Annual Dinner by MSAL NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi

An Annual Dinner (AD) organized to honour the qualifying Batch I of the MS (Applied Linguistics) NED University Karachi. It was a wonderful event celebrated gathering all the batches (I,II, III and the first batch of BS) under one roof. It whereas gave opportunity to look the beautifully dressed males and females (some so beautifully dressed that even unable to be identified). Some of the males were never seen clad in full suits and were quite fascinating, while some of the females were never seen out of scarf, surprised many. Dressing code being the black tie for males and black and red for the females, added some affiliation and intimacy to all the participants, students, faculty, and guests.

The event exposed different hidden talents, dressing, talking, singing, humoring, flattering, photographing. Hundreds if not the thousands selfies were clicked.It was a busiest event on Facebook that night, liking and commenting the posts.

Though it hurts to bid good bye, we the teachers are duty bound to bid, willingly or unwillingly. We have wounded fingers, but happy hearts, wounded for we worked and happy for we have ultimately accomplished. At the beginning, that seemed almost impossible, our determination and persistence has

made possible now. Thanks to everybody, every contribution, clue, criticism, taunt, encouragement that made us kiss the destination, eventually.

The learning starts, so far I remember, with the very first task Google map, and the first task on Nicenet, introduction with the quotation, only if I don't forget. It too is worthwhile to share this was the first ever online course that I did. It too appeased my curiosity, how do they manage online stuff? Once the intimation started there started a healthy succession of tech tool building tasks, a variety of highly selected articles that indeed made a worthwhile reading. Week-wise I have preserved all the content so far shared, to review at appropriate time and need. Almost all the responses in Nicenet, I have copied, some of which I could respond, and some didn't. The first most useful concept and tool for me was building blog. This encouraged me the most and I sensed how important and useful this course may be for me and my learners later. The tools that were taught to us I think all are important but the most important are according their effectiveness, particularly in my context.

I built my own blog, and wonderfully it provided me a forum to share my thoughts to a specific readership, comment and receive the feedback. This hopefully I will apply in my teaching while making it a blended teaching class, physical and online. The other important tools include Nicenet, delicious, and padlet.

 Innovative teaching practices like blended teaching require different testing too. Thus the course provided alternative testing tools, like webQuests and different webs and testing tools to help design tests required for transformed pedagogy and tasks.

I am thinking of utilizing this course experience and knowledge as a topic of research for my MS thesis, which might read like: Blended teaching an effective alternative/addition to ELT and the role of latest tech tools to enhance learning and the motivation level of undergraduate students of Functional English teaching: A Pakistani participant's overview.

As an effective teacher, one needs to keep a breast with innovation, as a pre-requisite for survival before the tech-suave generation of today's learners. Trainings and workshops, physical or online need to be offered to ELTs, for which the grants be provided to deserving and motivated teachers. I would highly recommend this course to the ELTs in my country, particularly those teaching at tertiary level.

I can't finish the last post of the course, without expressing my heartfelt gratitude to my course instructor Dr. Donna Shaw from Centre of English, University of Oregon, for her consistent and each mentoring and matchless encouragement. I am equally thankful to all my course fellows for their peer reviews and timely guidance. We have, though taken some steps to keep in contact after the course; I personally cherish a deep held desire to continue for professional support when required, even after the course is over.

Best of luck, all the best wishes and Good bye!

Most sincerely and gratefully yours

Ali

Pakistan

Here it is!

Here finally we wrap up our product applying all our cookery and craft, intelligence and aptitude and present for taste!

We are equipped with many interesting tech tools to give hand in the class, so far. Week nine, aptly presents the articles dealing with the psychological understanding of the class, we are devising activities for: either the active or the reflective ones.

Howard Gardener's theory of multiple intelligence is self awakening. For example: mine is Verbal-linguistic intelligence, apparently. Apart from self consciousness, it is a well exploratory article to evaluate our class strengths and weaknesses of the learners and their aptitude, consequently plan the activities, strategize instruction and set goals accordingly.

To me the most important thing was finishing the plan, for which I am extremely indebted to Victor from Russia, who took lot of efforts and time to mentor to his best. I can hardly forget the consistent and every step mentoring and reminding me of the datelines and targets by my great mentor and instructor, Donna.

To me great satisfaction is that I have submitted my plan, surely not perfect, but feasible indeed and enthralling and effective for the learners indeed.

Regards

Ali

Pakistan

Hi dear all!

We are left with just few steps a head. The more we crawl to peak, the more demanding we find it. Till week 8, I had a query, either I would ever be able to do this sort of activity myself?. Even though I wanted to try these tech tools required for blended teaching, I did not know how to make, wiki, nicenet, and such tools that we inherited ready made. Week eight is the answer. Thus, this week revised rather enlivened all the skills so far learnt in this program. It did ask don't assume, show, don't claim accomplish.

Honestly speaking, the teaching tools and supporting webs, mentioned in the week eight, I just visited and added the links in my delicious just to try and return to at most appropriate time. Some of the teaching tools are free just in their claims, and offer a limited access for the trial period. Yet most of these, like, hot potatoes, easy test maker and tools for teachers are a wonderful treasure of activities and handouts to enrich ELT class. Admittedly though, I just signed up but did not prepare the tests or activities with those, as these resources demand enough time and practice.

Being preoccupied with the plan, to make it just feasible and practical, I put almost all the energies towards it. To the best of my luck, I was assigned a really veteran, highly experienced, and matchlessly encouraging teacher in Mr. Victor Kirillin, from Russia. His timely feedback and comments will surely mentor to improve my week areas.

I can hardly forget to thank my instructor, for her consistent encouragement and reminders to push towards the goal. Her way of each- step guidance, will surely devise an ideal of teacher in my career a head. Thanks dear Donna M'm!

I must too thank all those, who though did not make pair with me, yet, showed their commitment and professionalism to help me guide work out the plan, despite their busy schedules and their own workloads.

Ali

Pakistan

Dear All!

This learning adventure is almost at stone's throw to our destination, reaching where has mixed feelings, feelings of achievement and apprehension of separation, separation of some two months virtual friendship and intimacy.

Twenty ideas for using mobile phones in the language Class room by Hayo Renders is an exhaustive article about the application of mobile phones in the language class room. All the twenty ideas are not equally effective, though, it depends upon the context, education culture and learner motivation to use selective methods for using mobile phones in the class. In my context, in most of the cases, not to speak of using cell phones, even bringing cell phones inside the class is strictly prohibited. The reason is perhaps the limited use of cell phones for simply socializing .In eastern societies; in my case for example the limited use of Cell phones for academic purposes is mainly a matter of affordability: not financial but cultural one.   Yet, the values are in rapid flux, mobile phones if handled adeptly, can make an effective tool for academic purposes, which in my context is simply a matter of time to come.

Another useful language learning tool of the week is Padlet. It is a digital Notice board to attach your publications, creations, selections or any other information of that sort, intended to share with a specific audience. It too is another effective tool, which can be utilized to share desired information, share handouts, assign homework and even use as assessment tool in the class and off the class.

While , so far one computer class, almost all the classes now a days, except language laboratories, are one computer classes, which are connected with multimedia.

Ali

Pakistan

“A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.” Plutarch

Hello Every One !!!

Motto of week six, I would suggest, "transformation of the passive recipients of other people's knowledge into active constructors of their own and other's knowledge."

Week six, like previous ones, brought an exhaustive knowledgeable stuff of articles. The article," Teaching Large Classes II – Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students, by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw is teeming with techniques and activities to handle large classes like the small ones.

Large classes being an indispensable worldwide fact cannot be done away with. It is a research supported fact that "A university student’s attention span is about 20 minutes at most
(and often shorter)". Hence, it requires a teacher to  strategize to engage the large class  audience like  a small class, by resorting to the techniques like, variety, pace, interest, individualization, setting up routines, speaking style, enlarging the circle, collaboration are but a few to enumerate. The activities suggested for the small group, called with whatever the titles, I almost use in my classes and expectedly others too. However, calling with titles strengthen the pedagogy and activity easy to recall and apply.

 Though today's almost every teacher uses PowerPoint presentations in the class, Deborah Healey's Interactive Powerpoint makes us pause and explore to make the large audiences interactive and engaging. It makes a big claim, "not your usual approach" and surely does justify it; particularly the 'blank slide technique' is a wonderful and novel concept for me to usurp audience attention.

 Moreover, presenting with ppt contains "Best Practices in Presenting with PowerPoint". It points out to the interesting facts, like, when to give handouts and why? Different practices I found the most useful and worth practice in my class include, 'don't parrot PowerPoint', 'Time your talk', 'and Give it a rest', 'Mix up the media', 'Hide the pointer'. Advices like these make really practical tips to practice.

Likely, another reading material, is about, "Using Online Assessment in Face to Face Courses". This informative article opens window to assessment tools that can be used in face to face classes. Using Blackboard facility for designing alternative assessment tools requires practice, for it being a novel tool, only then its suitability and effectiveness can be decided. One of the effective tools I found is Pool Manager, which "allows instructors for repeated use."

An equally effective examiner's tool is "Respondus 4.0".  The Respondus is," a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to Blackboard, ANGEL, Brightspace by D2L, Pearson eCollege, Canvas, Moodle, and other learning systems". Moreover, it claims that "Whether you are a veteran of online testing or relatively new to it, Respondus will save you hours on each project."

Ali

Pakistan

Happy Week Five Learning !!!

Week five: which not only marks the middle of the course, it does make the central theme in learning as well. After many insightful discussions and ideas collected for materials designing and materials providing, we enter into the testing phase. Let’s explore the technology assisted testing options, available for an objective testing.

The emerging trends in technology assisted teaching force to explore nontraditional, innovative technology assisted, objective testing, clear and objective grading in trade terms called alternative assessment. This includes, computer-based and computer-adaptive tests (Brown 1997; Dunkel 1999;Yao and Ning 1998), audiotape-based oral profiiency interviews (Norris 1997; Stansfild and Kenyon 1992), and web-based testing (Roever 1998).

In today’s Tech world, with the increased learner autonomy, there is unprecedented need recently to focus examinee autonomy as well. The traditional whimsical grading, that most of our generation had been the victims has been questioned by the tech suave, better known digital generation. The latest Alternative Assessment options available include Portfolios, self and peer-assessment, conferencing, diaries and learning logs,  teacher checklists and observations, performance-based and task-based language testing in which examinees are required to perform real-world tasks in the target language.

In order to make testing more objective and rational, and share the work load of the teacher examiner there are some tech options to be explored. Rubistar is such a tool that enables the teacher examiners to utilize, adapt and apply available rubric data. WebQuest is another project based testing that serves the real objectives of language assessment.

Available as the multitude of assessment options are, it requires the teacher to be choosy to care for the options that really serve the testing objectives, instead of just engaging the examinees.

Ali 

Pakistan