The Last…but not Least… =)

Time flies and without realizing it, we were already at the last lecture and it was a fun day as it was a sharing day. We were all given an assignment to produce something by using any of the Web 2.0 tool and true enough that we all had so much fun participating in the games, watching the animation, cartoon and stories. I believe our students will also be as excited as us.

Throughout this whole semester, although the burden is heavy with all the work and assignments, I do appreciate the learning process as I had learn so much from Mdm. Ng as well as my beloved coursemates. With all the hands-on work, the purpose is to leave a deeper impression  and experience in us rather than merely listening about the tools and what they can do to us and our students.

Equipping with all the knowledge that I have gained through this experience, I believe I will be able to make changes in my coming lessons. Being aware of what technology can do for the teaching and learning process will definitely able to make a difference in the process and will affect the students as I think will surely increase engagement and motivation in them.

Thanks again everyone for making the whole process a fun one =)

The Future

The Smart School concept was developed as it was believed that ICT plays an important role in imparting learning desire to all. With the help of ICT, the teaching and learning process will be made easier, more fun and effective in delivery and management. Besides that, students with the exposure to ICT, will get familiar with the ICT world and able to handle ICT tools effectively and this will produce technology savvy new generation needed for the development of the country. Everything seemed well-planned and the idea was idealistic but the reality shows that we are far behind from what was planned. For example, all schools are supposed to be smart, but till now, how many school are truly ‘smart’? I do hope this will become reality so that all students throughout the country have an opportunity to be exposed to the advancing world of technology.

The Upside Down ~~

It all started with a simple idea to help students who are absent to catch-up with the lesson and it gain fame after people find it effective in improving students’ performance and also discipline problems in schools.

The role of the teacher as the sage on the stage is regarded as traditional. What is in trend now is teachers as the facilitator, guiding on the side and students will do the job. The teacher will prepare the teaching materials e.g. videos for the students to watch at home before the lesson. They can communicate with their peers and teachers via online discussion regarding the video watched. When they come to the classroom, with the help of the instructor, concept engagement will happen when further discussion and questioning session takes place in small groups. To flip the classroom, teacher need to identify the educational technology tools to be used and activities to be carried out to create a conducive learning environment for effective learning process.

This whole idea is exciting but the main concern is do I have the time to prepare the videos and the learning activities cater for a flipped classroom and what will be the students, parents and school administrator's reaction on this idea? I do hope when the time has come for me to execute this method, I will receive full support from all parties... =) For the betterment of teaching and learning process. 

The New Toy =)

I was thrilled when Dee introduced “Schoology” in her presentation. Schoology is a Learning Management System (LMS) and a social network for sharing academic content. It looks like something similar to the most popular Facebook minus the distraction. Feel like starting up one soon…

I enjoyed Dee’s presentation on Teaching and Learning with Internet: Pedagogical strategies, Activities, Web Resources 2.0. She started with the definition on pedagogy (a conscious act designed to enhance learning), strategy (the ways to be carried out in order to achieve or reach the goal) and pedagogical strategy (the instructional designs applied in the teaching and learning). Some popular pedagogical strategies are behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and social constructivism and now we have an emerging theory which is connecticism (Siemens & Downes, 2006). “There is no single pedagogy that provides absolute success for all students”. Therefore, teachers ought to be equipped with a sound knowledge of the pedagogical strategies in order to be able to choose the suitable strategy to be apply in a particular lesson to achieve the intended learning outcome.

To ensure effective E-Learning, there are 7 principles of good practices given by Gamson:

1. Encouraging contacts
   
2. Develop cooperation
   
3. Use active learning techniques
   
4. Prompt feedback
   
5. Emphasize time
   
6. Communicates high expectations
   
7. Respect diverse talents/ ways of learning

Starting and sustaining an E-learning environment will require extra effort than having lessons in school only. When it comes to the Internet (which is full of fun and excitement and distraction), we need to have something in our site that will attract the students to constantly visiting and the teacher’s availability is also very important as students will expect to receive comments and response ‘immediately’. All these will require the teacher to constantly check on the T&L site. Besides, the task given should be able to cater to the ability of all students to reduce frustration. As what had been quoted by Dee,

“What pedagogical principles can and/or should inform and guide online learning?”

“The best principle is one where the student is driven by tasks, problems and engages with the content and this is how the learning happens.”

When the students have the passion to learn, spontaneously, they will enquire more and get themselves engaged and involved in the teaching and learning process.

The Mid of November

It’s already the mid of November and we are half way through the course. Still surviving but I need to do a lot of catching up though… =/

Seems like Web-based Learning in a trendy term where most people will think that Web-based learning will definitely improve or enhance learning experiences. How true is this is yet to be proven. All I know is, in order for a tool to be effective, it requires a lot of sweat and labour behind the scene. Jessica did a detailed and clear presentation with some real-life examples on the tools that she used in her lesson. In her presentation she mention about the implementation of ADDIE Model in developing a web-based learning environment. As research is an iterative cycle, with the help of a guiding model, a researcher will be able to work in a more focus direction and also identify the parts to be repeated (in case of any ‘mishap’).

Setting up a web-based learning tool involves a lot of planning and effort. Sustaining it is another huge issue. I’d always wanted a virtual platform to support my teaching and learning and I did managed to come out with a few but all ended the same fate – abandoned. I really need a strong determination and put in more effort in the planning stage so that I can continue on with the project even after fulfilling the requirement of a certain course.

Designing a Web-Based Learning Environment

Nothing comes easy… There is for sure a reason for me to prefer Facebook over Friendster, a reason to prefer a particular website, a particular search engine, a particular software, a particular presentation etc. All these lie on how those tools are being presented to the consumers & how user friendly are the tools.

From Yee Hui’s Power Point Slides, I found that there are a whole lot of details we need to pay attention too in order to produce something that is able to deliver the message effectively and also attract and maintain the audience’s attention. There is the need of 120% of effort to be able to do so. This is a great challenge.

I used to comment on the Wiki that I created looked blank, plain and not catchy. Now I know that I can actually modify the Wiki. Thanks to Yee Hui’s sharing on her Wiki. I really admire her effort and work in producing web tools for her lesson.

Personal Learning Environment

This is my topic and I should be well-versed about it but instead of becoming the expert on PLE, I, myself got confused over and over again in the process of figuring it while munching on the articles given and some web-searched information. Although I’d done my PPT slides and sort of gotten myself ready, but when it comes to think about the question, “What is PLE?” posted by Mdm. Ng in the beginning of the class, everything  regarding PLE appeared to be still vague. Seems like Mdm. Ng knows that I wasn’t ready, that’s why all my classmates got to answer the questions for me to do some last-minute revision before presenting on PLE. =)

PLE is a potential approach to meet future educational needs & may provide new alternatives that foster learning capacity among individual learners (Bentley and Miller, 2004). Whereas Good & Brophy (1990) stated that PLE consider the individual pupil's interest, needs and abilities and finding out the best learning style for each pupil. From these, PLE seems to be the perfect way to produce productive and skilful workers to meet the demand in the future working world. Through PLE, students learn based on their own pace, ability and interest thus producing human assets who are aware of their strengths and abilities. Therefore, it is crucial that teachers become aware of the needs and interest of their students in order to identify and incorporate suitable teaching and learning methods to achieve the intended learning outcome.

Most of the time, being a teacher, I’ll tend to take up the role of a dictator while the students are passive learner where they just merely follow the teacher’s instructions. This prohibits them from taking responsibilities in their learning and also actively involve in the teaching and learning process as they feel that education is something done on them and the things that they are learning has nothing to do with them. By this, students will not be interested and will not want to engaged in the teaching and learning process.

As teacher, we need to identify and become aware of the activities that will lead to PLE. Having a clear knowledge and understanding regarding PLE will allow the teacher to fully incorporate the activities in the teaching and learning to help the students to achieve the intended learning outcome. So, the mission now is I need to identify the activities that will encourage PLE to be carried out in my lessons and I believe, with the help of technologies, each student will be able to utilize the instructional/ Internet tools in a productive manner which is beneficial to themselves and their peers and further leading them to become a life-long learner.