Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Aiden and Rita’s session on Blended Learning


To close our round of BaW09 live sessions with a golden touch, Rita Zeinstejer and Aiden Yeh gave us a superb session on Blended Learning. Both Rita and Aiden are skilled, kind, sharing teachers who usually give the final live session during Week 6.
Here is a memento shared by Rita.

Rita showed us samples of what she had done during 2008 with students who planned to take the CAE, and Aiden gave us a look at projects completed by her Internet English group. Both Rita and Aiden demonstrated the great values of blended learning and took us on a wonderful adventure in which we they shared examples of a wide variety of online tools, gave pointers on planning and facilitating online coursework, provided guidance on the use of a variety of online learning environments, gave examples of how they assess and give feedback on student contributions, and much more. They also noted that when one belongs to the appropriate online community (such as Webheads in Action), there are no limits to what can be done through collaborating and sharing experiences. Thanks for being there for us amazing girls!

If you couldn't be with us in person to take part in the inspiring live presentations by Rita and Aiden, please make sure you watch and listen to the session recording. If you were there (or if you viewed and heard the recording), please join us by giving a round of applause in the comments area.

Who participated?

Presenters: Rita (Argentina) and Aiden (Taiwan)
Coordinators: Dafne (Spain / Venezuela)
Week 6 moderators: Hala (Sudan), Dennis (USA), Maru (Mexico)
Participants: Sarah (Spain), Eleni (Greece), Marcela (Brazil), Anitha (India), Biljana (Macedonia), Anisoara (Romania), Analia (Argentina), Mary(Venezuela), Michael (UK), Minhaaj (Pakistan), Kelly (Brazil), Mbarek(Morocco), Robert (USA).
Teresa (Portugal) and Mehdi (Iran) were not able to attend, both sent kind messages and regards to the group.

What were some of the goodies that were shared?

They suggested among others:
Vyew. Used for any time collaboration and live conferencing.
ReadTheWords. Used for pronunciation.
Nick Peachy's blog. Used for daily English exercises.
Blip TV. Used for speaking practice.
SlideBoom. Used to deliver content.

For Music, Arts, and language, please watch:
Jimmy coming Back Home, Schiele,

Aiden's Thematic Podcast Project samples:
Transportation in Kaohsiung, video podcast.
Kaohsiung Taiwan Transportation podcast, photo images + voice over narration.
Forever Single podcast,voice over narration with sound effects

Some of Rita's student’s work samples:
Caeb 2008 Community.
Caeb 2008 Student’s video.
Caeb 2008 Student’s interview.

If you want to get the most from this highly inspiring, informative double presentation, please watch and listen to the recording here.

Rita’s presentation is available here. Aiden’s presentation is available here.

We leave you with an invitation to attend our online graduation ceremony and to join the Webheads in Action community of practice.

Sincerely,

Maru, Hala, and Dennis
Week 6 Moderators

2 comments:

Dennis said...

This was a fitting presentation for Week 6 for many reasons, but here are a few:

-- The presentation touched on all the topics presented during the six weeks of BaW09;

-- both Rita and Aiden showed (through the examples of how they manage their classes) a commitment to co-teaching and co-learning;

-- both Rita and Aiden showed examples of international collaboration;

-- both Rita and Aiden demonstrated their willingness to let their students' needs and interests guide how their classes and class materials are structured;

-- both Rita and Aiden, in true Webhead fashion, shared tools and resources with all of us . . . .

And I could go on and on. However, I'll let others add to my list.

Thank you, Rita and Aiden, for giving us an enormously engaging and informative "double header" today!

Dennis in Phoenix

Unknown said...

An excellent Session!. BAW09 made the right choice of having Rita and Aiden for the last live session. By sharing different etools, resources, ideas, strategies, they will help us keep up with the spark and hunger for endless learning.

Cheers,
Maria pinto