Personal Evaluation of the New-Media Course
First of all, I have to admit that my motivation to attend the course was that it is obligatory. I didn't really know what the course was about and when we had the first in-class meeting I was a little overwhelmed by the requirements. I also wondered if it is really sensible to offer a course like that. Of course, I used the internet a lot before but I never dealt with it "professionally". New media and especially the world wide web had always been useful for me for research and e-mail contact but I was never interested in using it more often or even as a means to develop teaching methods. Furthermore, in the beginning of the course, it was hard for me to
follow and I was often frustrated after class. I couldn't find a point in dealing with the new tools and our personal learning environment.
This attitude changed during the course. After 3 or 4 in-class meetings I wondered if there is a reason why this class is obligatory. What was very helpful in changing my point of view was our discussion or role play in which we argued about the reasons for attending this class obligatorily from different perspectives. It was easier for me to be open for the class' topic when we started to talk about teaching methods. By then, I realized the use of the course. Our first field trip to the Martin-Luther-Schule was a very nice introduction into that topic!
By now, I'm really happy that I attended the class. It made me realize that it is part of a teacher's profession to keep being up to date. Teachers have to get familiar to new teaching methods and subjects in order to give their students the opportunity to get to know new fields. If teachers only stick to what they already know, there won't be any progression in terms of education.
Concerning the organization of the course, I think that it was very well structured and planed. I really liked the group research part in which we worked independently. The group-work gave us the opportunity to use the tools and methods we got to know by then and to discuss them with our fellow students. Furthermore, this task referred to our future duties as teachers. When the groups presented their results, I would have liked if there was more time for discussion and questions. I also like the idea of creating an e-portfolio with weebly.com. It's great to actually use the methods we talked about. For me, it's a little success to have dealt with creating a homepage and I'm surprised how easy this could be.
All in all, the course had a great value for me on three different levels: first of all I developed and improved my repertory of teaching methods. I learned how new media can be used in class in a reasonalbe way and how new media can improve the EFL-classroom. Secondly, I learned a lot about new media which I can use for my own studies and further education. I got to know many useful tools as for example netvibes.com or titanpad.com which I already used to prepare group presentations. Last but not least, I got a new perspective on a teacher's profession: it is very important to be open-minded for new ideas. To deal with new subjects means to increase one's possibilities to improve things.
This attitude changed during the course. After 3 or 4 in-class meetings I wondered if there is a reason why this class is obligatory. What was very helpful in changing my point of view was our discussion or role play in which we argued about the reasons for attending this class obligatorily from different perspectives. It was easier for me to be open for the class' topic when we started to talk about teaching methods. By then, I realized the use of the course. Our first field trip to the Martin-Luther-Schule was a very nice introduction into that topic!
By now, I'm really happy that I attended the class. It made me realize that it is part of a teacher's profession to keep being up to date. Teachers have to get familiar to new teaching methods and subjects in order to give their students the opportunity to get to know new fields. If teachers only stick to what they already know, there won't be any progression in terms of education.
Concerning the organization of the course, I think that it was very well structured and planed. I really liked the group research part in which we worked independently. The group-work gave us the opportunity to use the tools and methods we got to know by then and to discuss them with our fellow students. Furthermore, this task referred to our future duties as teachers. When the groups presented their results, I would have liked if there was more time for discussion and questions. I also like the idea of creating an e-portfolio with weebly.com. It's great to actually use the methods we talked about. For me, it's a little success to have dealt with creating a homepage and I'm surprised how easy this could be.
All in all, the course had a great value for me on three different levels: first of all I developed and improved my repertory of teaching methods. I learned how new media can be used in class in a reasonalbe way and how new media can improve the EFL-classroom. Secondly, I learned a lot about new media which I can use for my own studies and further education. I got to know many useful tools as for example netvibes.com or titanpad.com which I already used to prepare group presentations. Last but not least, I got a new perspective on a teacher's profession: it is very important to be open-minded for new ideas. To deal with new subjects means to increase one's possibilities to improve things.