Being a Teacher

 Hello everyone! Hope you're all well!

Today, I just want to express my feelings about being a teacher and what should I do better to teach my students, what should I take in consideration before teaching the new material to my students, such as: doing a lesson plan, setting my goals for the lesson, what I want and expect from my students, the time necessary for the completion of each task and that of the whole lesson, the organization and many more details that I should keep in mind and try to improve myself as a teacher.

 

My experience as a teacher

Firstly, being a teacher wasn't my first option. I always had some doubts and unfortunately still do, although not as much as before. This, mostly because of my previous experience with my old educators and my relation with school in general. But, with the passing of time, I have come to like teaching and see myself as a teacher and I think that it does suit me as a profession. However, as all professions, teaching has its ups and downs.The truth is that teaching is a difficult job and requires a lot of responsibility. Educators spend a significant portion of their time in class with their students but there is a lot more to the role than actually interacting with your students and delivering content.

 But, personally for me, the  main advantage of being a teacher is the opportunity to inspire young people. I've come to realize that I've become very passionate about teaching throughout my university studies, especially during the teaching practice in my second and third year of Bachelor degree. I think that if you're passionate about your job, if you like it, that same vibe or positive energy and attitude will be transmitted to your students as well. In contrast, if a teacher looks fed up or unhappy with what she's doing, this could have a negative effect on her students and lead to class failure.

Also, teachers should be masters of of their subject matter. What do I mean with this? I'm saying that we should have both a profound knowledge of language and teaching skills and exhibit that in our classroom. We should spend more time to gain new knowledge in our field, develop  ourselves, our knowledge and present the material in an enthusiastic manner and instill a hunger in our students to learn more on their own.

Moreover, we should know how to manage the classroom effectively, create an organized, structured environment  with an emphasis on on positive educational atmosphere that is conducive to learning.Here, come in hand many different types of teaching strategies in the learning process that we can use in our classroom so that we can meet the needs of different students an keep student's attention.

 Furthermore, the most important thing that affects students and us is the relationship that we create with one another. How we treat our students, the way we talk, our tone of voice, our attitude, the expectations that we set for our classroom and many more. I believe that helping students to understand a tricky topic, encouraging, motivating them and being a source of support through a difficult time and seeing them succeed is unbelievably rewarding and that's what teachers aim for day after day should be.

But, in order to do all of this we need a lot of experience, knowledge, to know our students, the classroom environment, problems that might arise through the process of teaching, as the ones that I learned today during my teaching presentation with Fatjona and also accept the advice and criticism of others and use it to your advantage the next time you teach a lesson.

That's all for today, I don't want to add more as this could keep me up all night again and I'm already exhausted for today, so - Goodbye everyone and see you next time in class!

Programs / Platforms to make a digital lesson

 Hello everyone!👋 What’s going on? How you feeling today? I hope you're all doing well!

This week has been extremely busy and overwhelming sometimes, but it also has taught me many new things about teaching and learning online, how to make  an interactive PPT presentation while working in pairs and of course learning new tech tools and features in the process of doing so.

The first task that we had was: How to make an Interactive PPT presentation using at least three (the minimum) interactive features  or more, that we had to create ourselves and then share it with the classroom. This was a very engaging task, it kept me all day in front of the computer while reading the instructions in the tutorial our teacher gave us as well as other sources I found on YouTube and different webpages on google. It took me a lot of time to do the features but it was worth it. I truly enjoyed it. I learned how to use the action button, hyperlinks, animation, GIF, triggers, etc in order to make the lesson more interactive for my students. Moreover, what I actually realized through this process is that even though Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most user-friendly and popular apps, it has plenty of power hiding underneath the hood, that maybe many are not aware of and I think mainly because it takes time to find those features and make the most of out them. But, once you find these feature, you can't do without them, as it happened to me. So, I'd definitively suggest the usage of PowerPoint for your future presentations. Why?

Let’s look at some of the reasons why PowerPoint is still important in business:

1. 

   Microsoft Power Point
   

   It’s controllable

By the visual help that PowerPoint provides, it is easier to set a theme and reassure that the performance of the presentation is running smoothly. Also, by the variety of tools offered, the presenter can decide which part of the presentation is worth focusing on.

2. It engages with the audience

By putting the right content onto the slides (such as graphics, images, videos), it will allow the audience to create a fuller picture in their mind and remember the key message more.

3. It can help you persuade

Whether you are trying to sell a new idea to your colleagues or persuade your clients to invest in your proposal, PowerPoint will help you improve your presentation and maximise the power of your story.

Secondly, another important task was: "How to create a WebQuest using Zunal.com or BookWidgets?", an interesting program that our college, Meglina suggested to us. Let's focus on these two programs.

What is Zunal?

Zunal is an easy way to create a web quest with more thousands of users. Zunal.com provides a web-based software for creating web quests in a short amount of time without writing any HTML codes.

What are its pros and cons?

Pros	Cons
•Easy to use, engaging, and novel •Mobile friendly •Collects user statistics •Create 50 web quests at $20/3 years •Templates provided •Resources easy to add •Bank of prepared web quests to use or modify	•Free temporary registration •Create 1 web quest for free •Online resources may or may not be suitable or appropriate

 

For more info on how to create a WebQuest using Zunal.com, please click to watch the video below:

Now, what about BookWidgets? What is it?

BookWidgets is an easy-to-use platform for creating interactive exercises like exit slips, games, timelines, photo- and video-based activities, and more. It integrates with other programs like Google Classroom, Canvas, and Moodle. A diverse library of widgets can be used to support all subject areas. Widgets are grouped by test and review (exit slips, flash cards, quizzes, timelines, and worksheets), games (bingo, memory, and crosswords), pictures and videos (hot-spot image, YouTube player, and image carousel), and math (active plot, charts, and arithmetic). Teachers can also embed PDFs, Google Maps, and Wikipedia articles.

Teachers can customize each of the widgets, and a wizard walks them through the building process. Teachers can share finished widgets as a link or embed them on any website or through Google Classroom. Analytics allows teachers to track and assess student activity.

Is it free? You can try BookWidgets for free for a month, after which you have to pay. The material you create during the trial month remains available. You just can't adjust it anymore without a subscription.

Which of these programs should you use? Which one is better?

For me, personally, I think both programs / platforms are absolutely fascinating and easy to use, although it does require some time to adjust to them at first, but with practice we can get the hang on them and build the best WebQuest or digital lesson for our students. We just need to be patient and practice more to get the results that we want  in order to meet our student's needs. However, if I would compare them, I'd say that BookWidgets is much better in some ways as it has many other features and activities than Zunal.com does, although everyone has their opinion and choose what it's more suitable for them. I actually chose Zunal as my first WebQuest attempt, but next time or in the future I'd also like to use BookWidgets or other platforms that I might find available.

That was all for today. If you could give any other recommendations of other platforms or tech tools to use, I'd really appreciate it! Have a nice evening everyone!😊Buy!🙋 

Here is the link for my WebQuest: http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=760033.