Week 6 - planning to implement a change

I would like to contemplate on my project plan as the time to submit our project proposals is approaching.

My project plan is for students of the distance learning course in UK Country Studies. I am going to have 2 hours of seminars in winter and 4 hours in summer. So the course task and assignments should be electronically done throughout the whole semester.   I will have 3 groups, 9-8 students in each group. These are first-year students of the distance course, but usually most of them work in schools as full-time English teachers. 

The student-oriented issues are lack of group work and class discussions (due to the insufficient time) as well as project development skills

The possible solution is Nicenet as it will help to expand discussions (or actually introduce them into a course). It will also help to solve teacher-oriented issue, that is keeping track of students' progress to make sure they study the material regularly.

This week I actually planned  the change. I created a class on Nicenet called UK studies and divided the material I am going to cover in the course. I also planned assessment for the course. There are 3 major topics: 1) At the map of the UK 2) Population of the UK 3) British society. I will assign readings and every month students will be responsible for reading 1 unit, posting 2-3 posts + 1 comment,  and doing a task. And the 4th month will be devoted to preparing individual projects and doing tests in Moodle.

The final grade will be determined by:

• final oral report with practical linguistic task - 20%
• individual project - 10%
• unit 1 readings, posts & comments - 10%
• unit 2 readings, posts & comments - 10%
• unit 3 readings, posts & comments - 10%
• task 1 (travel itinerary in individual blogs) - 10 %
• task 2 (national song, poem, or fairy-tale interpretation) - 10%
• task 3 (writing task: commenting on proverbs and explaining idioms through national character) - 10%
• tests in Moodle - 10%

I might also need another technological solution, that is learner's blogs, but I am still hesitant about it because itineraries can possibly be published on nicenet as well.
This grading system will help me to focus on creative and critical thinking skills which I will strive to develop in my students as most of them are practicing teachers and those are crucial for teacher's effectiveness.
The next step to develop my project is to post questions on nicenet for monthly discussion, develop tests in Moodle and create a Webquest or wikipage or blog page with task description and exmaples.

Gosh, now I have a clear plan I am sure I will be able to implement without overloading students but at the same time creating a practically oriented learning environment.