we will turn away from the true meaning of integrating technology. That's why I took a day to accomplish this sub-task.

My Action Plan:

Grade Level: 11th

Language Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, students will:

1. learn about the parts of autobiography.
2. write autobiographies.

Materials Needed:

1. Computers
2. Internet Access
3. Projector
4. "How to write an autobiography" sheet
5. or a graphic organizer of an autobiography.

Digital Tools to be used:

1. Animoto
2. About.me
3. Edmodo

Time Frame: 50 min.

Steps:

Pre-Task (15 min):

1. This lesson will be carried out after training my students on how to use About.me and Edmodo.
2. I tell my students that they are going to write their autobiographies.
3. I ask them to look at the sheet of (How to Write an autobiography) and discuss with them the parts of autobiography. 
4. I tell them that they are going to create their autobiographies using about.me.
5. I present the Animoto that I have prepared with the help of about.me blog's pictures http://blog.about.me/. It includes some models of About.me pages.

Here is my Animoto

During Task (25 min):

1. I ask each student to start creating his/her about.me page.
2. They can use their own photos or pictures from www.google.com that suit them.
3. Once they finish creating their about.me pages, I ask each pair to see each other about.me pages and give feedback.
4. I ask them to share their autobiographies in our Edmodo class.

Post-Task (10 min):

1. Students go to our Edmodo class to visit their peers' about.me pages and leave comments to them.
2.  I ask students to visit the Poll that I created to vote for the most wonderful about.me pages.
3. I will use our Edmodo website to create badges for the winners (Top 5 Winners).

As you see, I can't use just one tool. I mixed three of them in the same lesson. This will match my students' learning styles and intelligences. This doesn't mean that I overwhelm my students with a lot of tools without a goal in mind. Don't forget to use the tool in a beneficial way!

This is my lesson plan. I hope you like it.

Waiting for your comments and suggestions!

First week of DigiTools

As I was so busy at the beginning of this week, I started my DigiTools journey a little bit late. However, I managed to catch up and now I'm about to finish all the tasks. Below is a brief description of all what I have done in the first week:

Week 1 Objectives:

During the first week of the course, participants will:

• Join the group online meeting place.
• exchange introductions and become familiar with the group environments.
• explore some online tools.
• create and/or share their digital portfolios.
• go on a web safari about technology integration.
• reflect upon technology integration in the classroom.
• discuss their own ideas on how they can use those tools with their students.

Week 1 Tasks:

Task 1:  Joining the Digital Tools Wiki

 

1. This is not the first time to use PB Works wikis. Last year, I tried it with the "Personal Learning Network Session". So, it was so easy to deal with the DigiTools Wiki.  
2. I have sent a request to the moderators to join the wiki and waited for the approval.
3. Once my account was approved, I visited my settings to add some details and upload a new photo. Then, I explored all the materials and links to know more about the course and its tasks.

Task 2: Connecting - Getting Started with Edmodo

1. I already had my account of edmodo as a teacher, but I didn't use it a lot. I just created it several months ago as I read about it in one of my favorite blogs. 
2. I joined our edmodo group and waited for the approval.
3. Once my membership was approved, I started to explore our group page and connect to others.
4. I went to my page settings and customized my space, checked my information, changed its appearance, set up my email preferences, filled out my profile and added a new photo.
5. I introduced myself in a few words and replied to several notes.
6. I identified 4 or 5 colleagues who took other courses with me last year. I was so happy to meet them again.
7. I sent some connection requests to other colleagues to be my friends and share ideas with each other later.

Task 3: Your Story - Introducing Yourself, Establishing Bonds, Socializing

This task was divided into two sub-tasks:

1. A story of who We are:

We were asked to introduce ourselves. There were a lot of options through which we can tell our stories, e.g., writing a poem, adding a video, a PPT, a photo, or just words. It's up to us to decide on how we are going to introduce ourselves with our own story.

I  had to find my own unique way to tell my story. Checking all the tools provided (animoto.com, about.me, flavors.me & prezi.com), I selected about.me. It is a very wonderful and interesting tool. I prepared my introduction, accessed our Introductions Activity in our EDMODO group Discussion Forum and added the link to my story. Click here to see my page.

I also introduced myself by another tool that is too dear to my heart. It is Glogster. This tool is an amazing way to incorporate texts, sound, videos, images and links at the same place. Here is my glog that I created last year:

To know more about how to create a glog,
please visit this Post !

2. Take a seat and interact:

We were asked to take a seat and "listen" to others at the Introductions Area, check their stories, and interact with, at least, two other participants. Really, I was impressed by my colleagues' introductions. They used a variety of new tools, not just the tools provided, e.g., voki.com, edu.glogster.com, dvolver.com, voicethread.com, brainshark.com, portal.sliderocket.com, slideshare.com, podbean.com, ... etc.  I replied to some participants, e.g., Ms Chistyakova, Lorena Arevalo, Ms Da Silva Castro ... etc. I also learned how to view my name "first and last" from Maria. I like this sense of helping each other. This is the first time I participate in a very rich space where I can find a lot of experiences, tools, and interactions among participants. I think that I'm lucky to be one of those learners here. 

Task 4: Your e-Portfolio - Deciding for your Online Space

We were asked to choose an online space to keep our tools, reflection, collection and receive feedback from our peers in what we have been producing. Some of the platforms were provided to select from, e.g., blogger.com, wikispaces.com, pbworks.com, posterous.com, and wordpress.com.

Actually, I tried all these tools before and I had accounts for all of them. The online space that I like most is blogger.com. So,I decided to use my blog Azhar's Reflections to reflect on my experiences of DigiTools Course. Since you are here to read this post, this means that you are visiting my e-Portfolio now. Then, I shared my space portfolio with my colleagues at our Portfolios Page. I also had a look at some e-portfolios of other participants and left comments to them.

Task 5: Web Safari

We were asked to check the Technology Integration Matrix and reflect upon where we are nowadays and where we'd like to be according to our own educational context. Then, add our thoughts to our Edmodo Group Discussion.

Checking the Technology Integration Matrix many times, I found that I'm at the "Authentic Transformation Level". I will not repeat what I have read about this level in the matrix, but I will give you a real example.

My students decided to serve their beloved country "Egypt" after the Revolution of 25th Jan, 2011. They noticed that the rate of tourism dramatically dropped and the tourists feel very afraid to visit the Mother of the World.  They created a wiki called "Welcome Back Egypt" through which they sent an invitation to the whole world to come back to Egypt again. They created a variety of products, e.g., essays about the most beautiful sites in Egypt, movies, glogs, posters, PPT presentations, vokis, and facebook group. Every student selected the tool that suits his/her style of learning and intelligence. 

They communicated with a lot of people from all over the world. This is not the end. They trained other people around them, e.g., friends, colleagues, brothers, sisters, parents and even their teachers. Other teachers from other countries considered my students as a Model to be followed in their classrooms. They talked about them to their students to encourage and empower their capabilities. Here is an example.

My role was just a facilitator and a guide. I just prepared some tutorials and then let them try and explore together. Surprisingly, my students started to create tutorials for their colleagues. They also asked me to create their own wikis to start their learning journey alone. I think that my students are about to reach the Goal Directed Transformation Level. They are empowered to extend the use of technology tools and have greater ownership and responsibility for learning.


I almost finished week 1 tasks. I have just one thing to do. It is how to make use of these tools in my classrooms. Please, wait for my coming post!

EVO 2012: Digital Tools in the Classroom

Brief Description: 

Interested in learning about new web tools for your classroom? Come and learn about digital tools with purpose. Be part of an international group of educators who are always looking to share best practices from their classrooms. How can you help learners develop 21st century multiliteracy skills through active learning enhanced by the right tools for your specific pedagogical needs? In this five-week online workshop offered through the Electronic Village Online, participants will be introduced to various online tools and will learn how to effectively incorporate these resources into their teaching practices. By the end of the workshop, participants will have had an overview of simple ways to spice up their lesson plans to promote students' creativity, engagement and learning.

Moderators:

1. Ana Maria Menezes
2. Carla Arena
3. Cheryl Oakes
4. Erika Cruvinel
5. Jane Petring
6. Kathy Epps
7. Mary Hillis
8. Nina Lyiulkun
9. Saša Sirk

Objective of the Course:

By the end of this course, participants will have:

• had a hands-on experience on how to take advantage of digital/online tools.
• explored some web2.0 tools that can give support to student-generated production.
• understood the processes through which students can successfully use digital tools to enhance their learning.
• seen examples of different types of digital tools in use.
• suggested activities based on the tools they explore.
• networked with other participants and shared visually appealing and conten-rich possibilities for their educational contexts.
• understood the potential of digital tools to foster multiliteracies in the 21st century classroom.
• enhanced their media literacy skills to meaningfully incorporate digital production into their lesson plans.
• explored the different tools as a sandbox for future classroom use and shared with peers.

Reasons Behind my Choice:
The main reason behind my choice of this course is that I want to know more about how to use "edmodo" with my students. Really, edmodo attracts my attention as it is a safe environment for my students to interact and discuss assignments required. It also includes a great system for grading and creating badges to award them. I think that it is a very fruitful tool to use in EFL classrooms. Another reason is that this course provides me a lot of new tools, e.g., about.me, flavors.me, animoto.com, posterous.com, prezi.com, ...etc. Moreover, it helps me to know more about how to use these tools to develop my students' language skills, e.g., writing, speaking, reading and listening. I'm sure that I will enjoy all the coming five weeks.

Resources Used:

1. http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/48510148/Call_for_Participation2012
2. http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/48526238/Digital_Tools2012

A New Year 2012 .... A New EVO 2012

As I cannot stop learning, I keep searching for any chance of lifelong learning and professional development. One of the most interesting areas that I admire is to use technology and to try new tools. I have tried a lot of these magical tools, e.g., blogger, wikispaces, glogster, voki, facebook, sites.google, delicious, podcasting, ... etc. I love them so much as they add spices to my professional life. Really, they changed my way of teaching. I managed to move my students from a world filled with memorizing information to a world filled with fun, creativity and thinking. There is a huge difference.

As I enter a new year "2012", I want to try more and more tools to help my students and make them happy while learning. EVO 2012 Sessions can achieve my goals and bring life to my classrooms. For five weeks in January-February, participants and ESOL experts can engage in collaborative, online discussion or hands-on virtual workshops of professional and scholarly benefit. These sessions will bring together participants for a longer period of time than is permitted by the land-based convention and will allow a fuller development of ideas than is otherwise possible.

Don't forget that these sessions are free and open to anyone around the globe. This year, there are 14 online courses. You can choose more than one and start your journey. To see more courses to choose from and join, please go to the following website:

http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/48510148/Call_for_Participation2012 . Just click the course you want to try and follow the instructions included.

Don't miss this opportunity! 

It comes with every new year to tell you that you can make a difference in your life and your students' lives too. Please go there and start your journey to learn how to teach English for Fun!