fun-filled engagement ceremony

I would like to share the photos and story of the traditional ceremony of my engagement last week. The tradition of engagement here in Hunza culture is a full family event. Actually, most of the marriages in our culture are within the families--and arranged. Love ones like mine special are very rare.

Anyways, in our culture, first the parents of the man formally propose the woman from her parents(ori:n domaras in burushaski). If the parents accept the proposal then there is a formal engagement ceremony. The man buys an engagement ring, a necklace, three pair of shoes, clothes, and gifts for his fiancee and gifts for the closest family members of her. The parents of man with few family member visit the woman family with these gifts and eatable items like borum hanik(bread and butter) and dirum shoro(traditional sweets). The family of the woman welcome the guests and serve them scrumptious feast. After that, the woman is called to join the family of the man. She sits with her mother in law and takes three morsels of the traditional bread and butter and sweets. Then, the mother-in-law gives her the engagement ring and everyone congratulate the women. Then the family members offer other gifts to the lady. Once the gifts session is done-she is formally engaged with the man. Everyone congratulate the woman and her family members.

It is a complete family thing. Once its over, the family member of the man return where the man is waiting for them impatiently with joy and happiness. The traditional food and sweets which are touched by his fiancée is offered to him by his parents with prayers. He eats three morsels and everyone congratulate the man for his engagement. Thats all.

This story of this traditional ceremenony is pictorially presented to friends and colleagues. Please pray for me and zahra....piar

Week 5- PBL, WebQuest

What a week! Project Based Learning, WebQuest, Internet treasure hunt.

I started the week with the article less teaching and more learning. The story of this teacher explains this paradigm shift from traditional teaching to trying something different. The project discussed were good references for me to compare with the project I tried with my ESL students. I will be careful next time about the critical elements like the project must be geared to the population, the student must see value in the project, and flexible timeliness.

With project, I always lost track. The tool WebQuest came up so well in time to rescue me. WebQuest is such an amazing tool to keep the track of the the essential elements of the PBL and its crucial steps. All these tools for which I cried during my teaching-now I am away for my teaching. What a pity?

I read my colleagues blog and learnt so many new things. Nadina uploaded her teaching video which I felt observed sitting at the back bench. This is the best way to improve ones teaching. I read Susan's reflection which was so helpful to remind what we did this week. And I read prem blog and commented.

This week has been full of learning--throughly enjoyed

Thanks to Deborah and her team for setting up something like this for us.

Piar

My webquest

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=60483

It took me long to publish my webquest for teaching how to make a poster on powerpoint for the university students. This is a useful tool for online teaching. It is interactive and once the session is complete we can upload the success of the project through videos/pictures. This would motivate the students to invlove in the project so they could share it with their friends and family member. I really needed something like that for the projects I give to class for different lesson. I always had issues with filing and documenting-this is fun.

Thanks to the course--useful interactive tool

Poster Presentation

Here are few pictures of the students posters which they made in the computer resource center using internet and computer.

Week 4--Tough

End of week 4--rather middle of week 5. I could not post my reflection on time. I have been late for almost everything this week-discussion, project, and reflection. I had to travel long distance from home town to city for taking test. And the net service was dead for few days in my home town. I could hardly participated in a discussion on curriculum and learnt about curriculum and its limitations in different countries. I adapted a technology integrated lesson on vocabulary for describing pain for my nursing students which I posted. I read an article which helped me the systematic way to integrate internet in teaching different skills. I book marked so many useful websites on my delicious page.

This course has been a real eye opener for using tech and internet effectively in the teaching profession. I wish I had been teaching during this course. I am away from teaching site because of a research project which I miss every time.

Anyways, I have outline a course like this for the teachers in the region where I have come to carry out my research. Once, the course starts with the teachers then there will be so many things which I could integrate in the practice.

Thanks

Piar

Week 3--INFORMATIVE

This has been an extremely informative week-yummy site, aural/oral skills and technology in education.

I started this week with the best thing-a website which keeps my important links accessible and safe.

Then I read information on integrating technology in aural/oral skills. I read articles on the journey the technology has taken from the debate to pervasive influence of it on our lives.

Interactive web has become a second nature to me now. I can not live without it and it helps me do things effectively. My profession influences the minds of those who are going to matter this world seriously. These ideas about the use of technology in integrating lesson not only make my lessons effective but interesting also. I have shared the information about delicious with students, friends and colleagues. I have explored more websites and information for teaching language skills through technology. I took my TOEFL test yesterday and taking GRE tomorrow so I couldn't find lot of time to read my friend's blogs which is a regret in this week.

End of the third week--so many interesting and informative things about tech in teaching.

Thanks

Summary of the Article "Best Practices in Technology and Language Teaching" by Dennie Hoopingarner and Personal Experiences

The learnings and personal experiences from the article have been summarized in this writing. The journey of the technology in education from the central argument of Clark on instruction rather medium of instruction to the pervasive use of technology in every day life today has greatly influenced our thoughts and processes in teaching and learning. This is no more any questions to debate whether we should use it or not but the real question is how we should find the best possible means and ways to use it effectively in the processes of learning. As Skinner divides the labor of this complex process on machines and humans equally. My experience of language teaching has failed me to handle it single-handily so far. The use of computer through activities in my view can support teaching language to greater extent. Chapelle (1998) support my view by showing how computers assist in making input comprehensible by enhancing it through different modes. Internet facilitates top-down and bottom up strategies for improving listening skills by exposing the learner to authentic material.

The idea of text chat activities for developing speaking skills is possible thought Internet and computer. The integration of technology helps the learner to record his or her own voice and reflect on the speech patterns which can be repeated and improved. I have experienced this recently while preparing myself for TOEFL test as a foreign language learner. The technology helps to improve students' pronunciation with easily handled with talking dictionaries dictionaries.

I agree with the article that Internet is so rich with interactive reading material with interesting activities. I use software in teaching which has got progressive reading development material and it has helped students better than ever before. The technology has made it possible for the language learners to find real audience to write for through blogs, emails, posts, text messages and so forth. This opportunity was impossible a decade ago for language learners. Now, these mediums can be integrated in teaching writing skills with a little effort.

The two themes language as communication and constructivism is well supported if the technology is carefully and efficiently integrated in language teaching and learning.

My bookmark--Yummy start

I learnt about this link from Nadinne's post. The word delicious triggered me to read the post. I said Yummy! I quickly checked Deborah's mail and found the instruction for signing up to this useful tool.

I didn't have my account in yahoo which took me a while to taste the DELICIOUS. The internet is very slow in the place I access which gets me. Anyways, I finally made it http://delicious.com/piar.karim. Now I will have everything safe and accessible from my office or anywhere which will surely save lot of my time. I have experienced frustration for not finding my favorite website on reading skills etc which I use for my teaching and research. Now I will book mark them and they will stay with me forever.

This is really a yummy start.

Keep browsing my blog to find updates of my learning about more interesting and useful technology tools for teachers

Piar

Week 2--Practical Ideas and Experiences

Dear All,

Online course--not that easy. I was so nervous and excited last week when I saw the list of to do things on the course for a week. I thought an online course would be too easy. But, this course has started changing my perception about the online courses. There were two things which has made me happy about the course from the start. First, the active participants from so many countries and I am the only one representing my country Pakistan in this course.

However, the second week in the course has been really interesting and full of learning because of its practical teaching content for instance ABCD model, Web searching tools, Taxonomy of technology domain, and blogging which gives a lot of insight on how to integrate technology and interactive web in teaching language.

I started the second week with the welcome note from Deborah which gave me confidence to take up the challenge. The first thing I did this week was to understand ABCD model for setting instructional objectives. I read the articles and web link resources to understand the model and try to incorporate it in one of my lesson. This is a brand new model which I tried but found it extremely helpful to set objectives. ABCD makes it easy to remember and the structure looks very practical. I couldn't be able to fit it so well like Johanna our friend from Poland. However, I have learnt a lot about the practical usage of the model by reading others posts in the thread.

The second thing I looked at was Noodletools. I never tried searching on web beyond Google. This tool classifies and narrows the topics for search which saves lot of time. I remember wasting lot of time hunting the specific information through a general search engine. I liked inute for academic search http://www.intute.ac.uk/ and tried others for the specific query. This is very helpful.

In addition to these two, I read a lot of reading material sent to us this week. I read articles on ABCD model and Blooms revised taxonomy for understanding ABCD model. Moreover, I also read that long article taxonomy for technology domain which helps to set the targets for myself and students to improve their technology domain. I shared the ideas from this article with friends in my office. Technology is such an instructional strategy which provides equal opportunities to everyone participating. The key work is OBJECTIVE. The integration of technology in curriculum makes the teaching and learning objective. The creation of rubrics through technology for subjective assignments like essay writing is one of the best examples. The buzz work in the article was COLLABORATION. It is the most powerful theme in language teaching and learning. Technology helps us as a teachers a lot to make our lessons collaborative and interactive where our students would give meaning to their learning.

I have read almost all the blogs of our friends in the course and learnt so many new things. I like the way NADINNE has organised her blog--specially the reading list and design.

I am learning new things and implementing them in my teaching. I still regret that I joined it late and lagging behind in many things. I am trying my best to keep up the good work going.

Thanks

Piar

Blogging-website for teachers part 2

Blogging...Wonderful. I can blog. It is amazing. It is an art like teaching. I thought it would the job of someone who has technical expertise in web designing or computers; but it needs basic computer skills with an aesthetic sense thats all. I have enjoyed everything from this experience so far. I love technology because it works when you try it.

I read the introduction of so many participants on this course from different nationalities with diverse English language teaching experience. I am participating in an online course for the first time but I am enjoying everything in this space. I never learnt so many new things in a short time from a regular academic course at campus. I liked the golden rules for discussion which maintains the decorum for interaction. I also like the rubrics for the discussion developed. The concept of rubrics and the material share is a valuable resource for creating rubrics. The sites with ready-made rubrics for subjective assignments looked blessing for me as a teacher.

I like reading comments on various discussion themes and responses. I looked at the creative blogs developed by the class fellows in the course and learnt so many things. I feel the human aspect in this learning because we are talking to real people from different countries.

I work as an Instructor with the Center of English Language at the Aga Khan University. I teach nursing students who need to improve their academic writing and reading skill from basic to advance level. This language support helps them to cope with the studies and job in their profession. I have learnt English as a foreign language by trying different things. I am still learning English from array of resources. We learn by taking charge of our own learning.

I think technology helps language teachers a lot because it gives space for taking control of teaching and learning. I believe technology gives life to language teaching and learning. It makes us more responsible because we interact with real people not with Jenny, John, Amy from Channel Your English in the classroom.

I look forward to learn authentic things in an authentic context which has a purpose.

Blogging-website for teachers

Blogging...Wonderful. I can blog. It is amazing. It is an art like teaching. I thought it would the job of someone who has technical expertise in web designing or computers; but it needs basic computer skills with an aesthetic sense thats all. I have enjoyed everything from this experience so far. I love technology because it works when you try it.

I read the introduction of so many participants on this course from different nationalities with diverse English language teaching experience. I am participating in an online course for the first time but I am enjoying everything in this space. I never learnt so many new things in a short time from a regular academic course at campus. I liked the golden rules for discussion which maintains the decorum for interaction. I also like the rubrics for the discussion developed. The concept of rubrics and the material share is a valuable resource for creating rubrics. The sites with ready-made rubrics for subjective assignments looked blessing for me as a teacher.