English - Courses.

1. MIT Open Course Ware
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-223-listening-speaking-and-pronunciation-fall-2004/#description 
[I chose this course since I like to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills, and something that I like of this was that they stated as an objective for students "learning common expressions, gambits, and idioms used in both formal and informal contexts"]
2. Utah State Open Course Ware
http://ocw.usu.edu/English/intermediate-writing/index.html
"Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode"
[I chose this course because one of the difficult things in writing is to persuade the reader, at least for me this would be a course that I would like to take]


3. The Open University
http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/ad317.htm
[I would like to begin with this course "Religion today: tradition, modernity and change" since I am really interested on this topic.]

An Open Mind article

While reading the article I thought immediately on the importance of having Internet in these days. Actually, some years ago to have it was not something for everybody, at least in our country. However, now everybody has realized the relevance of having Internet connection since you can find on it anything you need. That is one of the reasons why Internet has become a necessary tool for learning at schools. Nevertheless, the thing that worries me most is to think about how machines, in this case computers, can replace the job of teachers inside the classrooms and I was wondering if students would like to go to school to learn if they have free lessons, pieces of information, news, activities to practice anything you want, among other things online… Maybe since the point of view of student I would like to stay at home and learn through a webpage. However, I think that teachers are necessary, if not, I haven’t study this, I agree on that O.E.R is an effective way to improve education as Victor Vuchic said.

Meanwhile, when I read this: “Everyone is in one way or another doing O.E.R. today” I remember last year when we were asked to create blog’s accounts to share our experiences as students-teachers at schools and to share our strategies to be “good teachers”. And also, for instance, how videos published on YouTube have been very useful for us to find tools to apply in our classes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18open-t.html

Webquest Rubric

	Needs Improvement 4	Satisfactory    5	Good 6	Outstanding 7	Score
Handout/ notes	Handout is incomplete even with teacher/peer help and reminders.	Answers short/some incomplete sentences. May be hard to read.	Answers complete, few spelling errors, easy to read.	Answers very clear and complete. Neat and easy to understand.
Group participation	Did not work well with others.  Off task. Did not participate.	Tried to work cooperatively. Participated in/ contributed to most group activities.	Worked well with others. Participated in/ contributed to all group activities.	Excellent participation/ enthusiastic contribution. Helped others--took a leadership role.
Group presentation	Presentation unorganized/ incomplete. Very few facts-Many errors and/or difficult to hear or understand.	Attempt at organization-Some facts but weak on persuasion. Some errors in text.	Organized, including an introduction. Facts are used to persuade audience. Clear with few errors.	Presentation includes intro, well thought-out, supporting facts, and a conclusion that is clear, strong and persuasive.
Final Poster	Ending not complete. Many grammatical errors. Illustration not colored in and/or carelessly done.	Ending contains some grammatical errors. Word choice is weak. Illustration is complete but may not support text.	Ending has few errors. Word choice is good and contains verbs and adjectives. Illustration colored and supports text.	Ending has no errors. Excellent word choice and freshness of expression is evident. Illustrations are detailed and add to the story.

I wanted to learn Urdu ! :C

I have always been interested in learning Indian languages that's why I decided to visit this webpage: http://www.languageshome.com/English-Urdu.htm

Through this site I had the opportunity to learn some expressions from the Urdu Language. 

Actually, I would say that I expected more than some useful expressions. I was wondering if I go to India that list  would be enough to communicate myself with indian people. I hope this could work, but I don't think so, because I would probably learn those phrases by heart and nothing else would happen, I  mean, I believe that after learning those expressions I won't be prepared to face real situations in India. Another thing is that those phrases are written with our alphabet, but I'm sure they have another different and I won't be able to read anything. Moreover, I have no idea how should I pronounce those words, so even if I learnt them by heart it would be difficult for them to understand me. 

I don't think grammar - translation method could help me if I go to India for the first time and I need to talk naturally with my neighbours. Those expressions that are offered by the website are very basic to have a conversation with natives. Perhaps there are some words that are difficult to explain in the same language (Urdu) and for those it would be necessary to translate them. However, we cannot focus all the learning process in just one method, I think that to learn grammar it is important but we cannot forget that the language is always inside a context and we should avoid teaching in isolation. In my opinion, we need more than those utterances if we want to speak fluently with Urdu speakers.

Now, I'm sure that I need another website to learn Urdu. 

MLA essay