Hi,
Firstly and most importantly a big applause for you all👏. I just finished reading all your posts and comments. It is impossible to comment each individual post, however, I will try to make my own reflection based on what I read and perceived from your posts and comments.
As far as the quality of your posts is concerned, I would like to point out that some of them really stood out and you had also realised it, by congratulating your friends and by pointing out what you really liked about those posts, so now you all have an idea of what is a good post. Keep them as an example of good practice and reflect on them to improve your own posts in the future. When it comes to the comments, I would like to stress once more that by agreeing with your friend's ideas, you also to have to tell us the reason why and explain more about it. Please keep this in mind for the upcoming weeks.
There is another thing that I would like you to change, for those that have not followed the instructions of the first post closely. All your blogs should be name as Name Surname Group A/B. This helps me identify you by the name and the group and it facilitates my grading and reading them. Please edit your names.
However, there are also a few lines that I would like to share with you (so bear with me a little longer this time 😓). As a matter of fact, we all live under the same sky and we are all faced with the same problems and challenges. The change of roles and positions does not change the reality at all, it just brings with it different roles and responsibilities.
When it comes to the importance of technology and integrating it into our classrooms, I do not necessarily associate it with the current situation and the online learning that we are trying to do. This is not the best of the solutions but it is the only solution that we have for the moment, as everything unfolded so fast and none of us predicted this. Online learning requires a lot of planning and training and the use of the Blogger or the Google Classroom are not designed to support online education.
Nevertheless, this course was designed to have a balance between face-to-face learning and online communication and collaboration. The use of the Blogger as a communication platform has proven to be successful and satisfactory during these years and students have enjoyed it. It is a platform where students can reflect on this new experience and share their opinions or any other information, as it allows you to share with a link, image or a video. It is also part of the Google apps, like Google Classroom (which works better for assignments and handing them in to be graded by the teacher). There are certainly other platforms and apps, which might be more efficient and appealing but you need to pay for them.
Having in mind that we all live in the same country and I am well aware of the limitations that this brings with it, we have tried to design the course based on what we can equally access. The internet connection has always been a problem and it will be, the lack of laptops/PC is always an issue and the list of problems can be a never ending one just like anything else in our lives. This takes us to how we would prefer to see the glass as half full or full; are we pessimistic about anything that challenges us or are going to tackle it with optimism. I am more of a fighter type and I am not easily overcome by challenges and difficulties. I try to make the most of any situation and be happy with the little things and make use of them efficiently. Even thought recording the videos and uploading them on the internet took me several hours, I still did not give up as I could hear your concerns that night when it was the deadline.
Mentioning the deadlines, the use of technology means that we become assume more responsibilities as learners and we become more independent. We manage our time better and once there is an issue we can face it from the beginning and not leaving things for the last minute. Cooperating and collaborating with each other is also another benefit of technology. The teacher is not any more the leader but they are facilitators of the learning process and remember we do not have special abilities like "mind reading" or "telepathy". If you do not communicate your problems and challenges, I will never know how to help you.
One last thing that some of your mentioned in your posts: improving your writing skills. Consider the posts that you make as a chance to improve better your English skills. We are not native speakers but we required to have native like proficiency of the language, if you want to compete in the market. Therefore, mind your spelling, your sentence structure and your correct use of English. Most importantly avoid
plagiarism.
Thank you for all the good work and the effort that you have put during the first two weeks.
Bear in mind the following:
