Personal Feedback

I think that the course was really helpful as it showed us a lot of the possibilities you have as a teacher referring to the use of modern technology in schools at present times. I liked the way the course was organized and conducted. The atmosphere was good and the topics were well chosen and seemed to have a strong relation to the actual situation in the classrooms. Another thing that I felt was very motivating was that we tested out quite a lot of tools in order to accomplish different tasks. Somehow the mere use of the mostly well designed tools that were fully functional and user-friendly made it easy to focus.

 In the beginning I was astonished with what I did not know about tools in the web and what there is to find out. Netvibes for instance represents a totally new experience to me. Learning what an RSS-feed is and how to install them was very useful to me. Eventough I have to say that it is nearly impossible to follow all this influx of information on a daily basis. Moreover I was amazed by all the different tools and possibilities there are out there to teach with. They were explained very well and I understood all of the functions, however, sometimes I would like to have talked a little more about the use in class and the way in which they could have been applied (in combination with topics and teaching materials).

Throughout the seminar I could see a red line that went through every session. When we tackled different projects we almost always prepared some questions beforehand that we could resort to in the main events (e.g. field trips, group projects, web conference). The instructor explained the tasks well and was willing to help immediately when problems with the software or the task came up. Apart from that you could see that the instructor had a profound knowledge about the tools and ways to apply them in combination with the danger that may occur.

 The choice for a personal blog to document experiences and gather information about the topic was obvious and legitimate. Faced with this challenge, we had to work ourselves into designing and organizing a blog which was not totally self-explanatory. Yet, it was a good experience that enables one as a teacher to engage in future blog-related projects in schools. Finally, I think that the weebly-blog offers vast opportunities to create a neat piece of work.

 One of the activities I enjoyed most was the first fieldtrip where the group went to the Martin-Luther-Schule in Marburg. Alongside a very warm welcome and a good introduction in the topic of media in schools, the questions and answers were very informative. During the field trip I got a picture of the situation in German schools regarding access and use of computers and the internet. In this respect it is quite useful to get some tips from a young teacher that actually made some experiences with the matter. I also enjoyed the discussion about controlling the online activities of pupils very much and about the ways of dealing with it.

 The expert talk at the end of the course was very well chosen form my point of view. Thus, we could again reflect on the things we have discovered and learned about and ask questions about it in a virtual meeting, which was fun. The conference showed me that there are people out there that are very dedicated to the idea of using modern technology in the foreign language classroom. I think that Mr Heil gave us a very good overview about the tool you could use and possible problems you would have to deal with.

To wrap it up, I really enjoyed the course and think that it is very useful for future teachers to take part in such a seminar. Not only does the teacher gain an understanding of the diogital world the pupils live in but also there is a vast range of teaching material and methods that can be tried out in class.

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