FINAL REFLECTION

1. What I like about blogging?

Blogging gives me the opportunity to share information and knowledge with other friends. We can share opinion and give comments to other people. Besides, it enables us to reflect the things learned in class and indirectly, it reflects my understanding about the content of the lesson taught in class earlier. Plus, by blogging, the teacher will be able to know the weaknesses of his or her lesson from the pupils' comments and reflection about the lesson. Thus, this enables teachers to evaluate his or her teaching and learning approach in order to suit pupils' needs.

2. What I do not like about blogging?

Since blogging is a medium where pupils can write anything that they like, sometimes, the content might offend other people and they might give the wrong interpretation about information to other people as it is only opinion. So, the content in blogging is not 100% true as it is only opinion given by the blog writer.

3. What have I gained from blogging eg. Language skills, improved fluency, critical thinking, improved thought processes, technology skills etc.

Blogging has improved my critical thinking as I need to think critically to reflect on the lesson. Besides, blogging improves my language skills and fluency. Plus, it improves my technology skills a lot. I never had any experience of creating and writing a blog before. Doing it for this course allowed me to be an independent learner as I managed to explore blogging on my own =)

4. How?

Reflecting and thinking of the doubts about the content of the lesson had improved my critical thinking skills and thought processes. I needed to question the areas that I did not understand and maybe search for the answer on my own. This, again, had developed me to be an independent learner. Plus, it indirectly, enhanced my technology skills as I had to search for information in the internet and designing my own blog creatively.

5. What I like about the course?

I like this course as it introduced me with the wonderful and creative way of using and developing resources for ESL primary classroom that I had never think of before. I admitted that this course have developed me to be a more technology literate person compared to the way I was before. I enjoyed learning new knowledge and explore new skills such as photo editing, audio editing, video editing, designing e-book and web publisher.
It was a life long learning and it meant a lot to me.

6. What I do not like about the course?

Honestly, the only thing that I am not happy about this course is that we were given too many tasks to be done.

7. What I have learnt from the course?

I have learned technology skills especially in photo editing, audio editing and video editing from this course. Besides, I have learnt downloading, converting, encoding and others.

8. What I do not expect but have learnt from the course?

Animation, Web Publisher.

9. What I expect but have not learnt from the course?

Nothing, I guess..

10.If I can change anything about the course, state what it is and explain.

a) Reduce the amount of tasks given to us. There were too many tasks given to us. They were quite difficult to complete and time-consuming especially when uploading our product. It took us a lot of time and even some of us did not manage to upload their work.
b) No last minute changes in instruction for the task and assignments. This is important to avoid confusion and frustration (maybe).

EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE

What is educational software?

Educational software is software designed for use in school classrooms. It also includes computer games with learning values such as
SimCity series, Freddie Fish and others.

It can increase children's knowledge while creating a positive experience that encourages them to learn. This is because children love to play and learn indirectly in a joyful way. Besides that, educational software encourages active participation among the pupils as they need to engage with the activity while using the software. Thus, it creates a non-threatening environment for the pupils and lowers their affective filter during the teaching and learning activity in the classroom. This is important in order to build confidence and a sense of success among the pupils while learning the language. This is when the pupils manage to get the correct answer and obtain high marks while playing the game.

Moreover, educational software is dynamic and mobile as children can use it at home, in their own time. It can embed learning specific elements through repeated exposure and practice, and very importantly, provide instant feedback on performance. Furthermore, the learning value in good educational software resides in developing both the child's patience and ability to understand and follow instruction, developing problem solving skills, and gaining confidence in navigating software on a computer.

In order to use it in classroom, teachers should choose the right software that suits pupils’ level of challenge for the learner so that it is not too tricky and too easy for them. This is crucial so that the learning objectives of the lesson can be achieved successfully.

All the best!

Since we are still in the mood of Raya, we basically do our own work and continue doing the lesson plan assignment. I actually did halfway through the assignment except that I haven't done the teaching aids.

Unluckily, only two of my group members for this assignment were present today,Hafizah and I. The other three (Sakina, Mukmin and Kasturi) were absent. So, we decided to do our own work, searching for the materials and continue doing the lesson plan.

I guess I need to start doing my teaching aids now..

All the best!

NEW TASK..

23rd September 2008

Today, we received another new task which was ‘Analyzing Research Papers’. I believe this task is quite tough and it is like an assignment, not just a task. We need to search for the research materials and it must not be similar with someone else’s. That’s make it even tougher, I think. There are 78 of us and is it possible for all of us to get different research materials? I wonder..

This task was to be done in pairs and we need to search for two research materials that discuss or report on the research in using teaching aids in the classroom. We were required to fill in the table that was prepared by the lecturer regarding the research materials that we have found. There are five main aspects to be given emphasis from the research material which are:

1. Introduction to the research
2. Research quotation
3. Research methodology
4. Analysis of the data
5. Findings

Today’s class was quite boring since we have to listen to 8 group’s presentations. That was enough to make all of us lose attention and started to chat. We were just being normal..can’t stand listening to presentations for hours.

My group had presented on the topic of ‘Selecting and Developing Teaching/Learning Materials’ and I had to present my part on the subtopic of ‘Why do we use materials/ What are materials for?’
Based on the article, it is mentioned that “textbooks are too inflexible to be used directly as instructional material” (Allwright, 1990). However, O’Neill (1990) argued that textbooks enable pupils to review and prepare their lessons, efficient in terms of time and money and allow for adaptation and improvisation.

In my opinion, teachers need to be innovative and know when and how to use textbooks or other materials effectively in their teaching.

Web Publisher

We managed to submit our Assignment 2: Assessing and Manipulating videos for the ESL classroom this week.

Ma'am Foziah had introduced us another skill in using Microsoft Publisher. Honestly, I do not have any experience of using it and I'm not familiar with it. However, after exploring it myself, I found that MIcrosoft Publisher is very useful. We can design many things using the software. For example, business card, flyers, invitation card, newsletter, posters, etc.

For this week's task, we were required to work in pairs and design business card, flyers, invitation card, newsletter and posters to be included in our portfolio.

HOwever, I was wondering the importance of learning this skills. Why do we need to study this skill? Does it help us in teaching English later?

9th September 2008

I had a better view of our assignments and tasks for this course in this week's class. Mdm Foziah had shown us the content to be included in our portfolio.
The criteria to be highlighted in the portfolio are quality or quantity, creativity, extensiveness, updates and presentation. The portfolio must be colour-coded. Blue is for the tasks or products done in class while Red is for the extra products that we produced other than the tasks set by the lecturer. It the skills that we had learnt throuhout the course that includes photo editing, audio editing, video editing and downloading or internet skills.

Now, I realized that this course has reallly given me the opportunity to gain and develop new knowledge and skills every week. Starting from internet skills until designing e-book for teaching and learning activities. I love this course even though it was quite difficult for me at the beginning (because I'm not a so-called techno savvy persn)but it I enjoyed it. I love gaining and share new knowledge with others. That's what learning means. 'Sharing is caring'.

Our class for this week was basically the presentation by groups on topics of:
--> being realistic
--> working with a coursebook
--> working without a coursebook

Unluckily, I need to present my part on the topic of 'Being realistic'for my group. I admit that I am not good at delivering presentation in front of the classroom, what more that I had not done any presentations for months!But I had a little faith in me and managed to present it smoothly to class. I hope my friends can undertsand what I was presenting that day.=)

Be realistic

Be realistic. It was the topic that I had learnt this week. Actually, each group was given different topic and my group need to summarize on the topic of 'Be realistic'.

To make things easier, we had divided the subtopics to be read among ourselves and my friend, Sakina and I need to summarize on this subtopic.

Based on the article given, it was mentioned that teachers should be realistic in choosing activities to suit the pupils' mood. They need to consider pupils' emotion while conducting the teaching and learning activities so that learning can take place effectively as they are enjoying and participating actively during the lesson.

Besides that, teachers need to adjust the middle of the lesson to fit the class mood. For example, if the pupils are restless and bored, the teacher ought to conduct some fun listening practices or games like 'Simon Says' to rejuvenate the pupils towards the lesson. Yes, I agree that teachers have to be creative and inovative while conducting a lesson to ensure full participation and focus among the pupils towards the lesson. As we already know, children have short attention span, so, teachers need to be realistic enough to attract pupils' attention from beginning until the end of the lesson.

Moreover, teachers have to be flexible in teaching. They need to adjust the time allocation while conducting certain teaching and learning activities in the classroom. For instance, they can shorten the time allotted for an activity if the pupils have lost their interest in doing the activity. This is to avoid pupils from being boring and start to make noise in the classroom.

Furthermore, teachers ought to change a pair work activity into a whole class activity to enable full participation among the pupils and to avoid some pupils from being bored since they are not participating.

In addition, teachers need to keep the lesson simple, reuse materials and idea to suit with the pupils' interest.