Week 6. Getting Brighter with Interactive Power Point

     This week I've learnt how to integrate interactive technologies into the classroom and make my lessons memorable. The readings proposed by Robert and Courtney have been extremely helpful as they describe how innovative classroom instruction and student particiption can be achieved through the use of interactive techniques. The articles I've read focus on the powerful impact of the interactive techniques upon students learning. They highlight their benefits of using different interactive strategies in the classroom of different size.
      The main objective behind adopting such techniques while teaching is to remove the boredom among the learners and help them enjoy and comprehend the lesson well. The teacher must initiate interactive sessions in between the lesson so that the learners can voice out their opinions and express their views. In such a way students may dicover that learning is more fun than they previously thought.

      I' m overwhelmed by all the information provided this week. The topic "Interactive power point" has been very interesting  for me. I must admit I didn't know how to use games and quizzes on slides. As we were asked to create a short PPpresentaion. I did my best to make it interactive. I used a Multiple Choice Quiz on Travel Vocabulary, Blank slide and Quick Write. I tried to create a Jeopardy game but I failed, I'll try it later. Now, I'm thinking of some ways to improve/develop my PP and use it interactively in my classroom.
     And finally, I would share some reflections on my project. This week things have taken shape and I've made some steps towards the achievement of my final project.
     In my project I'm focusing on 14 students, (2nd year students) who face some problems: poor writing skills and lack of collaboration. Thus, I've chosen a Project Based Learning type of writing to help them produce quality writing products and collaborate on their writing assignments and namely, a Zunal webquest on making a class newspaper. The newspaper will be on line, and the authentic audience - the other  three classes I teach. This week we've made the first steps.
      On Thursday I met my students and explained to them the essence of the project. I organized a creative brainstorming on identifying the purpose of the newspaper, on what they know about newspapers. We discussed the structure of a newspaper; the difference between a news story and feature story; who is going to read the newspaper; what type of stories could go and the columns/sections of the newspaper. They got excited about the project and I hope they will show great interest till the end and produce nice writings. Tomorrow I'll meet them in the computer lab and I'll make them familiar with the webquest, exact asignments, assessment criteria and some ressources. I hope my plan works and my students like it.
Till next week.