Week 8

It's incredible how much you can grow and develop your ideas towards setting up projects for your classes just by reading other people's project reports.

My peer reviewer is Cherry Goyal from India. She has got such an ideal setting for carrying out projects like these. Her only constraint is time, forty-five (45) minutes per week (not enough). In my case, my students have 2 sessions of ninety (90) minutes per week, but we don't have computers for teachers or students nor projectors.

This week, at MFL Academy they have installed a router, so now we have WiFi. Yeah!!! They got really excited when I told them about it and I immediately asked them to download an app (Blaving) on their mobile phones. When they had it installed, I started with the basics, introducing themselves. I told them we would be having more oral assignments (I decided not to use the word "homework" as I usually get a negative reaction when they hear it) from now on. They love the idea!

I hope we can get at least a laptop and a projector any time soon. I would love to show them how to set up a blog and deliver tutorials on how to get around certain sites. I have planned to get my classes to be more friendly with the environment and try using less paper for assignments by using more technology. I know this is going to be a gradual change but I am looking forward to making it happen.

By the way, has any of you ever thought about using Ustream or Mixlr to develop mainly the speaking skill. Maybe setting up radio or tv show projects for students. It could be great to try.

Miguel.-