Week 10: Wrap Up

Can't believe it's Week 10 already! Curtain's almost down and everything's wrapping up. Even the title for this week is 'Wrap Up'. Well, I suppose we are going near the finishing line. It's been a great 10 weeks with my e-teacher colleagues from all over the world, and not forgetting our tutor Robert. Thank you so much everyone! I've learnt a lot from you guys!

Let's flashback on what we've learnt. I remember in Week 1, we introduced ourselves on Nicenet, read the rubrics and discuss the class ground rules. I suppose that's a pretty good way for us to start any class. Introduction breaks the ice, rubrics show us how are we going to be assessed so we know the direction, ground rules remind us of what should and should not be done. I personally did housekeeping like this at the beginning of a new semester but not usually the rubric part in which I think I will do next time. Week 2 was the ABCD Learning Objectives and effective web searches. I like ABCD Learning Objectives. The ABCD module has somehow really makes things clear in setting up the learning objectives. Again, a good thing to be implemented when doing lesson planning and teaching. In Week 3, we shared skill-building websites for oral/aural skills on Delicious. How could I not love it when everyone shared their favourites or what they found useful websites for oral/aural skills. I've bookmarked most of them on Delicious and will continue doing so in the future so I can share my findings with my colleagues. Other than oral/aural skills, there are numerous other websites for other skills as well such as for reading/writing skills (as discussed in Week 4). 

Week 4 too marked an important issue identified in our classroom which can be solved with technology and feasible for our final project. To me, this is the start of the 'seriousness' of this class. This week we started to think of what was lacking in our class and how could we improve it. As for me, the problem identified was my students who put too much focus on examination that they sometimes felt having interesting lessons on the computer was a waste of time. Surprisingly, Week 5 had showed me the solution - project-based learning and WebQuests! Relating my issue to these alternative assessments, I managed to come up with a solution which was to explicitly link examination with their project so that my students could see their learning is meaningful and serves their needs i.e. to prepare for the examination. The result: a WebQuest Fun With Idioms created with Zunal WebQuests Maker. I felt so proud when I tested this WebQuest lesson on my students in Week 6 and Week 7. They were excited to do the project which was to create a presentation on idioms. I even taught them to use Prezi, a creative alternative to PowerPoint (which we learnt in Week 6). In short, I would say that these 3 weeks have been very meaningful for me and my students. We benefited greatly from this course. I will definitely use a lot of these resources to create a lot more technology-enhanced lessons in the future.

Week 8 and Week 9, we were busy writing our project reports, shared them on class wiki with our partners for peer review and rewriting a final version of it before submitting it to Robert. It was a very stressful period for most of us, I believe, but WE DID IT! I'm proud. Now it's Week 10 when finally, we are coming to an end. It's hard for me to let it go especially because I felt I've learnt a lot the past 10 weeks. Besides, I've already gotten used to staying up late doing my assignments so I guess I'll feel 'too free' after this. I do hope that my friendship with my e-colleagues remains and we can keep sharing things we know and learn from wherever we are around the world. I hope to also continue writing on this blog about my passion in education. Till then. :)

Week 9: Learning Styles - Technology Connection

It's Week 9! We're at the final stage of our course  and I feel like I'm going to miss doing assignments till midnight when this class is over. I have successfully submitted my project report on Wednesday *yeay!*. At the same time, I have just completed marking my students examination paper *double yeay!* All done within 5 days. Now that's super teacher. :)

Our discussion topic this week was Learning Styles - Technology Connection. We talked a lot about Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligence. He identified nine intelligence which are verbal-linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinaesthetic, musical/rhythmic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist and existentialist. You can read general information about this theory on Wikipedia.

In our discussion, among other arguments that we had was whether we should classify students according to their learning styles. Personally, I firmly believe that we should not classify and separate them, especially when we are dealing with younger kids. From my observation, these kids are clingy to their best buddies and if we separate them according to their learning styles which may be different, the probability is they would shut down totally and not do their work at all. Furthermore, I believe that all children has all intelligence. It depends on the surrounding to nurture the whole spectrum. The solution? We as teachers will have to do something to cater to all students' learning styles as well as to foster their learning and strengthen their intelligence.

One of the ways that teachers could do, as suggested in the website Concept to Classroom's Workshop: Tapping into Multiple Intelligences is that we could do what they termed as Learning Centres or Learning Stations. To quote from their page, these Learning Centres are "...situations around the classroom that a teacher sets up for students to work in either small group or individual activities. Each of these centers has supplies and materials that work well together and give students the tools to complete activities and mini-projects -- either in groups of two to three students or individually." In short, by having Learning Centres, we can organise various kinds of activities to cater to different students with different kinds of intelligences. Some of the suggestions that could be implemented in light of technology are: 

LEARNING CENTERS	TECHNOLOGY ACTIVITIES
ILLUSTRATION/VISUAL EXPRESSION CENTER(for encouraging students' Visual/Spatial; Intrapersonal Intelligences)	1) Painting using computer softwares (Paint, Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD) 2) Cameras (digital, webcam, camcorder) 3) Computer with color printer and scanner: e-mail and Internet connection
SCIENCE/EXPERIMENT CENTER(for encouraging students' Logical/Mathematical, Naturalist, Visual/Spatial Intelligences)	1) A whole lot of Science resources online 2) Computer with color printer: probe-ware, robotics, spreadsheets, and timeliners. Science-based software such as The Voyage of the Mimi (Sunburst), The Great Space Rescue (Tom Snyder Software) and reference CD-ROMs
MUSIC CENTER(for encouraging students' Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal Intelligences)	1) CD player, mp3s with headphones 2) Various websites of videos (Youtube, DailyMotion) 3) Computer with microphone, speakers, and earphones plus MIDI connector and keyboard: music composition software, CD-ROMs designed for music study, CDs for incorporating sound into multimedia presentations 4) Various softwares for music composition (MuseScore, Noteflight)
PERFORMANCE CENTER(for encouraging students' Visual/Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal)	1) Cassette or CD-player for background music 2) Computer with color printer: designing costumes, props 3) Animation creator softwares (Anima8or, Pencil)

I have also found this interesting picture while I was surfing on the Internet, looking for an appropriate picture on Google Image. I think the picture reflects better on what our children could do (or maybe are already doing) with the presence of technology in education nowadays.

Anyhow, I also believe that we all should know our own intelligence profile. We could use it to understand ourselves better and perhaps, understand our students too. You can check yours too at http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz

Week 8: Teacher Resources Online

It's Week 8 and we were all busy writing our project report draft! They were done by Wednesday May 22nd and submitted to our partners. Now we are waiting for our partners to comment on our drafts. Honestly, I had to work around the clock this week, including the weekend. I had to attend Girls Guide Annual General Meeting at J.W. Marriott Kuala Lumpur for 4 days 3 nights. With all the work undone and meeting on the way, I managed to complete the report and did the task this week. I need to apologise to my partners for being a bit late in returning their project  report draft checklist and comments. Kayyum and Jurgita, if you are reading this, I am truly sorry but rest assured, I am working on it!

In this week as well, I learnt a lot of useful online tools. One of my favourite is HotPotatoes. I've downloaded this software to my computer and have even tried to use the tools such as JCloze (to create cloze passage), JMatch (to create matching exercise) and JCross (to make crossword puzzle). I love it! It definitely makes my life as a teacher easier. Before this, I've never made my own crossword puzzle. I did, but using Microsoft Word where I drew the boxes myself! That makes me so lazy to do exercises like that but now not anymore. I can use HotPotatoes. Thank you Robert for introducing me to such interesting tools.

I am definitely going to explore more on all the links provided by Robert and by my e-colleagues when I have free time later. As for now, let's get back to work.

Week 7: Learner Autonomy and One Computer Classroom

It is Week 7. We are approaching the end of our course. I've finished doing my class project with my students. I'm currently writing up my final project report and will submit it to my friends Kayyum and Jurgita for Peer Review. May the force be with me.

In the meantime, this week's topic reminded me very much of what I have learnt during my undergraduate years. It's about Learner Autonomy. So what is an autonomous learner? According to Little(1991), autonomous learners are those who explicitly accept responsibility for their own learning. The autonomous learner also shows initiative regarding  learning, and shares in monitoring progress and evaluating the extent to which learning is achieved (Schunk, 2005). In today's world, it is easy for students to become an autonomous learner because of technology. Technology helps and aids a lot in education. It is not surprising if one day, there is no more teacher teaching in physical schools. Children gets education online. Who knows? Nonetheless, it is today's teachers' responsibility to prepare students to become one.

Another topic that I learn is One Computer Classroom. This is a topic close to my situation right now. My classroom does not have a computer but I use my personal laptop as a teaching aid. I don't mind at all. I'm also grateful as the school has installed an LCD projector in my classroom. Well it's actually for English Unit but they choose to install it in my classroom. Lucky me! So I've made use of these technology advantages to teach my students. My verdict: every time I use the computer and project anything on the screen, my students are more attracted to my lesson. So technology is indeed a motivation to them.

As for my project, I did the Webquest lesson with my students last week on Friday. I'm in the process of writing the project report to be submitted to my peers. Wish me luck! :)

16 May: Malaysia Celebrates Teacher's Day

                                        Happy Teacher's Day!

Video Sharing

Will this be our future?

Week 6: Engaging Students / Large Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Large class. Do you have this in your school? We don't. Our classes have in average 27 students. 30 will be the largest number of students in class. However, from time to time, we do have a lecture where we combine all five classes from the same form in one big room to undergo one lecture-style lesson. Sometimes we do that too when there happens to be a lack of teacher due to unforeseen circumstances like sickness, out-of-school duty etc. Handling a large class is not an easy task, especially with younger students who just love to talk and move around a lot. They are more energetic and requires full attention. As for the older ones, the usual problem is inattentiveness due to boredom. This requires motivation.

So, what I learnt this week is related to this problem. We talked about how tools like PowerPoint can be used to attract students' attention. In using PowerPoint too, there are various ways that we could do to make one presentation interesting and powerful to retain students' focus and attention. However, teachers/lecturers should bear in mind not to over-use it. Students will get bored too when we use them a lot, to the point that we rely entirely on the PowerPoint to do the lesson or we just read-out-loud points on the PowerPoint. Techniques such as ConcepTest and QuickWrite may be used along with a special blank slide within the PowerPoint presentation, just to switch students' view. We could also create a quiz using PowerPoint by adding hyperlinks etc. All these are called interactive PowerPoint method.

There are also alternatives to PowerPoint that I learn this week. For example, Prezi, SlideRocket, 280Slides and ZohoShow. These alternative add some spice to the presentation, making it more interesting and appealing for students. Well, who doesn't like something new, right? So I guess I'll be learning more and more of these tools and apply it my lessons. :)

As for the project, I haven't actually done the WebQuest lesson to my students. However, I tried one lesson plan (the one we did for Week 4 on Technology-enhanced Lesson Plan) without Internet in class. I've prepared beforehand by downloading the audio file and have the materials ready offline. It works! Students love it that we do something different and I believe I can expect them to be more enthusiastic when we do the WebQuest lesson this upcoming week. Hopefully... Anyway, one lesson I learnt when doing that lesson is to have Plan B ready because in my situation, things can go wrong anytime.

Anyway, have fun teaching everyone!

Week 5: Assessment, Rubrics and PBL

Election fever! Google honours Malaysia's 13th General Election with the creation of Election Doodle for Malaysia Google Home Page at www.google.com.my I've done my part casting my vote for the first time ever. For your information, Malaysians can vote when we reach the age of 20. In the last General Election, I was not able to vote because I was still studying overseas and I did not register to vote from overseas. Anyway, I'm glad I did my part as a Malaysian today. 

Back to the real task. I'm already done with Week 5. This is by far the most busy week for me. It is also the most fruitful week as I did and learnt a lot this week. The topic seems easy - Assessment, Rubrics and Project-based Learning. I did one entire semester of assessment paper when I was in university but there are many new things introduced to me this week. 

Firstly, alternative assessment. Reading about it on Assessing Learning: Alternative Assessment, it becomes clear to me that our Malaysian education system is moving towards it. Ministry of Education has just introduced the school-based assessment last year so this is the second year we are doing such assessment. The Form 1 and Form 2 students now do not have to sit for any national examination. Instead, they are assessed based on performance tasks as explained on the website. It follows all the features of alternative assessment, agrees to the criteria that defines authentic assessment activities etc. To me, alternative assessment is an excellent model to assess students. There's only one downside of it - it requires a lot of teachers' time and effort. Yes marking examination script may be a suffering for us but checking students' work over and over again (especially when they repeat and repeat a certain task because we think that their performance is not up to the standard) is even more tiring.

Secondly, I learnt 2 valuable tools for teachers i.e. Rubistar and Webquest. Rubistar is a website where teachers can create rubrics for students and teachers' use. As Robert mentioned in the class website, 

"...Rubrics are a wonderful way to clarify expectations for holistic grading, such as for writing or speaking. The rubric becomes a kind of contract between the teacher and the learners, so that learners know that if they do the things associated with "excellent" in the rubric, they will get an "excellent" mark. Students are more motivated, and assessment is easier. Students must get the rubrics when they begin the task."

Webquests, on the other hand, are a form of PBL. It is "...an inquiry-oriented activity that uses resources on the World Wide Web" and "...help[s] students develop problem-solving and decision-making skills." (Professor Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University). Students surf on one WebQuest, go to websites the teacher has listed and do tasks required using the processes mentioned on the WebQuest. The task can be done individually or in groups, according to what's instructed. A WebQuest usually has a specific structure; Welcome, Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation, Conclusion and Teacher's Page. I've created mine as well using Zunal - Zunal WebQuest: Fun With Idioms. Do visit!

After rereading and rethinking last week's problem, I've finally figured out one possible solution. Before we proceed, let me recap of what my problem is. My students are very much focused on the upcoming national examination that they are going to sit for at the end of this year. Yes, they are interested in a technology-enhanced lesson but they could not relate (or able to but very little) the use of Internet and examination. They always think that whenever they use the Internet in class, it's only for fun but not to prepare them for the examination. I found the root of this problem. I could still use the Internet and technology-enhanced lesson plans but I need to always give them the rubrics, show them the relations between the activity they're doing and how does that help them prepare for their examination. For example, the Fun With Idioms WebQuest I created can be used to prepare them for English 1119 Paper 1 where they can include idioms to produce a better essay and for English 1119 Paper 2, they should know idioms to be able to answer some multiple questions involving the figurative meaning of idioms. I suppose by clearly making this link, they'll be clearer in where they're heading to.

I think I've put in a lot of thoughts in this blog entry. Looking forward to read others too. :)

Week 4: Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

The topic of our discussion this week revolves around reading and writing skills. However, I focused a lot more on reading as reading is what my students lack off. They dislike reading. Well some of them do like reading, but time is their enemy. Or maybe passion. Or perhaps motivation? I don't know. I find myself read less nowadays. I hardly finish one novel in one month like I used to. In fact, I might have taken half a year to finish even one!  However, I read a lot online. Apart from reading updates on social networks, e-mails or online news, I read articles on various topics. I read e-books. I read short stories. I read books and films reviews. To conclude, I'd say, it's not that I don't read as much anymore. It's just that my genre of reading has changed from reading on paper to reading on screen. Well maybe that's what I need to do to my students too, especially because they are Generation Y. I need to use technology in my reading lessons.

In order to complete my assignments, I did some online search and found several interesting websites full of reading materials which I think might interest my students. SearchLit, Children's Library and King Features Comics are some examples. Here, students can explore the readings available based on their own preferences, levels and needs. Hopefully this can boost their motivation to read. I also read an online article on the debate of reading online versus reading on books; whether reading online really counts as reading. Pretty interesting arguments but I'm more to agreeing that reading online is also reading, no matter how little reading is going on. 

"What is different now, some literacy experts say, is that spending time on the Web, whether it is looking up something on Google or even britneyspears.org, entails some engagement with text." Source: Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?

 What say you? 

Video Sharing

TED Talks: Ken Robinson says schools kills creativity.

What say you?

Week 3: Oral / Aural Skill Building and Delicious.com

Busy week! I might have too many things on my plate this week that my assignments seemed to be lagging behind. *Sorry Robert* But I've completed them, nevertheless. Though I still have markings to be done. Kids will surely be asking when will they get their papers back - or marks, actually. The ugly side of exam-oriented education system...

So what have I learnt this week? A lot, really. First of all, Delicious. It's a social bookmarking service. Before this I only knew how to bookmark page using the bookmark toolbar on my browser. And I've heard about del.icio.us. Little did I know that this Delicious thing is actually a social bookmarking service. What does it mean actually? It means, I use it to bookmark my favourite pages and I can share what I've bookmarked with my friends - hence the social part. Even better, I can log in to my Delicious from any computers so my bookmarks are always available. Pretty much like Dropbox where all my files are kept in my 'floating hard disk'. How technology makes our life easy! So if you're also on Delicious and wants to share good website pages (mine is mostly on English language teaching), feel free to follow me.

The topic this week is pretty interesting: Oral/Aural Skill Building. First thing first, I looked up on the online dictionary the meaning of 'aural'. Here's one from Oxford Dictionaries.

So this week's topic focuses on speaking and listening skills, with an addition of pronunciation skill. Of course Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) helps a lot in the teaching process of these skills with all sorts of technology from computers, internet, online radio and TV etc. The internet, for example, has tonnes of useful websites to be used in classroom either with students doing independent learning or with teacher teaching in front. I found elllo to be very useful, same goes to ManyThings. Life is so much easier for a modern teacher like me. Students too get the advantage of being exposed to authentic and semi-authentic materials easily, not only from local production but also from international production. This is in line with the school's mission which is to become a n excellent education centre that produces quality students who are globally efficient.

                   

One question I had in mind while reading one of the article The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills by Julia Gong is regarding accents. How could students' speaking skills be measured by softwares or all these modern technology while there exists a gap between the producer and the second language users in terms of foreign accent. I mean, not all Malaysians have same accent when speaking English. Some may have Manglish, some may have Kelantanese (Kelantan is a state in Malaysia who has a distinct local dialect) accent, some like me may well have a different accent - not Manglish, not British, not American but an accent of my own. My question was immediately answered upon reading another article New Perspectives on Teaching Pronunciation by Maria Grazia Busà. Thanks to her, I have now another knowledge on language learning - prosody. Basically, prosody is the use of pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm in speech to convey information about the structure and meaning of an utterance. For more information about how all these are linked, I suggest you to read the article which is available on our class website.

Video Sharing

One of the power of social networking is the ability to spread a piece of information wide and fast. Here's a selection of what I think worth spreading. Enjoy watching! :)

A Few Minutes of Perfection

Breathtaking Time-Lapse Shot Over Six Months on New Zealand’s North Island
Read more here.

New Zealand - a place like no other. The view is absolutely breathtaking. I spent 3-and-a-half years there for my undergraduate studies and I miss every single moment of it. Wish I could turn back time...

Week 2: The ABCD Learning Objectives Framework and Effective Web Searches

Pheww! It has been a very hectic and at the same time tech-y week for me. The week started off with a 3 days visit to two schools in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor area. As soon as I got back in Mersing, piles of exam papers were already waiting to be marked as students just had their second test. At the same time, I had readings and one post due Wednesday on Nicenet. Friday and half day of Saturday were spent on a Microsoft Access short course in school. Then only I have time to sit back, do my other assignments and keep up with household chores. Challenges of being a teacher and a student at the same time, huh? But I'm glad nevertheless. I learnt A LOT this week!

The topic this week is The ABCD Learning Objectives Framework and Effective Web Searches. What is The ABCD Learning Objectives Framework? Having read through the readings, basically it's a framework for teachers to set students' learning objectives i.e. what students can expect to do and gain from a lesson. Having done my degree in education, I have read about learning objectives before but this framework is somewhat new to me. The framework is really easy to understand and helps us as a teacher to set our learning objectives as well. Let's now look at the framework in summary:

Audience (A) – Who? Who are your learners?

Behavior (B) – What? What do you expect them to be able to do? This should be an overt, observable behavior, even if the actual behavior is covert or mental in nature. If you can't see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, you can't be sure your audience really learned it.

Condition (C) – How? Under what circumstances or context will the learning occur? What will the student be given or already be expected to know to accomplish the learning?

Degree (D) – How much? How much will be accomplished, how well will the behavior need to be performed, and to what level? Do you want total mastery (100%), do you want them to respond correctly 80% of the time, etc. A common (and totally non-scientific) setting is 80% of the time.

Source: http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives/

Another thing I learnt this week is Effective Web Searches. Before this, I had the idea of Google being the best search engine. However, from this week's assignments, I got to know a whole lot of other search engines. I learnt that different search engine caters to different audience, functions and interest. For example, if we want to do academic research, Intute or INFOMINE may be a better option. Other than that, there are also several web searching tips that can help us to get results that we want faster and more efficiently such as using +, ~, and " " in our searches.

Last but not least, the greatest findings from Week 2's assignments, the all time favourite Bloom's Taxonomy! But behold, it is not the usual Bloom's Taxonomy we know because it is now Bloom's DIGITAL Taxonomy! Yes you read it correct - DIGITAL. Let's look at the diagram from  Educational Origami:

This taxonomy reminds me of how we all need to keep up with the technology so that we can deliver a good lesson to our students. Therefore dear friends, it is now legit for us to put these verbs into our lesson plans, okay? :)

First post ever! *fireworks*

First post ever! *pat on the back* Finally, I have a blog of my own, thanks to the e-Teacher Scholarship Program: Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web. :)

This blog will be the accounts of my tiny little baby steps of becoming a super teacher. I am BARELY one. I've been teaching for only two years - I have a long looooong way to go!

And being in this course is one of the tiny little baby steps. Hopefully, I will be able to achieve the overall objective of this course which is to enable teachers to understand and use appropriate technology to enhance the learning environment and outcomes for students. 

So all the best to myself, and to you readers, welcome to my blog! :)

*p/s: To those who do not know, I'm currently doing a 10-week online course offered through American English Institute, University of Oregon and funded by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit http://aei3.uoregon.edu/eteacher/