Sim Yu Xian (Yvonne)

My ICT lesson (10)

2009-03-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

This week we do not have ICT lesson due to events ongoing in NIE. However, there will still be update on this blog. This entry will mention about the concept of engaged learning, how my tutor has engaged me in this ICT course, the strategies that I would use in the future and the reason for using them.

Having attended the ICT course, engaged learning to me means students become engaged learners where they are responsible and take charge of their own learning. They set their own goals and try to achieve their goals through self-motivation (intrinsic motivation). For engaged learning, students get interested in learning and enjoyed the process of learning. The students will refine their learning strategies till it suit them and they understand the need, and are willing to work with others collaboratively.

In my opinion, I feel that only when learning is engaging, then students will truly be able to learn since they will be actively involved in their own learning process, be responsible for it and work collaboratively with others. The students are actually encouraged to combine their knowledge and others knowledge to solve the problem/task that is given by the teacher.

In engaged learning, the teacher is not the person who gives all the information/knowledge and answers to the students. Instead, the students are the ones searching for information and answers, and sharing the information with one another while the teacher acts as a facilitator, providing guidance for the students in their learning process. This is also how my tutor has engaged me in this course. Dr Tan seldom does his teaching in class. Most of the time, he provides us with articles or links to websites to read for information before the lesson so that we will have a better idea of what we will be doing during the next lesson. Reading up before lesson also makes learning easier since we would already have some knowledge and thus, will be able to understand his lesson better. Dr Tan encourages us to explore and learn by ourselves and even provide us with some hands-on learning using the ICT tools that he introduced such as the Mind Meister, Wii etc. Sometimes he is there to provide us with some guidance but most of the time he would tell us to try it and experience it ourselves first. Dr Tan also encourages us to work collaboratively. For our first few lessons, we were made to work in groups of 3 to 4 to share our knowledge and work collaboratively in order to complete the tasks that he has assigned us.

For me, I personally feel that learning becomes interesting and engaging when I'm involved in the learning process and when I get to experience things by myself. A self experience will give a person a deeper impression of what he/she has learnt, so that the knowledge is not easily forgotten. However, if the teacher always provide information and answers, the students are not being engaged in a thinking process, instead, they are just absorbing information from the teacher which they might easily forgot after some time. Engaged learning gives us memory which is long term.

In line with MOE's vision of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation, using appropriate teaching strategies can promote thinking skills, creativity and independent learning in the students. Some of the strategies that I would use would be: Think-Pair-Share, Circle of knowledge, K-W-L, PMI and others. These strategies can be found on MOE’s website about Engaging ICT Practices for Teachers. There are many strategies which I think that I will be using for my teaching but for here, I will just mention a few.

I find that Think-Pair-Share and a Circle of knowledge are actually quite similar as both require students to share their prior knowledge and work collaboratively to complete the given task. I think this is important for students to be able to learn. The only difference would be the latter involves more students while the other only require two students working together.

K-W-L stands for what I Know, what I Want to know and what I want to Learn. This strategy also requires students to have some prior knowledge before building on their knowledge and doing their reflections about what they still want to know and learn. This strategy actually encourages students to do some read up or make use of their previous experience as their prior knowledge and this will make students get involved in their learning.

PMI stand for Plus, Minus and Interesting. Student can use this to broaden the way they look at things and it can help to guide students in giving detailed comments or do their reflection. This strategy is useful when the teacher hope to help the students to view things from broader perspectives.

These are the few strategies that I would use in the future but there are definitely other strategies that could be better than what I have stated here, so visit the link above to find out more about the other strategies.

E-learning Week (9)

2009-03-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, we have watched the iN2015 video, read resources on Second Life, experienced Second Life in the MXL and visited the COTF (Classroom Of The Future). The first impression that they gave me was like ‘WOW! The technology has developed and improved at such a speedy rate and it is so impressive’. I understand and saw that there are a lot of opportunities in applying these developments in technology into our education in Singapore but somehow, I fear that I may not be as IT savvy as the future generation and I am afraid that I may not know how to use those highly developed technology. Every day the technology is developing and changing, by ten years time the technology could have changed again, so how are we going to be able to keep up with the pace of the change in technology? The students that we are going to teach are getting more “pro” (expert) in technology stuffs. It makes me wonder am I able to catch up with the changing technology when I’m someone who dislikes changes.

Having visited the COTF, it has provided me with the environment to imagine how my classroom will be like in the future. However, I also understand that to be able to change the current classrooms to something like the classroom shown in the COTF, it will require quite a large sum of fund and not all schools are ready or have the money to create the change by the next few years. When I stepped in to the COTF, it gave me the feeling that the COTF is really a great learning environment for students to learn as students can obtain information instantly with just a touch or scan. I also realized that there are a lot of things in the COTF which are visual stuffs, so I think the future students would most probably prefer to learn through images (2D, 3D images) and hands-on activities. From now to 2015, which will be in 6 years time, perhaps, 5% of the schools in Singapore would have classrooms that are something like the COTF since our education is moving towards the direction to include more technology in the learning process. In the future, teachers may not even have to take the attendance of the students personally. Technology would be able to help the teachers to do some administrative job which can ease teachers' workload and allow the teachers to focus more on their teaching.

On the other hand, I feel that although NIE is an institute to "create" future teachers, it has not really helped to prepare the teachers for the future high technology environment as the trainee teachers hardly get to experience those technologies. We only get to experience such high technology equipments in our ICT lessons. For other lessons that we have in NIE, we hardly have the chance to get to use them. The teaching in NIE is still mostly the traditional way of face to face lesson and most of the time, it is the teacher doing the talking while the students listen (maybe only for my lessons). Only in our ICT lessons that we get to experience something that is different from other lessons. From my opinion, I feel that only with experience comes familiarity. To really prepare the teachers for the high technology enviroment, the teachers should have experienced it themselves in NIE first.

From Marc Prensky’s article on digital natives, I read that digital natives learners tend to have short attention span, so if we are to use traditional teaching methods to teach the digital natives, I’m afraid it may not work since we are unable to get them to focus and pay attention while the teacher is teaching.

Maybe future teachers have to think of better ways to educate the future generation and we, teachers have to keep up with times and the change in technology to be able to communicate with and teach our future students.

My ICT Lesson (8)

2009-03-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

For this lesson, the last 2 groups did their demo presentation and they presented on Edublogs and Classtools.net. I feel that both tools are really good platforms for education purposes as they allow students to participate and get involved in their learning.

Edublogs is basically a blog for students and teachers. It works like other blogs but also something like a wikispace. The difference will be that Edublogs allows students to voice out their ideas and opinions, critique and learn from other students. For Edublogs, teachers can also set up their own class blog and upload large files. Edublogs allows different types of files to be uploaded, so teachers can upload any file to suit the needs of lessons.

The group also introduced two interesting instructional strategies such as 2-1 critiquing skills and K-W-L that teachers can use while using Edublogs for lessons. More information about the different strategies can be found at MOE's webpage.

Next is Classtools.net. This ICT tool is something that is new to me and I feel that it will be able to engage students in their learning since teachers can create quizzes in the form of games to arouse students' interest in learning and students will be more willing to learn if they have a chance to play a game or two.

Classtools.net also has templates for mindmaps and planning that students can use before writing their compositionto enhance their writing.

However, I feel that using flash games for quizzes will not be refreshing for students after some time as the variety of games are really limited and students will get bored with the games available. Mindmaps may be good but not all students will prefer to do mindmaps as they might prefer to plan their essays using point form or even start without planning, so it is difficult for teachers to check that students are really engaged in their planning.

Both ICT tools are free for users and it is rather user-friendly. Both tools only need Internet connection to be able to use them, so I might be using them for my lessons in the future.

Next, we move on to experience a virtual game called Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world that students could use to experience activities that are much like what they can experience in a real world such as running, walking, communicating, shopping, buying properties, making investments etc. In Second Life, gamers use avatars (virtual characters) to represent themselves. They can customise the appearance of the avatars to look exactly like themselves or look totally different or even as an animal character. Basically, everything is possible in Second Life even teleporting and flying exist. Gamers can even create their own virtual environment in Second Life.

Second Life provides the platform for gamers to experience almost everything which they could or could not experience in a real world as such allowing a wheel-chair bound person the chance to walk and run in Second Life.

However, I feel that it can be rather difficult to control the movements of the avatar in Second Life. You have to keep playing to get the hang of the controls. However, I do not really like the experience of the whole screen moving up and down, left and right when the avatar walk or run.

I have included a video about the educational possibility in Second Life and the video suggested that at certain areas in Second Life, what are the subjects the teachers can teach. However, it's just a brief coverage of the educational opportunities in Second Life.

I feel that althought there are many opportunities that teachers can use Second Life for education but there could be limitations to using Second Life. For certain movements such as skating and creating new environments in Second Life, transcript will be needed but if you do not know how to do a transcript, you will not be able to create a new educational environment. However, you may use Lindon dollars to get people to do it for you. Lindon dollar is the money use in Second Life.

Second Life also requires the computer to have high speed for gaming, so sometimes I do experience a hang and everything stops. It can be quite tough to control and have fun when everything get hang once in a while.

However, I have included another video that gives us more details on using Second Life for education. Perhaps this video will better convince people that Second Life is beneficial for education. This video is a presentation by a teacher giving her account and her experience of using Second Life in education, making comparison with other tools such as facebook, delicious and other tools that people use as the platform for education.

The last video is very long but do enjoy watching the videos that I have uploaded! I hope the videos will give people a different experience and perspectives towards Second Life.

My ICT Lesson (7)

2009-02-26T01:52:00.000-08:00

My seventh ICT lesson and my group presented on the use of Dabbleboard and how to create engaged learning using Dabbleboard. These can be viewed on our wiki page. The other group presented on NovaMind.

NovaMind is a mindmapping software. Students can use this software to draw interesting mindmap but mindmap may not be beneficial for everyone as some students may find learning from mindmap rather difficult if they are not a visual person. NovaMind is also not a free software but a good thing about NovaMind is that it can import any format of documents and images. A colourful and eye-catching mindmap can be easily created but using NovaMind is not able to create a long-term engaging lesson.

After the demo presentation, we move on to our different games station. The game that I played during this lesson is a Wii game, Trauma center. The game requires a lot of hand and eye coordination to control the game and save the patient. We also learned some simple steps to sterilise the wound. Our group saved the patient in the end.

Next, we were introduced to use Mind Meister to do a mindmap of what we have learned through gaming. Initally, we were having problems using Mind Meister but after some trial and error and sharing about what we have discovered with others, we finally managed to do a proper mindmap.

Nearing the end of the lesson, Dr Tan showed us a short part of the video interview of James Paul Gee. After watching the whole video at my own time, I learned that in the current world we are in, students should no longer solve a problem using standard solutions, instead, they should work collaboratively and innovate with tools available to find more solutions to solve a problem. This can help to prepare the students for the outside world if they learn how to be innovative, be creative and to learn collaboratively.

Playing video games is also a form of assessment as students are being assessed, challenged and tested to solve the problems, and they have to keep trying till they win the game. Games do not separate learning and assessment. Just that in games, there is fun injected in this form of learning. Students learn not just through knowledge and facts but from the knowledge that they produced collaboratively. I think this is what true learning is about. This is where students get to be responsible for their learning and they get to learn from one another.

Playing games is also a "cheaper" form of learning as students can experience real world situations through games which will have no consequences imposed on the students. Students get to try repeatedly until they manage to handle the game and they learn valuable lessons from it such as strategic thinking skills.

Another thing which I have learned is that kids these days are the kind of people who want to produce and not to consume, even games nowadays come in a software that kids can reproduce a new game (or to build their own games). This is where kids themselves get to participate while they are playing the game.

Through games, students can be engaged in reading and writing as they learn new words and phrases from the games that they play, and they write about the character or other things that they see or learn in the game. I feel that if teachers are to continue teaching using traditional methods, it will not be beneficial for the students as they are more digital and technology engaged type. They will not want to learn only through books and writing, and with the teacher being the only information producer.

There are other points mentioned by James Paul Gee. Watch the video to find out more!

My ICT Lesson (6)

2009-02-26T00:23:00.000-08:00

During the sixth lesson of ICT, the two demo groups presented on the use of Youtube for engaged learning and the use of Chalkboard respectively.

I find the first demo group idea rather interesting. They made use of available resources on Youtube to help students learn rather than the teacher having to create interesting videos for the students. Using available resources can help teachers to save time as well so that they can use their time to produce other quality work. The students can also upload their own created videos onto Youtube for sharing with their classmates.

However, there is a danger of students coming across inappropriate contents as anyone can upload their videos onto Youtube. In answer to this issue, the group taught us how we can select the filter function to minimise the chance of students coming across inappropriate contents. It is great that they have discovered such a function.

Another method will be the teacher experience searching for suitable videos using certain keywords and the teacher can select the keywords that will be safe for students to use so that it can lower the possibility of students coming across inappropriate contents.

Another issue about using Youtube is that there are some requirements that the computers have to fulfill before Youtube can be used properly for example, Macromedia Flash Player 7.0+ plug-in, and Windows 2000 or higher with latest updates installed and others. The students will not be able to use Youtube fully if their computers do not fulfill some of the requirements which will put them at some disadvantages since some students may not be able to watch certain videos or do certain things on Youtube.

The other group introduced Chalkboard but I could not understand how to use Chalkboard as the demonstration was unclear. Reading from their wiki page gave me a better idea. Chalkboard is basically an amazing tool but I think primary school students might find it difficult to use as there are too many navigation and students will find it difficult to remember which button to click for which function. This tool is also rather difficult to use to create a student-centred learning activity. I feel that Chalkboard is more suitable to create teacher-centred learning activities.

After the demo, we went on to continue the games station. One of stations that my group went to is James Paul Gee's 36 Learning Principles of Games, where we have to select one of the principles and define it. We did the research on "Psychosocial Moratorium" which we have found out to mean that gamers get to risk and experience real-life situations in games. In this way, gamers do not have to worry about the consequences if they fail and yet, they get to learn a valuable lesson which can prevent them from committing the same mistakes in real-life. Gamers get to try, fail and learn in games.

In this week, I also read an article 'National Summit on Educational Games' and I read about "Why should the United States focus on digital games for learning?" This is a good question that I believe most people will ask even in Singapore; Why should we use games for learning? The answer to this question is that gamers get to master skills which are in demand by today's employers such as problem solving skill, analytical thinking skill, planning, decision making etc.. Games are not just about playing. Gamers get to learn while they have fun. Gamers can also use games to practice on practical and important skills in a "low-consequence-for-failure environment". Gamers can keep on trying and failing till they mastered the skill with no consequences and they can even monitor their progress. Another point mentioned which I totally agree with "Today's students -- the so called digital natives -- are poised to take advantage of educational games.". With the use of Internet, students can easily find educational games online which are free for them to use. Students can use the games to have fun and at the same time learn about the subject that they are studying. I believe students will be more willing to take charge of their learning if they could learn through playing.

Above are my updates for ICT lesson 6 and I start to believe more that playing games is actually good. Games could be a way used to promote students' independent learning.

My ICT Lesson (5)

2009-02-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

This is the 5th week for my ICT lesson and I feel that this week's lesson is the most exciting and interesting. As promised by Dr Tan, we finally get to play games for lesson in the MxL. This week is also the presentation of the first Demo group who showed us how to use the Hot Potatoes for lessons.

The Hot Potatoes has lots of function such as the JCloze, JMatch, JQuiz, JCross, JMix and The Masher1, The Masher 2.

In the Demo group presentation, their lesson plan is to allow students to use the Hot Potatoes to create questions for a particular topic in a subject. In this case, the students play the role of a teacher and the teacher will be the facilitator.

However, the questions that students generated will depend a lot on how well they understand that particular topic. Therefore, the teacher who knows the topic well will have to scaffold the task so as to encourage students to have higher order thinking such as having students to evaluate the difficulty of the questions they had set. After students are done with the setting of questions, students can upload their questions to the school portal for sharing. Students can also tryout questions set by others to determine how well they have understood the topic. When exposed to different kinds of questions, students can gain insight to questions they might not have thought about beforehand, thus helping students to have deeper understanding of the topic.

For teachers who are not familiar about how to go about using the Hot Potatoes, perhaps, using the Microsoft Word could be a faster and better choice for them.

Next, we move on to gaming. Gaming is an interesting activity, but for a teacher, he/she will not just allow the students to play games just for the sake of playing. There will be educational values and his/her purpose would normally be to create an engaged learning environment so that students get to participate in their own learning. Being students, they will be more interested to learn when they get to play games even though the games they played are related to what the teacher aims to teach for lesson. Teachers can use games to create anchored instruction learning such as through the games 'Dafur is Dying' and 'McDonald's Game'. Through these games, students get to experience a real world situation in a virtual world. These games are not just games that students play without thinking. In the McDonald's Game for example, students have to keep trying and think of different methods they can use so as not to make McDonald go bankrupt. Students get to apply their knowledge and thinking skills in this case so as not to lose the game.

Another pedagogical approaches used in games include Problem-based learning through playing Energy Hog (learning what are some ways and use of certain equipments that wasted energy and students have to do something or replace those equipments so as to save energy) and Case-based learning through playing Virtual Hip Replacement (a real-world situation of patient having hip problem and learning facts in the process of replacing the hip).

Having experience the games myself, it makes me more visible to the kind of pedagogical approaches that teachers can use games to bring about and some classroom management skills like how teachers should organise the students before allowing them to start gaming. Indeed, I learnt a lot through this session while enjoying myself in games as well.

E-learning week: Managing technology integration

2009-02-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

With the increasing use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in schools, teachers have to consider the implementation issues and strategies in a face-to-face environment and online environment while using ICT tools.

In a face-to-face environment such as in the computer room, some students might not be familiar with how to use a computer. This could result in the students losing motivation to participate in the given ICT-mediated activity. Teachers can provide simple guiding instructions and demonstrations at the start of the lesson and allow students to clarify any doubt before starting on their tasks (Lim, Pek & Chai, 2005).

When students are given individual or group task, some students will not focus on their tasks. They could be surfing unrelated websites or having causal chats with other students. This could destruct lesson pace and distract other students. Teachers can move around to ensure that students are working on their tasks and they understand what they have to do (Lim, Pek & Chai, 2005).Teachers can limit the time students take to complete their tasks. The first alarm will be initiated to alert students that they have certain minutes left and they have to stop all activities when the final alarm goes off (Doyle, 1986). This prevents the destruction of lesson plan.

Teachers and students might also face technical problems in the classrooms or computer rooms and there might be many students having problems with using the computers. The presence of technical assistants would be able to address the technical problems, and help to improve students’ work proficiency with the computer (Tiene & Luft, 2002).

Some students could be misbehaving or using the computers instead of paying attention to the teacher. The teacher might not have noticed due to his/her vision being blocked by the monitors. Teacher can assign student monitors to ensure that no one misbehaves or use the computer until they are instructed to do so. Rules for proper behaviour in the computer room are pasted on the wall to remind the students how they should behave in the computer room (Lim, Pek & Chai, 2005).

In an online environment, some of the issues faced would be netiquette and the handling of inappropriate content. Netiquette is “a set of rules for behaving properly online” (Shea, 2006).

Some students may be straightforward with their words, thus may sound harsh in their e-mails. To prevent students from offending or upsetting others, they could use emoticons to express their emotions or restructure the message to shape the tone. Students should prevent using capital words online as it is seen as shouting and being rude (http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyOnline/Safesurfing/tips/tip_11.html).

In some activities, teachers might need students to post their research outcome and work on a group discussion forum but some students may “crash” other groups’ discussion forum for fun (http://www.bpl.org/kids/Netiquette.htm). Teachers can educate students to be considerate towards others’ work and effort, thus they should not “crash” others’ forum. Students should ask for permission from the administrators if they wish to add on to the discussion forum.

Some students do not know the importance of their passwords and personal information (such as home address, phone number) and they may reveal them to other people (http://www.bpl.org/kids/Netiquette.htm). Teachers can educate students on the importance of their passwords and personal information and explain to them the consequences they could possibly face if others know their passwords and personal information such as misusing students’ personal e-mail accounts or blogs.

Regarding the handling of inappropriate content, some student might receive e-mails from unknown senders containing scam messages or even documents attached with the e-mail. Students should be taught that if they see such e-mails, they should not reply to the sender or download the document. The document may contain a “computer-wrecking virus” (http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyOnline/Safesurfing/tips/tip_9.html). Students should delete the e-mails and inform their e-mail service provider if they receive such e-mails.

Students might even come across pornography website or hate groups (anti- certain race or groups) on the Internet while doing online research. Teachers can inform parents to install security filters or software in their computers to lower the tendency of viewing inappropriate content. Teachers can educate students how to identify inappropriate contents. If students come across such contents, they should record down the URL and close the Internet window, and report the URL to their parents.

In conclusion, when using ICT tools, there are certain classroom managements, netiquette and precautions that teachers and students have to be mindful of. Teachers should also work with parents to ensure students practice netiquette and online safety.

References

Doyle, W. (1986). Classroom organization and management. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd ed., pp. 392-431). New York: Macmillam.

Lim, C. P., Pek M. S. & Chai, C. S. (2005). Classroom management issues on ICT mediated learning environments. Journal of Educational Multimedia & Hypermedia, 14, 395-406.

Shea, V. (2006). The Core Rules of Netiquette. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.albion.com/netiquette/introduction.html.

Tiene, D., & Luft, P. (2002). Classroom dynamics in a technology-rich learning environment. Learning & Leading with Technology, 29(4), 10-13.

Boston Public Library Netiquette for Kids. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2009, from http://www.bpl.org/kids/Netiquette.htm.

Safe Surfing with Doug. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2009, from
http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyOnline/Safesurfing/tips/tip_9.html.

Safe Surfing with Doug. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2009, from
http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyOnline/Safesurfing/tips/tip_11.html.

My ICT Lesson (3)

2009-01-23T00:38:00.001-08:00

During my second ICT lesson, I have learned about the concept of engaged learning. In the third lesson, I got to know about the various MOE's list of pedagogical approaches and how teachers can relate the various ICT tools to the pedagogical approaches to design ICT-based engaged learning lessons for students. I find the lesson meaningful as we got to relate and apply what we have learned in the second and third lessons to design an engaging lesson.

For the start of the lesson, we were divided into groups of three and signed up for our group wiki using any free wiki provider (PBwiki, WetPaint or Wikispaces) recommended by Dr Tan. This is the first time I signed up for a wiki and intially, I find it kind of difficult to use the wiki as I was clueless about how I can go about using the wiki. After exploring and some 'trial and error' clickings, I finally managed to understand how a wiki is being used. The wiki isn't something which is difficult to use and I would recommend the use a wiki as a part of lesson.

Benefits of wiki:
1) It is a good platform for teacher and students to communicate about lesson and lesson plan.
2) Students can post their work solutions on the wiki and others (teacher and students) can view and share their opinions.
3) Students can learn from one another through their posts.
4) The layout on the wiki is clear enough for easy viewing.

Other than learning how to use the wiki, I also learned more about the various pedagogical approaches and the ICT tools which are being used in lessons. Thinking about the pedagogical approaches, I realised that I have experienced some of it before during my secondary and JC days such as the anchored instruction learning, case-based learning, knowledge building, problem-based learning and project-based learning. Most of the approaches required students to work in groups and do research. These usually involved students working responsibly, think critically and learn from one another. There are also other approaches which are not listed in MOE's list which teachers are already using such as game-based learning which is quite frequently used in schools (especially primary schools) nowadays.

Next, we were instructed to answer the questions (scaffold) provided by Dr Tan to aid clearer understanding of the approaches. We also have to do some research for an example of how the approach might be applied in classrooms. I feel that learning through example makes it easier to understand the different approaches.

The use of ICT tools such as concept-mapping tool helps students to present their answers clearly and the blogs allowed students to post their views and critique one another's work while in the meantime, learning from others mistakes. However, there are some ICT tools which I feel would be difficult for students to learn how to use such as the dataloggers, geographic information system and robotics. These ICT tools would require teachers to spend a lot of time to teach students how to use the tools which will take up most of the curriculum time. I feel that teaching will not be as effective if those tools were used.

After learning about the pedagogical approaches and ICT tools, we have to draft a lesson idea for ICT-based engaged learning. This is the most interesting part as we have to apply what we have learned to design a lesson.

I believed that what I have learned would be useful application when I start teaching.

My ICT Lesson (2)

2009-01-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

This week is the second lesson of my ICT. The topics of this lesson is to learn about what is engaged learning, the roles of ICT in engaged learning and the dimensions of engaged learning. For a person who does not know the detailed meaning of engaged learning, he/she would think that it means students are divided into groups to work on an activity and the activity needs to be fun and interesting.

The actual meaning of engaged learning is defined as "an on-going process in which students can construct their own meaning, communicate and collaborate effectively, solve problems, self-regulate their learning, and learn intentionally in a facilitated learning environment.".

Next, we were divided into groups to share our ideas on the most engaging learning activity in primary/secondary school, and we have to record the most engaging activity in our wiki space using the scaffold provided. After we have done this, everyone in the class shared what their group have, and Dr Tan used the bubbl.us to create a concept map so that we can identify the common features easily just by looking at the concept map.

This is the first time I get to see how bubbl.us is used and I think this is really something that teachers can use in class. Maybe teachers can use it at the end of the lesson as a lesson summary so that students can understand better what are the things taught during lesson. And some of the common features of our engaging learning activity are:
(1) Teachers as facilitators who assist the students when students faced difficulties and not just providing students with the answers directly.
(2) Students work in collaboration with others in their groups.
(3) Most of the activities made use of students' prior knowledge and the activity will help to build on students' knowledge.
(4) Students are more motivated to work on the activity when competition involved.
(5) Most activities include some essence of fun so that students will enjoy it.

However, Dr Tan told us that engaged learning need not necessary be fun but it must be an activity which students will be able to learn something out of it. It must be a meaningful activity. Furthermore, groupwork may not be as constructive as expected since students might be discussing or do things which are not related to lesson activity.

After learning about what is engaged learning, we move on to what are the dimensions of engaged learning and the roles of students, teachers and ICT in the dimensions of engaged learning.

In this week's lesson, I get to learn about some of the Technology-mediated pedagogies which were used today such as:
(1) The use of bubbl.us where we can connect our ideas and identify the common features easily.
(2) Tapping on learners' prior experience and use the wiki as a platform to record.
(3) Sharing of ideas and self-evaluation of how engaging our learning activities are through the use of NCREL's Indicators of Engaged Learning.
(4) We were guided by questions and links were provided to work on the activities. This is also known as scaffolding.
(5) We also had individual work, our individual accountability and the wikipage as a presentation tool.

Start of my ICT Lesson (1)

2009-01-09T07:05:00.000-08:00

During the first lesson, we introduced ourselves and get to know something interesting and unique about our classmates through 'tasty tidbits'. Some left deep impression in me, like getting rabbits to lick her face, shopping till she emptied her account, pencil curse (got poked by wooden pencils many times) and more! It's really interesting and fun! Everyone's unique!

We also get an overview about what we will be learning and doing during ICT lessons. I'm getting all excited for ICT lessons just thinking about it, with gamings and knowing about Second life etc. We even got to know more about the different Masterplans that MOE came up with over the years to encourage the use of technology. I have never heard of the name 'Masterplan' before, so the mentioning of Masterplan during the lesson was very new to me.

I recalled that during my Primary School years, all students had to attend basic computer lessons which taught us how to use a computer, the keyboard and even programmes like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. This was the start of Masterplan I. Although we get to learn the skills, we were not given many chances to use it. At that time, lessons still use the traditional way of teaching; reading from textbooks to get knowledge, using of chalks and blackboards. Students were seldom told to use the Internet or to do computer-related work.

As I move on to Secondary School, I noticed that MOE had started to change the classroom environment to include more technological equipments like Projector, OHP and one computer in the each classroom. This was the start of Masterplan II. Even chalks and blackboards changed to markers and whiteboards. Teachers started bringing in laptop to class and use PowerPoint to present their lessons. We were even given more homework that required us to use the Internet to do our research, PowerPoint to do class presentations, and to type out some of our homework.

Most recently, MOE came up with Masterplan III, the newest Masterplan that will be carried out from 2009 to 2014. This new Masterplan will encourage more use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) to enhance learning and to develop students' creative and critical thinking. Lessons are going to be more engaging and meaningful. There will also be more focus on individual's pace of learning so that teachers can assist the student in learning.

In the 21st Century, the use of technology has become a trend among the younger generation with the release of iPhone, MP4, use of Blogs, video sharing through Youtube, social networking through Facebook, our education methods have to keep up with the changing pace, hence the forming of Masterplan III.

In my ICT lessons, I hope to learn more about the different software programmes which I will be able to use during lessons and some methods of pedagogy that will prepare me for the 21st Century education. I hope to use what I have learned from my ICT lessons to provide my students with enriching, enjoyable and engaging lessons in the near future.

I believed that this module is a good chance for us to keep up with the improving technology and get us ready to face the future generation who will be such an IT-savvy.