Student centered learning

Adding to my post in the 3rd day, student-centered learning is about helping students to discover their own learning styles, to understand their motivation and to acquire effective study skills that will be valuable throughout their lives. To put this approach into practice, teachers need to help students set achievable goals; encourage students to assess themselves and their peers; help them to work co-operatively in groups and ensure that they know how to get all the available resources for learning.
Learning is thus more a form of personal development than a linear progression that the teacher achieves by rewards and sanctions.

The main principles of student-centered learning are:
The learner has full responsibility for her/his learning .Involvement and participation are necessary for learning .The relationship between learners is more equal, promoting growth, development .The teacher becomes a facilitator and resource person .The learner experiences confluence in his education .The learner sees himself/herself differently as a result of the learning experience. Mutual respect within the learner teacher relationship

Examples of student-centered assessments :
Diaries, journals ,Portfolios ,Peer/self assessment ,Projects ,Group work
Assessment process and student-centered learning involving students at the stage when the task is set:
Choosing the assessment task ,setting the assessment task , setting the assessment criteria
Involving students at the stage after the task is completed:
Making self-assessment comments ,making peer-assessment feedback comments, suggesting self-assessment grades/marks , assigning self-assessment grades/marks ,assigning peer-assessment grades/marks .

Links:

http://www.aishe.org/readings/2005-1/oneill-mcmahon-Tues_19th_Oct_SCL.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student-centered_learning

http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explorations/Archives/2006/Jul/StudentcenteredLearning.html

Benefits of Blogs

If you think about the benefits of blogs, you will get a lot. For the students, it’s a fantastic way of communication and sharing the information especially for those who might not share inside the classroom. It’s also a very good tool that enforce students to read, analyze and synthesis .Blogs create an opened environment for cooperation even with persons don’t know them .It also develops the students skills for searching about the information to write something different and logic .Adding, motivating the students to provide their opinions and suggestions through the comments of blogs . However, blogs are very useful for students as they can access whenever and where ever they are; at home, college, club, garden.
Blogs help the teacher in an amazing way that helps him in the classroom management; he can use it for the home works, projects, and the assignments. Also, he can interact, collaborate and discuss with them using the comments. The teacher can take his break if he plans for it as classroom activity.
Furthermore, teacher can design, analyze, evaluate and enhance the curriculum and the pedagogy .He can also, Share program resources via technology (e.g., print audio, video, multimedia, and the Internet).
Finally and not the last, It’s important to be a good planner for how, when, and where you will blog.

The following are the references:

Ferdig, Richard & Kaye Trammell. (Feb 2004). "Content Delivery in the Blogosphere" T.H.E. Journal. Available: http://thejournal.com/articles/16626/%20.
Farmer, James. (27 July 2005) "How Not to Use Blogs in Education," Blogsavvy. Available: http://blogsavvy.net/how-not-to-use-blogs-in-education.
Downes, Stephen. (September/October 2004) "Educational Blogging," EDUCAUSE Review 39(5): 14–26. Available: http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp?bhcp=1.
Glogowski, Konrad. (27 July 2005). "'How Not to Use Blogs in Education,'" (response to Farmer, 27 July 2005). Blog of Proximal Development. Available: http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2005/07/27/how-not-to-use-blogs-in-education/.

Why WebQuests ?

A WebQuest is a learning activity used by educators. During this activity learners read, analyze, and synthesize information using the World Wide Web .
Learners complete WebQuests as cooperative groups. Each learner within a group can be given a "role.

WebQuests, are a great tool for teachers to use in their classroom. A teacher can search for WebQuests on a particular topic or they can develop their own using a web editor like Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver. This tool allows learners to complete various task using other Cognitive tools (e.g. Inspiration, MS Word, PowerPoint, Access, Excel, and Publisher).
WebQuests may be created by anyone; they are developed by educators.

The first part of a WebQuest is the introduction. This describes the WebQuest and gives the purpose of the activity. Next describes what students will do. Then is a list of what to do and how to do it. There is usually a list of links to follow to complete the activity.

Finally, WebQuests do not have to be developed as a true web site. They may be developed and implemented using lower threshold (less demanding) technologies, (e.g. they may be saved as a word document on a local computer).
The resources on this page are designed to be useful to teacher educators and staff developers who are putting together a course or workshop about WebQuests. There's a lot to choose from!

How to Make Successful Power Point

Power point is one of the Microsoft applications that are very useful in your teaching. To make your presentation attractive and effective, it has to be big, clear, simple and progressive. The next hints may help you
Ø Use design templates
Ø Standardize position, colors and styles
Ø Include only necessary information
Ø Limit the information to essentials
Ø Content should be self-evident
Ø Use colors that contrast
Ø Be consistent with effects, transitions and animation
Ø Too many slides can lose your audience
Take a look in this presentation that may help you.

The strength points of the ICT Program

I’ll speak today about two issues; the strength points of using ICT as tutor, then the types of ICT programs . I'v found a lot of advantages It’s a powerful educational mean specially, when It‘s used properly. The following are some of the benefits:
· It creates some kind of challenging the students.
· The teacher can apply a lot of learning styles
· Enhance different skills
· Available
· Enrich the directed information
· Teacher can take breaks
· Non classroom activities
The most important thing is evaluating the suitability for the programs you will use in your teaching .

You can use the following program carfully in the appropriate situation :

• Drill -and - practice
• Tutrails
• Simulation
• Games

Fantastic day

How to insert a game in your blog is very fanatic and also easy to practice .First you will choose the game you want to insert from any site , then make a copy for the sentence begin and ended with the word embed ( you can find it in the same page of the game ) .
Next , go to the button Edit- Html in your blog and past the sentence . Many sites can help you , try this one .Enjoy ........

Concept map

Actually, I have worked a lot with the concept map in my teaching .It’s very useful in concentration the main ideas or put it in points. So it can be helpful for you whether you use it as worming up , constructively or to summaries .
Most of us draw it by hand, the new thing for me today is the soft ware INSPIRATION. It‘s very fantastic program that helps you in making the concepts map in very easy way.This link may help you to get the program .