Reflection 6: Education is a route, not a destination

Week six came, it stayed with us, and, now, it is about to leave. However, many were the precious gifts it brought to us and which, at the same time, enriched us as professionals in the field of education.

To begin with, we all learned about the advantages on implementing PowerPoint presentations in our classes. Although I must confess here that it was kind of difficult to follow the creation process, with the help of videos from YouTube you can find many different ways to create activities that go from a quiz to a game. Definitely, using PowerPoint presentations is a very useful and powerful technological resource when what we want is to bring a change into the classroom. In addition, I really find the page Creating Interactive PowerPoint Presentation for Teachers and Students done by Drs. Terry & Cathy Cavanaugh of Florida Center for Instructional Technology, USF very clear, informative, and useful. I really recommend it.


Secondly, I want to express my admiration for those instructors who have to deal with large classes (60 or more)for it is extremely demanding and exhausting. Luckily, I don´t have to deal with such classes, but it does not mean that I have to ignore the possible activities that can be carried out for groups like those since some of those activities can be developed with any kind of class. In my case, I have used games such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire for my classes with much success. This week that we are about to start, I am going to use the PowerPoint presentation of grammar for my Grammar Advanced class which is great because it will be a type of review of the material covered so far in these 5 weeks of classes.

Finally, I am very happy and thankful for the helpful resources found throughout this course. Not only have we learned a lot on sites and technological devices, but also we have put them into practice, which, I think, is the ultimate goal of any course with the nature of this one.

This week, my Grammar Advanced students are going to give me a report of the Final Project on Zunal WebQuest implemented as a response to problem emerged in the course. This final project (in pairs or individually, and according to their field of study, students will provide an in-class activity on a topic that we were not able to cover due to lack of time)will be presented next week, and it has been an extremely useful activity for now we have to cover the rest of the topics contained in the course program. Moreover, I am extremely proud of my other project that has come out as a result of this course: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, an ESP Blog for now my ESP students from Pre-Intermediate 3 have started writing; a situation that hardly occurs within our normal classes due to time problems. Here, they, after having read the book and watched the movie, have to write a minimum of five entries and they also have to comment on their classmates´entries. This whole idea and activity of intergatring the movie, the book and now the blog has been very rewarding for all of us. There is no doubt, I am going to continue putting this activity into practice.

As it can be seen, Education is not a destination; it is a route that we all have to help to expand by finding the necessary devices and ways to make each class unforgettable and useful. Let´s all transit through the highway of learning!