Week 2: Various Web Search tools and The A.B.C.D. method of writing objectives

Week 2 in this course has been comparatively quite challenging for me. I have been very busy throughout this week in my Web Skills course. As a coordinator of Comilla BELTA Chapter, I joined South Asian Teachers Associations Peer Support Review followed by 6^th BELTA International Conference from January 16, 2013 to January 21, 2013 in order to strengthen the performance BELTA (Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association) and my Chapter. I moved to Dhaka from my district, Comilla and stayed there for those days. We participated in a 2-day workshop lead by George Pickering, an experienced educational coach, consultant and trainer. This PSR event helped us and other members from the regional TA network to review BELTA’s activities and make constructive suggestions to make it more effective from our findings and observation. I also led a team of 23 teachers who attended this conference from Comilla BELTA chapter and returned my district on January 22, 2013.

However, I had to manage time to focus on the second week of my course. This very week has been a great experience for me to shape the way I use website so that I can get maximum benefits from it and can manage the best recourses from web search tools to integrate these into my teaching. I come to know that Google is “not the best choice if you are looking for academic sources or their specialized needs” (Healey Deborah, 2009)” Apart from Google, I discovered a number of web search engines which can be best used for designing ELT lessons. Before week 2 in this course, I had outdated idea about web search tool. Besides, I also learned some useful ideas for making any web search successful such as avoiding articles, using quotation marks, using and (+), not (-), and or to limit or expand my search (Healey Deborah, 2009) while entering a key word or phrase into the basic entry pane of my search engine.

The A.B.C.D. method of writing objectives is another important skill I have acquired from this course. I learned our lesson for ELT class will be more effective if we compose the lesson objectives which include Audience (A), Behavior (B), Condition (C), and Degree (D). I have also practiced composing the objectives of a lesson by following the A.B.C.D. method. I also learned that objectives should be overt and observable performance and should include behaviors to observe (Pennsylvania State University's Teaching and Learning office). Bloom’s revised Taxonomy and using appropriate verbs to write objectives are also essential learning experiences from week 2.

In order to prepare my project task, I have selected one of my classes to try out a web technology with my learners and have described it on Nicenet. We have been informed that selecting a class is the initial step in working towards creating a final project. I expect to create an effective final project for my class.