No pain no gain!

Online certification, module 2... wait! did I pass Web 2.0 already? Yes, I did..... and just when I thought I had passed the most challenging course, an even more challenging one arises.
Yes, I am a material creator and designer, an editor, among other things in my current job. I thought, okay, now I have to create a syllabus with activities and assessment methods for this online English course of mine. I thought: great, this is my thing... this is what I do all the time! Wrong!! With backwards design, we have to come up with enduring understanding, which is going beyond Ss' desired proficiency, but rather focus on how this whole learning they will acquire will be relevant to their own life and to the global community around them. What a challenge! My academic world shook completely!!! And I am so glad it did. I am guessing tyhis is the feeling I have to produce in my students to make them come up with essential questions which will assist their learning. I am really glad to be pulled out of my comfort zone and being forced to think out of the box in order to make learning a long lasting, meaningful experience for my future students.

confusion preceeds understanding

The picture is starting to shape up!!!

Almost a month after I wrote my first entry, and after the on campus session we had last week, everything started to be a lot clearer in my head.

Our teacher gave us books of the online courses we would be teaching, sat us in groups and made us discuss what tools (which by the way we are at this point decently proficient at) from the ones learned in our course we could apply with our future students. How fascinating!!! putting what you've learned into practice! That is the best part of learning. My partners and I could think of plenty uses for the Web 2.0 tools in an online English class. That experience was so important because it allowed us to exchange ideas and get feedback on the activities we thought about. I could finally go from "WHAT" to "HOW."
Our next assignment is to create three activities for the courses we'll be teaching, which means we are in my favorite part of learning level: application and creation. I now do not have to convince myself that using web 2.0 tools to teach english makes sense.... I am convinced already!! Confusion absolutely preceeds understanding

Selling myself the idea

Selling Myself the idea....
This is the way I feel about this course. So far, learning about all the tools available for us to use in education has been shocking, if you may. It is unbelievable how many resources there are available for teachers and students to use for a good number of tasks that I was not aware of. Then, it hit me..... My brain started bombarding me about how many things I could do to adjust to different educational or training situations. With Google docs, for instance, the way you can program surveys and show results. It just would be applicable for so many situations. We could have Ss use it for research, oral presentations with visual support, also we could implement surveys with teacher training, customer service, etc.
However, and inspite how wonderful online learning and all these great tools might sound, there is an issue which our instructor mentions in his reflection: limited access to internet and limited knowledge about it. This is relevant to our group course development- a true challenge indeed. What are we going to do with all the knowledge we will have gotten throughout the course, and more importnatly: how are we going to put it to work for our course sake?
I am very concerned about this since for every project I start, I like to have a whole picture in my mind of. And here we are.... four weeks later and the picture is still blurred to me.