This past friday, I did the first part of the portfolio with my students, I had them listen to their first recording and give themselves a self-evaluation, I also asked them to have one classmate listen to their recording and evaluate them. There were a couple of challenges:
first, some students had still not created an edmodo account - next time I will have them all create an account in class rather than leave it up to them because even though I gave them plenty of time to create one, they still had not created one.
second, some students had not done the recording, either because they had been absent or because we ran out of time in class to do this and they forgot to show up at lunch time or after school to do their recording. I will try to have them all do a recording in class next time perhaps borrow the COWS and have a few at a time do a recording instead of just using my laptop and having them go one at a time.
third, The COWS[Computers on Wheels] at my school only has 15 laptops, I have 30 students, 15 of those laptops about 2 - 3 were not working well. This was a bit frustrating as I had not anticipated this, so I ended up giving half the class a short lesson on one of the concepts and then gave the other half the lesson. It was a bit of a struggle. I think next time I will have them do the listening/evaluating of their recordings when they are working on the exercises of the lesson, therefore I only have to teach the lesson once and I don't have to work over the noise of the students listening to their recordings. This was perhaps the most frustrating part. It also took a huge part of the day about 30 - 40 mins if not more.
fourth, a number of students had forgotten their password, which was a minor problem and it was quick to solve as you can reset their passwords on edmodo.
However despite the problems that I encountered I think it was beneficial for the students to listen to themselves as I heard a lot of them comment on themselves such as....I need to say more next time....I need to to speak louder or I need to use more vocabulary. We will try doing another one next week and see how it goes. Hopefully the second time around will be easier and quicker.
