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Basic ICT Course for Teachers of English

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I am very happy that you are considering joining us for this course. This is the first time I have become involved in offering such a course on- line, so there may be a few bumps along the way, but I hope they will be small bumps easily ironed out. If you want to learn more about the course you should check out the Syllabus section of this site.
We are supposed to begin on _____and run for 10 weeks, until ____. Some people may like to think of the new week as beginning on Friday, whereas others prefer Monday. It doesn't really matter, because in this kind of course we work at our own pace. Nevertheless, our discussions may proceed better if we try to keep up with the weekly assignments. As moderator, I may send out general reminders to you through messages now and then.

I look forward to this new experience, to working with you on-line, sharing and learning.

Best wishes,

Janos

Janos Blasszauer

course moderator

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. -- Chinese proverb

Course Description:

The Basic ICT Course for Teachers of English is a non-credit course, recommended for all teachers who would like to exploit the potentials of the Internet in ELT. The main objective of this course is to empower teachers with those skills which enable them to make use of the Net for their own benefit and for their students' as well. It is an online course that requires work on the Internet at least once a week. This course encourages critical reflections on articles given as assignments, as well as group participants’ postings related to each others' thoughts, and at last but not least it aims to inspire colleagues to supplement their teaching practice by harnessing the potential of this powerful medium, called the Internet.

Prerequisites:

If you have little or no experience in making use of the Internet in ELT, you'll be right at home here. If you have some experience already, you will surely learn some new techniques and learn how to develop websites that are meant to be educational, not merely informational.

How to Get Started:

You're probably curious about how this course is going to run. As
you've already found, we are using this site as our main course site.

It is very easy to use because the structure is already set up for us.

Start by reading the Syllabus, in order to get an overview of the course. The Assignment link explains the major assignments in the course. We'll hold class discussions and collaborate from the Community link.

The Materials link takes you to all the course activities. After reviewing the Syllabus, Assignments, and Community links, go here and select Week 1 to start the course.

Nota Bene:

In order to boost interactivity I have set up a user-freindly Internet classroom, which will be an important workplace for you.

Below you can find the instruction of how to join this virtual environment.

As a first step I would kindly request that you do the following:

Please take some time to join our online environment Web site.

Please follow these directions on the Web site for signing up for the online platform.
1. Go to the URL: http://www.nicenet.org
2. Click the “Join a Class” button.
3. Enter the following code: H78056B7

then click the “Join the class” button.
4. Fill out the form on the following page.
5. Once you are in the class click the “Edit User Profile” link.
6. Be sure to check the “yes” box next to the “Receive a copy of your Personal Messages via Email” option.

Once you are signed up, please write a short introduction in the Conference forum( see on the left-hand side at the navigation bar). When everyone has signed up I will keep you posted about the new developments. The letters sent via the Nicenet platform will arrive in your electric maibox you have given when you registered at the site (Of course the new postings can be read online, too.)

In the link forum please try to put in your school’s URL and some of your favourite links with short descriptions. You will find out that contributing to the existing resource is as easy as falling off a log. :-)

You are kindly invited to send a photo of you (to my email) so that I could start putting them up at our Community page.

After you log in, which you already know how to do, you will usually want to go first to see online your messages (see Personal Messages View. This is the area we will use to communicate
with each other. That is, messages will be for more general things and announcements. In order to reply to a message, you can Post to the whole group (put a tick in the box next to Send to All (see Personal messages ; Send; Send to All). Sometimes, however, you may want to just e-mail a specific individual (then just tick the box next to theperson’s name).

For the actual assignments, you will go to the Assignment webpage or to the assignment folder at Nicenet. The folders are numbers by weeks, so you will start with Week 1. Within each folder you will see one or two assignments. For each assignment, you may be given a reading or directed to one somewhere on the web, or you may be asked to create an Internet activity (of your own choosing).
There will be one or more questions to reflect upon at the Conference section/folder. This is how you will turn in your homework—by posting your answers. Note that the other students, as well as the course tutor will be able to read what you wrote and to make comments. I hope that the assignments will generate a lot of discussion, and that you will comment on your own experiences and I will be joining in, and guiding the discussion. In later assignments, you may be asked to work together in twos or threes. So it will work like an asynchronous seminar.

I do hope that the interactive virtual environment will prove useful and will provide you with ample opportunities to share ideas and resources with each other.

Looking forward to seeing your presence in the virtual classroom soon.

A PowerPoint show is also available for you to see what you can expect to be covered in this course.

I wish you a nice e-learning experience.

All the best,

Janos

Janos Blasszauer

Bjohnny@chello.hu

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