Delicious, Stress, and Learning to Hear - week 3 reflexions :)

I think that we are already used to the new pace of our lives - having one new responsibilty (the multiple tasks of the Webskills course) is helping in developing better personal organization.

Such is the aim of the Delicious we have to create this week  I had never heard of Delicious before, and at first panicked as I always do when i have to do something "technological", simple thaough it may be. The more I panic, the more complex a very simple thing seems, the more boggled I become. Suddenly the toolbar got three times bigger, comprising all the items I had stored, until the window  in which to write suddenly disappeared!  

However, when it was all over, and I could see the innumerable benefits it could have, especially for scatterbrains like me - the tags and description of sites provide clues so as to find the info I need  faster; besides the sharing function makes it possible to explore other people's secret sources of knowledge :) There was a bit of reward in the whole thing as well - when I asked my students if they had heard about Delicious, nobody nodded (or shaken their heads as is the case with us Bulgarians, when we mean Yes!!!). When I explained the benefits, some volunteered that I !!!! teach them how to create a profile and use it.

It shouldn't have taken me so much time, though, because it was at the expense of the more serious issue - Teaching aural skills. We have discussed the three articles in details, adding our personal experiences and beliefs, sharing URLs like crazy - my delicious listening tag bursting already! No wonder - the skill is vital, and it has been overlooked as a tradition. Communication is difficult as it is, and when we add the problem of not understanding, we are likely to end up with two people sharing monologues! I remember that when I was at university, we had a long and elaborate course on phonology, but not a single lesson on  how to overcome the problems of understanding. No wonder that only when the world became a global village and technology developed do we have learners who may not be able to speak, but understand when spoken to. And for me the classroom learning  complements real life exposure and may provide some guidelines for better understanding.  For complete understanding there a lot of other factors involved.

  The final task - commenting on the projects of our predecessors made me aware of the seriousness of the work to come! And of the gift to have so many people to discuss ideas with.

Thank you, guys, and Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.

Love

Ellie