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.

E-book

I was deeply intrigued of what an e-book could be, when we were first told that we should create one!!! However, looking the examples from the seniors, I was indeed a little surprised to learn that it is just a powerpoint presentation. I still could not understand why this powerpoint presentation is called an e-book. Making the powerpoint was not the toughest part. It was harder to do the tutorial of it. Recording each step and explaining it took up more of our time than doing the powerpoint itself. And yet, showing the tutorial does not mean much as all the steps are the basic ones that are used in the making of any powerpoint slides. This taks was not very demanding nor did it teach us anything new. I have merely applied my previous knowledge of powerpoint-creating in this task.

So You Think You Can Dance?

This task was also another video editing task. Yet, it required us to utilize slightly different skills and knowledge. In this task, we were required to download the various parts of 8TV's So You Think You Can Dance programme. Since there were many parts, we divided the work among us. Since the downloading process took a very long time we stayed up late into night trying our best to finish the work before we head home to our 'kampungs' for the upcoming holidays.
Even though we had everything carefully planned and managed to finish the task despite some technical complications that we faced, we still landed ourselves into trouble. This was because we received the news that the task must be handed inthe form of DVD reached us only when we were in our hometowns. Thus, we could not hand the DVD within time even though we uploaded them as required on time.
Later on, we pointed out this to Pn Foziah and showed her that we completed the task in time, the uploaded work being evidence, but could not deliver the DVD. Pn Foziah accepted our apologies and received our DVD as she saw that we did not procrastinate our work but only could not deliver the DVD.

Entertainment-In-The-Making...

How many times have we marvelled at others' videos? Now it time for us to make our own. All our experience in 'Technology for Primary Schools' was every bit helpful in completing this task. Working with a friend, we were required to gather pictures and compile them into a video. Our topic was 'Life as A University Student'.
The task was not complicated in the complation of pictures, but the complication was in delivering them creatively. Moreover, we had to decide on it fast as we will be going away for our holidays. Once we decided the theme and how to present it, we did it separately during the holidays. We used the Power Director software as it offered many interesting features to produce a video, apart from being user friendly.
However, it was still difficult for us to communicate our ideas through to each other being far apart. This was because we were both away in our hometowns. It was indeed difficult to upload the video due to multiple technical problems. Even thoguh the task given to us was easy, the technical part of it was very complicated to handle and took up most of our time.
Our video can be found in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMD5CkdAcbU

Classrooms and Music

I listen to music for fun, for tranquility, for ideas, or simply to keep up to date with what's new. Recently, I have come to learn of how songs can be part of a lesson through the course Songs and Poetry for Primary Schools. In this course we learned of utilizing entertaining songs and poems to teach English. The course was indeed very informative and fun as we enjoyed ourselves creating music and songs as one of the assignments.

This tak of audio editing , I see it as a sequal to the one. As teachers, I believe, there are times when we realize that we can't use an entire song for a lesson's purpose, thus this is where learning on manipulating the songs will be handy. It will prove much better when we actually toss away the parts that we do not need, increase the volume at the parts we wish to reinforce, even add on with parts from other songs.

Now, all that is definetely possible with the audio editing skills. This time we were not asked to produce eeducational songs, but we were given the freedom of editing any song. I feel that this actually helped us look this task in a wider scope, than having it narrowed down to educational scope alone. Moreover, this will give us an opportunity to explore and experiment on the use of audio editing before we could apply it for educational puposes.

Though tiring, it was a useful task.

Music

MyNiceSpace.com

Photo Editing: Perfecting the Imperfect

This photo editing task has indeed been a challenge for most of us. As a beginner myself I struggled to find a suitable software that is user friendly. I tried Adobe Photoshop CS3, Ulead Photo Impact, Acdsee Photo Edtior 5 and Zoner Photo Studio. But the one that I feel most comfortable with is Adobe Photoshop Elements. It is not only user friendly but even provides step by step guidance to edit or create a photo or a collage.

Pn Foziah's tutorials that were posted in the forum very informative and provided a step by step guidance in editing a photo.

I initially, put in a lot thoughts in thinking about what exactly to edit. I flipped through some of my family photo album that are dear to my mother. I saw my sister's various photograps. I had an idea of creating a collage with these photos and publish the collage as one photo finally. Another great help for in completing this task was this blog that I still do not know how I found. Even though it is in Bahasa Malaysia, you can bank on it for some useful tips. Here is the link: http://zulkiplyharun.com/.

Though I had my photo completed well early, I did not upload it as I thought it was to be on Sunday. Yet, a text message in the middle of the night made me quickly turn on my PC and upload it instantly. However, not all my friends were as fortunate as I was.

Some who had no internet connection in their homes were unable to do what I did. They were allowed to upload the task within a given time later on. I made use of this opportunity to replace my uploaded photo, as I managed to create a more sophisticated photo with my more enhanced editing knowledge.

The Progression

My group made a good proress with the given assignment. We neatly divided the work among us. Yet, we allowed room for interaction and learning from each other. Initially,I had no idea of things such as Keepvid and so on. But, due to this assignment, I have learned how to make use of them. The first thing I learned through this assignment is about downloading videos. Well...I now know how to download a video from You Tube or Google Videos.
In doing this assignment, especially in groups, I managed to learn from my group members a number of things about internet resources. I learned about some useful sites to download necessary softwares such as RealPlayer, that can come in handy in more than one way.
Even though, it has been very time consuming to identify videos of our topic 'Travel and Adventure', I definetely aquired a lot of things that I would normally not. Things like this that I usually take granted are indeed important!!!

Moving with The Flow of The Wave

In this second week of lecture, I find myself struggling to understand completely and completing the assignment assigned to us. This would go for my group members as well. Pn Foziah's lecture was long-winded with many things ponder and for us rethink upon. It kind of pointed out how little we knew about technology and how much more we had to learn in the days to come. As an ancient saying goes, "what we could fill our hands and what we do not know fill the rest of the world." There are always something new for us to learn about as technology is fast growing and is always full of updates.
I came across this incredible video about how technology can assist us as teachers to conduct our lessons. This video easily gives an overview of the technology in classroom by comparing the classroom instrument of the past and present, how technology simplifies teachers’ workload and how it can be integrated in the classroom.

Week 1: Resources: they are everything around us

Hello everyone.
In this 'Choosing and Using Resources For ESL Classroom,' course, we are learning on how find, create, develop and/or adapt resources to suit the needs of our students. What I notice among many of us is that, we go to extreme lengths to develop a teaching resource when in fact there are plenty of them readily available around us. Just take for instance, cartoons or songs. Children today are literally adicted to them . And using them would attract the children towards learning the lesson. As children learn something in a fun way their affective filter is naturally lowered and they can acquire the subject easily.
Here I have discovered some useful link s for us: http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistant-teaching-tips-cartoons-comics.htm
http://www.motivationalplus.com/Cartoonsforteachers.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2145417_find-cartoons-teach-science.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=
http://www.songsforteaching.com/yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=y
http://www.isabelperez.com/songs.htmssp_art
http://casnov1.cas.muohio.edu/scienceforohio/Colors_of_Nature/Rr.html



I am looking forward to learn to choose appropriate the resources as well as create/develop them. I am sure that this course has a great deal for me to learn to improve myself as a future teacher.