My will to bring to kansalaisopisto more...

Lately I have been thinking to use Skype to practice Italian with my intermediate group of students.
I found 3 hours ago through Pinterest this address https://education.skype.com/projects  and I contacted one Italian teacher in Honduras University. I hope we can arrange a lesson when the students can break the ice and introducing themselves in Italian. In fact the Italian will be the only language that they are going to use. It will be a big step for them in order to win the shyness. I have been thinking also to (re)motivate myself using more technology in my job. I think in kansalaisopisto the language learning is still too much in old fashion way. We have talented and devoted teachers. They are smart, they master their subjects (like languages) but they are not using enough other learning methods than book and games. In my opinion, to use platform as skype as a learning resource is one  of the most useful way to learn a language, a culture and built a net.
I have heard comments from my colleagues like this "The students in kansalaisopisto are there just for the company and fun not for real learning, especially languages. They want to learn how to order a beer or buy a postcards". Maybe for most of them this is true. But I know that there are others (maybe a minority) that they want to learn more than that. I know that I need to give them always something new and different. I can propose them stories, games, videos and much more learning exercises. However - to be a teacher means for me to give my students the best opportunities at the moment available. Why? because they deserve that. They choose to take part to my course and I want to give them the best service that they can have it. This includes all learning methods and resources that can be used to improve their language skills and build their self confident to use the language.
I think that - as a kansalaisopisto teacher -I should honor my students just for fact that they choose me as their facilitator. That´s the reason why I want to give them the best service as possible, 360 degrees way of learning Italian language, culture,food, people.Using all the material out there, having always in mind 2 things:
1) what is the best for their learning
2) having fun during the learning
Amen.  

My first lesson as an on line teacher

To be honest my first time went pretty well. I could manage to do everything what I planned and I could interact quite smoothly with the people who were in Nivala. In Haapajärvi the mics didn´t work, they could hear me but I couldn´t hear them.They were anyway using the chat (which is also good tool).We reviewed verbs with the help of the music and some videos. I used Prezi but not the dynamic way (AnyMeeting won´t allowed me): share the screen will make the system too slow. I used normal word documents and shared the screen.
I used some polls too. 3 people on 15 said that it was difficult. 12 said it was fun.
Let´s keep this on positive way. Receiving good feedback is stimulating to continue and do better. I knew the students before hand. All of them studied italian with me from the past 3-5 years and their level it´s different. However I think that this new contest made them quite egual: all of them were experience the online learning. The course was longer than usual: 3 hours. Technologies take time. I tried to cover different kind of learners and I hope the learning went through.

My blended course starts next week: thoughts

Here we go again. Next week, little by little, all the courses will start. And with them challenging. I am full of enthusiasm and I am ready to begin. The real new adventure will be this on line Italian course: we will use "AnyMeeting" as platform. I don´t know the program but it´s cheaper than Adobe Connect. I though that I could use Google hangouts (as my colleague suggested) but I have at the moment over 16 students so it´s not the best solution.I spoke a lot in this blog about the e-learning and the advantages that e-learning can give to the students. However me and the principal we decided don´t take away the social part of the learning.The students will be in the same room and once in a month I am going to visit them. I will then understand the deeply meaning of evaluation: how to evaluate myself at first and how to evaluate the learning. It will be interesting.
I will try to use all the tools what I learnt from my path in OAMK but I am also looking forward the feedback from the students at the end and during the course.
How evaluation in e-learning can be done? by evaluation I don´t mean numbers, but I mean "how can I know that students are learning". And also: using the computer is going to be (for some of them) distracting from learning the language? with Adobe Connect at the beginning I had the feeling that I was learning something new and not related strictly with my field of work (education). At the end I realized that I can use the IT competences also in my classes. Not only books, teachers material form teacher guide.  I started to use programs as Prezi and Popplet also during my classes. Why not try on line course?
My work situation is changing so I have to change according with it. This is only the first step.

this picture is from:
http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/webinar-recording-blended-learning-make-it-work-for-your-district/