Hi there,

Our training is becoming more and more demanding as we are smoothly moving towards the end of the first half of it and it is absolutely normal. This week was particularly "hot" with a lot of reading on the trail, namely the obligation of reading a past project entirely and commenting on it and also reading other training mates' comments on past projects. 

I have created my own delicious page which is:

https://delicious.com/rmbock

and I have started storing in URLs of importance. It's great. I am a daily user of social networks, but it is this course which has permitted me to know there is a possibility to save one's URLs on the internet and even share them with other people.

I also examined one of the past projects submitted to us by Robert our monitor and I noticed that this exercise was to take seriously. The project I read included some good points that I mentioned on nicenet.org, but there were also some points I did not agree very much with. It is true that Robert had not asked us to mention points we did not like but I felt like pointing them out too. By so doing, I did not very much want at all costs to criticize the author of the project, but it was a way for me to preview some of the shortcomings likely to be noticed in my own project and give myself means of avoiding them.

Finally, I experienced some kind of worrisome situation this morning as I was commenting on the past project. At a certain point my internet connection went off. From 02.00 am to 06.00 am (Central Africa Time), It stayed off and I started worrying wondering how to convince Robert that not seeing my post on nicenet was the the result of unforeseen circumstances and not a deliberate choice from my part. Fortunately for me some time after 06 am it came back and I could send my post. 

So I would like to seize this opportunity to inform Robert that I will do my best to avoid this type of situation, but in our country, we do not trust things like electricity supply, drinkable water supply and internet connection as they can be off at any moment and for a long period without any prior notice from the supplier.

I wish a nice week 4 to everyone.

Hi everybody,

We have come to the end of the second week of training as webskilled teachers and I will not stop praising everyone on the course for the fruitful collaboration they have shown so far. Robert is always present, resourceful and encouraging. The training mates are just wonderful and many of them are so experienced that it is real pleasure learning from everyone. The diversity of experiences is overwhelming. I have the impression the whole world of teaching is at my fingertips.

This week, I noticed this training will not be easy for me. It requires much presence on the internet (I think more than the 4 required hours everyday recommended by the university) if one has to read all the posts on Nicenet, read all the resources made available by Robert and other training mates, read all the blog posts, etc. I know it is not compulsory to read everything, but whenever I find myself unable to do so I have the impression I'm missing so much! Anyway, that(s the way learning is. It requires a lot of time and I hope I will survive.

I am a full time language teacher at the moment and I head the Distance Learning Department of our language center. Apart from teaching, there are many other tasks like supervising students' end-of-training write-ups writing and presentation, designing new courses and teaching them as we also deal with English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Français sur Objectifs Spécifiques (FOS). So, I struggle a lot to find time to meet the deadline for the various tasks on this course. But, let me say it once more, it is very challenging and I like it.

My other worry this week has been the way some mates have answered questions. Let's take the conference on "web search". I have the impression it has gone in all directions. It should be made clear that there is a difference between search engines, webpedia, social networks and other websites. Phil Bradley has listed some 150 search engines and the list can be found here:

http://www.philb.com/webse.htm

All in all, I'm learning a lot here and I can already imagine how webskilled I'll be at the end of this training.

Hi everyone,

Here is my blog for the E-teacher Scholarship Program Winter 2013. You might have noticed that this is not my first blog here on google blogger but the second one. It's true that the first one that I created a long time ago was just a test blog, because at that time I was new to Google Applications.

I have created other blogs on the internet and they deal with various topics. I would have loved you to see them but they are all in French and have nothing to do with the teaching of English.

The first time I attempted creating a blog, it was not difficult , but just a bit confusing with some words looking like each other and some instructions not being clear. But with regular practice, I succeeded and found it very exciting and I hope those who are doing it for the first time will like it the way I did.

The only secret with the internet is "read everything you can see on the screen". You know, you always have the possibility to do and undo things.

I hope you will enjoy yourself as much as I do when blogging.