Week 8 (24-30 May): Learner Autonomy and the One-computer Classroom

The above picture is the winner of e-learning Africa conference photo competition:

http://www.elearning-africa.com/picturevoting/viewsinglepic.php?picId=1232&lang=2

We had four tasks this week to accomplish: a discussion about learner autonomy, a lesson plan to create for a one-computer classroom, a course task on Nicenet  and a reflective post on private blogs, with comments on others'. Our projects should be ready by Wednesday May 26, 2010.Each participant had a partner to review his/her project. ( I was late because I didn't find a partner soon).
This week we had a guest moderator, Jeff Magoto. He started excellent threads, with great innovative and practical issues to be discussed. Unfortunately, it seemed as if all are tired/busy, the threads were not "threaded" further. I am not sure what the reason was. I hope I can add the points I highlighted earlier.
Every week, I discover that, as Jeff puts it down, “our classroom experiences are not only familiar but perhaps eerily alike”. After going through the readings, I have learned that a creative teacher can come up with very practical ideas to handle the situation of a one computer classroom. Jeff focused on a very important point, which is, "When technology is not the focus of learning", more interesting and amazing things begin to emerge."At the end,  a computer is the teacher's tool.
I also knew that learner autonomy has a very important value in language teaching class. Group work and pair work, goals, activities, tasks, learning and teaching strategies or process, and the process of reflection are essential elements for promoting learner autonomy.

During the writing of my project plan, I found the recommended article” Improving Teacher-Student Interaction in the EFL Classroom: An Action Research Report” very useful to help in putting up the different aspects of my project plan.

“We are not only teaching a language, we are also teaching a culture”.