First week in the Spring 2013 Webskills Course

 Since the very first steps in the Webskills E-Teacher Course offered by the University of Oregon| The American English institute, we began to acquire loads of information and knowledge about developing our webskills in teaching English. The course is actually more than we dreamed it to be!

The premier week is dedicated mainly for getting used to the nature of the course and introduce ourselves in order to know each others. Although there are not a lot of tasks to do this week, but still we are enjoying and benefiting from each others' experiences. All the participants in the course are qualified teachers who have wide and great experiences in the field of teaching built up by their passion toward teaching English through the years. The discussions seem to be very valuable and informative, as all the members respect the rules and take the discussion topics seriously and respond to it professionally. Respecting others' opinions is also an evident factor that gives the course a special taste of high value and reflects the members' cooperation and credibility.

Particularly, the course has provided us with many helpful readings that facilitated the way to deal with the course. First, reaching the course's website Nicenet was so easy because of the instructors' regular notifications and clear instructions. The course's website supplies us with all the necessary information that enables us to successfully understand the technique of the course and the tasks we are to do. In this first week, besides introducing ourselves and knowing each others by posting in the website Nicenet, we also had to fill out a needs analysis assessment survey that would enable the course designers to verify the needs of the participants before starting the course. Another interesting task that we are asked to do this week is to create our own blogs and share them together so as exchanging information would be easy and effective.

The readings and resources provided by the course website are so important and adds a lot to our teaching repertoire. There are so many documents, PDF articles, and links of websites available to us, so as we can read and use them in developing our teaching techniques. For example, couple of links are attached that shows the importance of using the blogs in teaching English, and manifest the way the teachers can create their own blogs. These links and articles also provide clear definition of the blogs, their types, and each type's uses and advantages. Some links as well show live examples of SLA and ELT Blogs that seem to be useful and practical at the same time.

Frankly speaking,  the course is really amazing and more than I imagined it to be. It is only the first week and I cannot count the benefits that I have gained till now. Honestly, I am feeling so excited than I have ever been before. I do appreciate the great effort made by the University of Oregon and thank all those who worked hard to come up with such a valuable program that I was really looking for since long time ago.