It's Thursday so I must be teaching. The class was on IT for English language teaching, which is an elective for second year MA students. They were in the middle of doing some history of CALL but we jumped ahead to later in the course and I looked and using wikis for collaborative language learning. The standard lectures are 90 mins, so you have an opportunity to get students more invloved than in a 50 min lecture. This suits me fine as once a TEFL teacher always a TEFL teacher and the first part of the lecture involved lots of bits if paper and the students doing all the work. I'm not sure they are used to that sort of thing in a normal lecture and suspect they wondered what this mad Englishman up to. I think it went down well or perhaps they were just being very polite.
Although the University uses a VLE I chose not to use it for the
class as most of the students are or will be teaching in primary and secondary schools, very few of which have a VLE. I thought it made sense for them to look at something they could try for themselves and with their classes. I used PB Works but could equally have used wikispaces as well.
I used the wiki for the presentation as well as showing a small number of example uses.
http://inveniotech.pbworks.com/During the last half hour we had an interesting debate on the whys, wherefores and practicalities of group activities, with a number of contributions from the three members of academic staff who also came to the lecture.
After a planning meeting for next week that followed the lecture, I got back to my flat in time to get something to eat and then watch the election debate on BBC World. Interesting stuff but not nearly as interesting as the Presidential election in Poland is going to be. The Speaker of the Parliament was the favourite to win the next election against the former President who has just died , which has now been brought forward. However, as Speaker, he is now the acting President and has to arrange the election. It is also likely that he will be now running against the former Prime Minister, who happens to be the dead President's twin brother! Interesting times in Poland.
So, today is my last day at AMU. I can't believe that it has gone so quickly and I could quite happily stay longer. Just starting to get into the swing of things and now it's time to go home :-( It has been a great experience and I've been made to feel part of the team by Prof Włodzimierz Sobkowiak, Dr Przemyslaw Kaszubski and Dr Michał Remiszewski as well as the other staff at IFA.
Poland is almost back to normal now as the official period of mourning is over, although many of the TV channels seem to be still devoted to it. The weekend was quite strange, as I thought Sunday, the day of the funeral, would be very quiet indeed. In fact the old town was full of Poles eating, drinking and enjoying the sunshine. Maybe they had all got a bit stir crazy with the wall to wall TV coverage? The weekend was very pleasant with a bit of sightseeing, an excellent version of Don Giovani, lots of good Polish food with far too much fine Polish beer with friends.
Back to work and today is a preparation day for me and I've been spending most of it in the Library (What is it with (some) librarins? All some of them need is a uniform, maybe a hat!) working on this weeks lectures and presentations. Topics include: How do online teaching and traditional teaching differ, a case study of a level one online module and Blackboard vs Moodle - I think we all know the answer to that one. Well, most of us do anyway :-)
It's Thursday so I must be teaching. The class was on IT for English language teaching, which is an elective for second year MA students. They were in the middle of doing some history of CALL but we jumped ahead to later in the course and I looked and using wikis for collaborative language learning. The standard lectures are 90 mins, so you have an opportunity to get students more invloved than in a 50 min lecture. This suits me fine as once a TEFL teacher always a TEFL teacher and the first part of the lecture involved lots of bits if paper and the students doing all the work. I'm not sure they are used to that sort of thing in a normal lecture and suspect they wondered what this mad Englishman up to. I think it went down well or perhaps they were just being very polite.
class as most of the students are or will be teaching in primary and secondary schools, very few of which have a VLE. I thought it made sense for them to look at something they could try for themselves and with their classes. I used PB Works but could equally have used wikispaces as well.
Lectures were cancelled today as the public universities in Poznan joined together in mourning at the Senate. The Senate building is very impressive, as was the turnout which was standing room only. The proceedings included music from an excellent choir and organist as well as a number of speeches which, although I picked up some of, were quite hard for me to follow. The Senate session was followed by an open air public mass, which was notable for the wide age range there including young children and lots of students. Would that happen in the UK?
I'm not sure how my first week will pan out as, to quote Harold Macmillan, my trip has been affected by events. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow - e-learning for the people, by the people and of the people - so I'll be working on that today. Everything is quite subdued but people here in Poznan are getting back to work, so there aren't scenes like those in Warsaw. They may all be inside watching the wall to wall coverage on almost every channel on television - except one that seems to be showing non-stop vollyball.