Answer to Sharon's invitation

Dear Sharon:

Thanks for your invitation! I would love to join your group.
Certainly my future students will benefit, I need to find out which is their English level first. I am planning to start the course in June; if I learn faster then I could start sooner. Would that be alright for you? How long does your course last?

I may be getting myself into something too big to handle but I really want to learn how to teach with e-tools, being in touch with you will allow me to see an e-teacher at work, thanks for the opportunity, I feel honored.
It will have to be mainly an online course, to get the local bunch together is not easy; on working days our gatherings are at 9:00 PM which leads to complaints from their parents because they do not want to leave my house at 10:00 PM and the neighborhood is not safe for them to walk home. The other available day is Sunday afternoons, if their parents do not get them away to visit relatives.

I am thinking about several names for the course, the first that came up was Aunt Comet's Course, my nephews and nieces call me Comet because they seldom see me and when I go to San Luis I get them in a swirl of temporary activities with us. Then came Becoming an e-Learner (BaeL) which sounds great but scary to me.

I do not know how Wikispaces work so I was thinking about PBwiki, I will explore Wikispaces to have a look. I need to place in a wiki a survey to see which are their abilities with the computer, the chat they use is hotmail because they like all the moving gadgets. I will have to start by introducing them to YH mail and chat, and to Skype; both programs run without graphic cards.

I was thinking about blogger to set a course blogg to show their progress. I still need to learn more about blogger myself to teach them in turn to open theirs. I want the blogg to have a clock, voice tool and chat tool set in a fixed way at the sides of the page, let me find out how to do that.

Some cybers around here have mics, I need to go to the ones they visit to assess them. Do you know which voice tool works without a graphic card? Yakpak comes with PBwiki but I have not tried it in a limited PC. Skype and Yahoo voice work fine.

Love: Maru

Things to do at Wordpress.

• Start a blog called “Unquiet Mind” to see how Wordpress works.

• Place there a slideshow with the pictures of Wordpress I took when I registered and find out how to add my voice to give directions in Spanish. Or I could use it at WiZiQ and speak to them directly. Huuuu, scary...

• Place my findigs, thoughts, difficulties, questions, etc from the point of view of a Webhead.

• Start a second blog called “My Beloved Country”, this time in a Spanish template to take pictures of the screen in Spanish to convert them to a visual tutorial.

• Make a PPP presentation with pictures of art and crafts. Place the name of the craft in question before reducing the pictures.

• Place a voice chat, get a Vaestro account, take screen shots.

Things to do at Blogger

• Keep this blog to write down my thoughts and findings.

• Find out how to place the clock, text and chat voice at the sides so that they permanently show on screen. See if is possible to change the layout on this blog.
I opened this one in Spanish and last year could not change it to English, lets try again.

• Visit Hala’s blog. She used the same template but somehow I remember that hers looked more attractive.

• Remember how to place e-tools here (clock, chat and voice)

• If I select blogger-which most of the Webheads suggest as best for beginers- Start another blog called “Aunt Cometa’s Computer Course” or "Becoming an e-Learner Course (BaeL Course) Should it be in Spanish? If the final target is to teach them English, maybe to make the visual tutorials in English is a good idea.

• Choose an atractive template for the group; be careful. It has to allow you to set fixed items at the sides,look very appealling to teenagers.

Initial ideas for my project

These are my project’s initial ideas.

I am thinking about setting two Pbwiki sites similar to he ones used at BaW to ask them to suscribe and introduce themselves in Spanish. I have to ask Tere and Daf for permission to do so.
I could place there a survey to assess their computer knowledge, an English Level Assessment Test, tutorials, etc. One page would have to be locked to avoid making a mess of the instructions and helpful materials while the participant’s wiki could be edited.
I need to learn how to make them and link them! Piece of cake!? Peanut butter sandwich? Nonsense! I would like to start the course in June.

I would also like to set a blog to share their progress and they could open their own blogs.
As they are familiar with uploading pictures and PPP presentations maybe wordpress will work best, though the advice is to start with blogger, I had better follow that advice.
I need to see how to upload voice and chat tools at wordpress. Ufff! I need to learn how to use both blogs.