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La Motivation

A Growth Experience that I will Remember!

   Earlier this year, I've set two goals for 2014. One of them was to give a presentation at a local conference. For over one year, I kept procrastinating this moment, but reflection lead me to pack my bags and jump for the adventure when I received this mail.

I've attended  web conferences , this time was different because I'll be the presenter! I've started working on my presentation, doing some research, getting in touch with other presenters, and getting trained on how to use the Blackboard collaborate platform, that  hosted all the conferences of the #RSCON5. The event took place 11th- 13th July, 2014 and featured 50+ presentations, 11 keynote speakers, 3 panel discussions, and a tech/app swapalooza.
   A group of skilled volunteers working day and night to make this global event a success-and it was! They were working on facebook, twitter, google+, and Ning,  before, during and after the event. Assuming different roles, most of the volunteers were also presenters at the conference, which made the task even tougher for them. The point is that they are volunteers, presenters, investing their time and comfort to make of this event a success, to inspire educators, to spread a culture sharing knowledge, spread a culture of tolerence, openness, hard work and a supportive community of educators worldwide. Through making connections with other educators and sharing ideas we make our teaching practice a better one for the benefit of our learners, and teachers can expand their PLN via various social media and platforms.

Presenters get the necessary support to promote their sessions through flyers, posters and badges to post to different social media. Here are mine

Attendees get badges from presenters for being to their sessions, they also get certificates of attendance.
Many who were to my session received this badge:

Recordings are available to view. Not only those of the RSCON5, but also those the previous ones. That makes of it a library of resources, ideas, tips at one's reach.

screen capture of my session info

There were 30 people to my session, people ready to be inspired from different parts of the world. Marijana Smolčec a felow teacher from Croatia, Marcià Lima from Brazil, Ayat Tawel from Egypt, Peggy George from the States, Najoua, Nadia, Kamel from Tunisia, Cécile from France... and many others... thank you for being to my session and being ready to share my experience. I received a lot of positive feedback, and the discussion was rich. You can view the session by following the link of the recordings in the paragraph above. 

I was really wowed by the presentation of Amy Burvall  RemixED: The Power of Remix, Mushup, and Recontextualization in the classroom. I wouldn't tell you more about it just to make you curious to view her session.

...It took me some courage to decide and I said YES, just as Chuck Sandy said ' I had no idea what I was doing. I mean I learned how by doing it'. I still have a lot to learn, this one was a growth experience that I will remember!

Change ... And the Journey Begins

   

       

    I'm proud to be one of the 200 quarter finalist educators, selected from a total of 2000 applicants to integrate the TAT, The Tech Age Teachers program. This Project is the first of its kind in the MENA region that IREX , in partnership with the Dream Blue Foundation , initiated ''to bring the successful Tech Age Teachers model to Tunisia'' (quoted from  News article delivered January 28, 2014 on the IREX site).

                                     

what the press in Tunisia says about the project

This stage of the program will enable half of the  selected number of  participants to access the semi-finals by August 29th, 2014, after a total training of 8 hours/week over 5 weeks, at the end of which we will, hopefully, get to the next stage of the program. But how we get to the next stage is the question.

         

 

            Well,   the process was clearly stated for transparency and equity for all the participants... During the first stage of the training we will be evaluated according to our keyboarding scores. Keyboarding is a skill that many teachers do not give importance to. At the beginning of the 1st stage participants will evaluate their keyboarding speed and work to make it better, and by the end of the training they will be able to measure their progress via a software that enables users to measure keyboarding speed scores.  Attendance, and punctuality is another requirement to get to the next stage. Presence is checked via a software, you log in and you are saved, you are absent and you lose 2 points of the session attendance score. But what if you come late? As the saying goes "Time is money", in the program, time is money. Being late from 1 to 5 minutes costs you 1 dinar, and you keep paying one dinar for each 5 minutes of delay. That is one of the rules to respect... Let's get back to the criteria of evaluation, another one is doing homework assignments and sending them to the server in due time, adds to participants 2 points to their score. More important is the motivation,to make a difference in all what you do you need to be motivated, that's why it's among the evaluation grid, TAT participants/ finalists need to inspire their students and other educators and lead the march towards  change.

I'll post more about the coming training sessions soon, stay tuned!

It's a Great Challenge Unlearning Being a Traditional Teacher

I've used thinglink to curate resources, just click the small buttons on the left side and a new window will pop up.




Here is My Six words memoir, I've used Gimp for the background image and Haiku Deck for the 6 words memoir story. Haiku Deck is a discovery, it's the first time that I've used this tool. I find it's a great tool,
though.

 
           
Unlearning being a traditional teacher is the challenge - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

My Prince Charming

   

I love this song as it reminds of my childhood secret lover... How he used to be  close to me without declaring his love or without me declaring my love to him. The first time I heard the song, it stirred childhood memories; memories of the time I was innocent just acting without reflecting on consequences. Doing things as they come, without premeditation and that's what makes the difference between who we are and what we used to be when we were kids... we used to spend unique and exciting moments playing and walking. I was only a child and I assumed the role of a guide when he came with his mom to visit us. I would take him downtown, show him places, shops and we would tell each other stories, he would teach me tricks and games ...  I don' t remember that, but my aunt told me that we were lost in town more than once and how they spent hours looking for us. I was impressed by him. In short, he was the 'Prince Charming' for me ... But I was neither his Snow white, nor Cinderella, nor any other princess for him... And it took me some time to realize that!

Who Stole Curiosity?

 According to Douglas Rice in the 'Curiosity Manifesto' people could be categorized under three mindsets - The Period (.) - The Exclamation Mark (!) - The question Mark (?)

                                           Mirror... Mirror on the wall ... Who am I really?

    It's difficult to think of me as one specific mindset. It depends on the periods and many other factors. As a child I remember that I was a big (?) inquisitive and very curious, always asking questions and reflecting. And I remember that I asked challenging questions to adults they wouldn't even think of, to be able to answer. I remember myself lying down on the ground watching lines of ants, noticing their behaviour when the ants from opposite directions would meet, they would stop and 'greet' that's what I thought.

                      
                        Photo credit to: János Csongor Kerekes 'Ajnagraphy'

 It's then that I've noticed a typical smell the ants had, a smell that I lost track of when I grew up. It seems that's the pheromone. My son reminds me of myself when I was a child. Asking questions, examining things with all his senses. Touching, smelling them... It's strange but it seems that's something intrinsic, curiosity engages the various senses.

                              The moon... A physics lesson I learnt at a young age.  
                            Photo credit to: Anthony Jones (AWJ-photography)

 Once, while on our way driving back home, I was looking out of the car window to the sky. It was clear, and it was a full moon. The landscape changed as my father drove the car, but the moon was there following us. That's what I told my dad! It's then that I was told that's because we were moving, the moon was on its place... Strangely , that's what my son told me, he made the same remark!
There are a lot of other memories that I could recall that testify of the inquisitive child I was...

It's those questions and inquiries that shape the way people are. Some families, teachers, encourage those inquiries, by pushing the questions even further, and others would become barriers with or without noticing it, by adopting the wrong  attitude.

   At school, however, I can't forget one of my teachers. Once a week, we would spend a session asking questions, talking about things that have nothing to do with the lessons, I mean the curriculum, but they were lessons to me, the ones that I will always remember. I would spend the week looking for questions to bring to the classroom to ask the teacher, that was back in the late 80's and we didn't have internet, I was doing it for two things, to learn and to impress my teacher with the questions I prepared.

  Being a passionate EFL teacher myself, I know that curiosity is the motion to true learning, I mean learning per se, not for the sake of sitting for exams, but for lifelong learning. Just by doing things differently than the way the others did.

    I remembered how I liked, and still like, playing with play-doh. So I said to myself why not bring it to the classroom; if I liked it then they- my students- must do. That sounds weird as an idea! When showing my pupils the play-doh they said they were in a secondary school not in a kindergarten! ... and they were reluctant to play, after giving the instructions ( Students write words and hide them, then they make other  students, the eyes closed, touch the letters and guess the word to review vocabulary from the previous lesson)... They were so engaged in the activity that I had to snatch the play-doh from them to move to the following activity.

    At some moments of my life, I could be a (.) person, passive and indifferent, but not for a long time. That leads me to talk about the barriers for curiosity. We are leading a hectic life! Between the duties of house chores, children, their schooling, and my duties as a teacher, you may imagine...
   Sometimes what gets in the way of being curious is fear, fear from looking or sounding ridiculous by following the threads of curiosity, by thinking out of the box...And what if we forget about the box and push the boundaries of our potential? If you may be ridiculous because you do not conform? Anyways you may not know if you do not try... By getting out of one's comfort zone there are two options, either we fail. If so, we learn from the experience and we develop. Or, we succeed and we learn and develop. In both cases, we will learn and evolve. So it's better to give it a try and learn to evolve than stay in one's comfort zone to freeze and die (metaphorically) .
    Moocs, for me, seem to provide a good and safe environment that favors inquiry, besides being a community of like-minded people, it's an opportunity to developing one's curiosity and nurturing it.

   I came across this quote by Jean Piaget "If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society"
   Did you get the message?

Interview with Scott Thornbury

Scott talks about his recent research into the communicative approach and shares some experiences of what's happening in the classroom and how teachers can measure their beliefs and methodology. Scott also shares the background behind his ELT conversation with Jeremy Harmer and the 35 year celebration of the Cambridge University Press methodolgy handbook series.

Interview with Rustom Mody

Rustom talks about the British Council's use of radio as a channel for supporting teacher development across India, with it's Teaching English Radio series.
The British council is supporting English teachers all around the globe with projects for professional development. And it's doing the same in my country ,Tunisia. Last year, I had the chance to be a guest with a bunch of other teachers in one of the radio series "Using group work in large classes".
 I found this statement of Mody very interesting: "Training is only one side of professional development, and training alone is not enough to change attitudes, to change classroom practice, and to change the way the children learn in the classrooms..." I agree with Rustom Mody because teachers need support, a sense of belonging to a professional community.
 One of the projects Mody mentioned in his talk was m-learning as part of professional development... just a couple of minutes films and there you go! CPD adapted to modern times and to the hectic life teachers are leading.

IATEFL

Nik Peachey talks about the upcoming Digital Skills for Employability panel which will be streamed live on this site at 5pm Wednesday (02 April) UK time. He also talks about his recent project to crowdsource funding for a digital publishing project. - See more at: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2014/sessions/2014-04-01/interview-nik-peachey#sthash.eFJMl66h.dpuf

Nick Peachy talk about the upcoming Digital Skills for Employability panel which will be streamed live at 5pm Wednesday April 02nd UK time. He also talks about his recent project to crowd source funding for a digital publishing project.

Nik Peachey talks about the upcoming Digital Skills for Employability panel which will be streamed live on this site at 5pm Wednesday (02 April) UK time. He also talks about his recent project to crowdsource funding for a digital publishing project. - See more at: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2014/sessions/2014-04-01/interview-nik-peachey#sthash.eFJMl66h.dpuf

Nik Peachey talks about the upcoming Digital Skills for Employability panel which will be streamed live on this site at 5pm Wednesday (02 April) UK time. He also talks about his recent project to crowdsource funding for a digital publishing project. - See more at: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2014/sessions/2014-04-01/interview-nik-peachey#sthash.eFJMl66h.dpuf

Interview with Nik Peachey, April 1st, 2014, IATEFL

My 321 Intro for The 30 Goals Challenge