15th Entry

What I like most blogging is the independence I get in expressing my thoiughts to be shared with others and expect their feedback on it. Of course, the indepndence has its limits knowing we live in a democratic country.
What I do not like about blogging is when our mount of work piles higher and I miss a week's blog. The next week when I try to recall, it is mostly vague and does not seem important anymore. Thus, missing a blog is what hate most about blogging.
Through this blogging, I have learned critically analyse what that has taken place and reflect on it. This action of anaysing the event, opens up the possibility for meto examine the situation from others' perspectives and also be able to see the flaws and pros that might have been overlooked earlier. Thus, blogging provides an opportunity for improvement.
Generally, the course has increased my knowledge of technology in whole and has provided an opprtunity for me to learn about it. That is what I like most about the course.
The excessive work throught the 14 weeks demands a lot and it tires me down. Sometime I have to cut down my focus from other courses in order to spend more time completing the tasks in this course. Morever, the change in assignments did have its impact on me. These were my dislike about this course.
Honestly, I did not expect to learn video editing or photo editing in this course. I've always taught they were part of the courses for those studying media.
Since the title of the course does not mention anythng about technology, I expected to be taught of more effective use traditional teaching resources too. But, we were only taught of the technological resources.

The Test

As there was no tips or highlights given for the test. I did what appeared to be the most rational thing to do; I studied everything there was. I studied the first four chapters of the book as told. Then, I studied all the lecture notes posted in the forum. I slept only 2 hours the previous night as I spent all my time trying to make sense and meaning of the words printed.
On the examination day, I waited nervously along with other of my coursemates in similar condition. I stood in front of the que to enter the room and quickly found a table for myself without wasting much time. It was a good idea as there was a lack of tables and the latecomers had get chairs from the laboratory next door. I was taken aback as we were told to write only on the front page of each paper. It occured to me as a waste, but, surely the authorities will have their reasons for doing so.
After the test, as I was discussing with my friends, we realized that each of us had interpreted each question differently. This was quite shocking to me as I taught I had them done well.
Whatever it is, I have done my best throught the course and finally in the test today. One final work will be the portfolio, and no doubt I will include my best in it too.

Evaluating Softwares

As the submission of Assignment 3 finally arrived, I saw most of my coursemates were as exhausted as I were to attend the class. As I thought my case was bad enough that I slept at 5 a.m. compiling the assignment, my friend told he had not slept at all. The only relieve was that our hardwork has been finally handed in with the satisfaction that we have put in maximum effort in it. Vocabulary such as courseware was definitely alien to me till this week's lecture. However, evaluation was something familiar. It is something we do all the time. Previously, two semesters back, I remember learning to evaluate books that are to be chosen for primary school pupils. In this evaluatoin of software there is a scale used, which is not the same case with the evaluation of books that we learned previously. Just like assessing pupils in oral profiency, scale is set and points are awarded according to the criteria mentioned in the scale.
Evaluating softwares was similar and I did not find it to be difficult. The Haughland/Shade Developmental Scale that Izyan gave out later was simple enough like any filling-of-forms. Thus, I joined my housemate in sharing a software and we evaluated it indivudually and shared some ideas amongst us about it.

Assignment 3.

The topic i got for the Assignement 3 was 'Splashes of Colour' Year 6. Therefore, I designed all my Lesson Plans around the thme 'Colours.' Creating 4 lesson plans of 4 different topics was not difficult. However, all of them coming from the same topic made it challenging. It was demanding in the sense that we had to clearly differentiate the stages of these 4 lesson lans.

And yet, this was te factor that benefitted us the most. This so as I learned that to use the same topic to in teaching the various skills. Thus, I had an experience of learning to clearly differentiate and define the stages of the same topic for various skills-teacihng.

I also observed that some teahing aids and resources are compatible for teaching certain skills only. For instance, a video song can harly be used in a reading lesson, as the pupils must READ a text in this lesson and not listen to it. Same goes to an audio song in a reading lesson.

I also observed that we cannot insert teaching aids in every stage of the lesson. At times, there will not be any teaching aids in certain stages. It all depends on the suitability of th4e lesson and the pupils to use or not to use a teaching aids.

Authentic No More

I must admit I have never used Microsoft Publisher before. I usually use the Canon Easy-Print that comes with a software to create various stuff like business cards, greeting cards, flyers, pamphlets and so on. Doing the newsletter in the group helped me in exploring the Microsoft Publisher. Once I learned how to go about with this software, I managed to start doing my business card and pamphlet that was part of the task. It was basically a very easy-to-use software.
However, what strikes me in doing this task is the fact that there no need to do this. This is because I feel that there are so many of the authentic materials out there that a teacher can just choose a suitable one to be used in the classroom. This will be more meaningful for the pupils as they would have seen it before and it could be familiar for them. Introducing a familiar content will assist them to understand it better. Thus, when they actually see it outside the classroom they will be able to remember that it is a flyer, bussiness card or a pamphlet.

Assignment 2

The Assignment 2 was for us to develop lesson plans from videos. We were given Michael Jackson's Earth Song video clip and were allowed to choose another video clip to be edited and used in two different lessons. The first video clip which was the 'Earth song' was very difficult to be used especially its audio as it had no educational value. Teaching primary pupils we have to very careful especially in using the audio with clear and accurate pronunciations. This is because they are novice learners. In that way the video clip was difficult to be used.
On the other hand, the video clip we chose was easy to be used because it was an educational video. This video had clear pronunciation that suited the learners. It was very useful in the listening and speaking activities.
This activity made me realize how important it is for a teacher to choose a teaching material carefully even though it is to be edited. This is because not materials can be appropriate ti the pupils. We must carefully measure the usefulness and appropriateness of the material.

Reading Skill

As for this week's task, I chose to undertake the reading skill activity in my group. Reading skill is an important skill, which helps students to gain input like listening skill. Therefore, it is essential to prepare the task apprpriately bearing in mind that this is the stage where the pupils acquire knowledge. Therefore, I chose to carry out this task in the pre-stage of the lesson. This is suitable because students are given input in the pre-stage. Thus, reading skill activity in the pre-stage proved a good combination. Since this work was individual, it did not involve a lot of communication with other group members. We only discussed with each other when checking on our ideas (whether the idea would work) and upon completion of the task to double check with group members if its on the right track. What I did was to refer to my previous sememster course 'Teaching Reading Skills'. The notes of the previous semester provided a guide for me in the completion of this task.
In this task, I created an e-book to be used by the teacher to provide the input. The e-book is colourful and full if animations. It would naturally attract the pupils’ attention. Moreover, in receiving input, the pupils will easily forget if they only hear it. Therefore, it is better for them to see it visually and be able to read the text as well as look at the pictures to remember the input. The presentation of the text and the picture will help them to connect the pictures to the text and thus, be able to understand and remember easily.The teacher, will be able to sustain each of the pupils’ attention towards the e-book. In this activity, every pupil in the class has a role to play throughout. Thus, they will not become bored or shift their attention towards something else.This task will be helpful in measuring the pupils’ understanding. If the pupils understand the input, they would be able to match the pictures to words correctly.