Discussions

Your Name and Title: Hery Yanto The

School or Organization Name: University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA

Co-Presenter Name(s): N/A

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Honolulu, HI, USA

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s): All audiences

Short Session Description (one line):

This presentation is about using WizIQ virtual classroom to connect learning from all over the world.

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

The Internet has extended networking, connectivity, and relationship between people who living in the different parts of the world. Advancement in computer mediated communication and information technology become invaluable opportunity to deliver quality education without restricted to regional. The internet and many online free web 2.0 tools available there have facilitated people to learn anytime and from everywhere. The process of learning has also shifted by these new technologies from formal and controlled by the institution to informal and control by the community of practices. One of the communities of practices in the Internet is the WizIQ online learning and teaching. The WizIQ is a website where teachers and learners from all over the world get connected to the virtual classroom, learning forum, and a content management system to assist each other for learning. The WizIQ academic plan is free for educators who want to use the virtual classroom for the non-commercial purpose.

I have joined this community since 2009. I am dedicating my time to teach online for free in the WizIQ at least twice a month. In Fall 2011, I launched a pilot project in English 3.0 series. This series are a set of writing lessons that will be developed in sequences and will be launched synchronously in the WizIQ. The purpose of these series lesson is to promote open access learning. Recently, I am working on designing the second pilot project course, “College Writing”, that will be launched on January 2012.

The purpose of this presentation is to share my personal reflection on designing and assisting learning in the first English 3.0 series pilot project. This pilot project was entitled “Basic English Writing. The aim of this course is to provide learners with a wide opportunity to learn independently and collaboratively about the principals and techniques for writing English sentences and paragraphs. The course is designed fully online and open to public. Students/participants are free to choose scheduled sessions they are willing to attend. Moreover, they were free to decide their own independent study activities. The instructor role in this lesson was facilitating the learning process. Instructor provided learning resources. Instructor has online virtual office hour for students to meet and discuss their concern.

In general, learners in this pilot project were satisfied with the learning process. For example, a participant said that, “…you are right practice make perfect. I need more practicing on this point.” The largest numbers of this lesson learner were from India (75%). There were, in addition, learner who joined from China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Peru, Saudi Arabia, The Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam. Besides connected with learners, the course has connected me with other WizIQ teachers who have the same interest in teaching English. We met through Skype several time during the semester for discussing concerns and strategies to improve our lessons. I can see how this learning community represented the International learning community. This virtual classroom is one of the ways to strengthen International relationship and cross cultural understanding.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/634881-english-3-0-wrap-up-the-course-evaluation