One Computer Classroom

Picture via

Similar to 1 Malaysia slogan of bringing in together different races in Malaysia, 1 computer classroom shares the same foundation too which is cooperation amongst students. Although it is likely to reflect on the sufficiency of budget for computers for schools, the 1 computer classroom will foster students to learn to learn in groups that will indirectly foster communication which is a healthy way to start of language learning.

As stated in the articles provided; teachers can use the computer as an administration tool, a flipchart or multimedia board and even softwares to be used for displaying texts/animation for the sake of presenting the information to the audience. There are numerous ways to functionally use a single computer in class and teachers should take the effort to be creative and implement the usage of using technology in class eventhough it might take more than the usual effort. If there are many things we can do with the computer, we can even do more with the availability of the Internet as students can surf to various language learning websites and watch videos pertaining to language learning (information will be endless once we’re connected on the www). In the midst of using the computer in classroom learning, we seldom forget to appreciate the small things such as the availability of a conducive classroom, power electricity, curtains which will help block in the lights, speakers and the most important item for display which is the LCD projector.

Lastly, lab ideas also triggered me to form a self access language lab in my department for the students to use in their free time (not classroom hours). I do think that a lab assistant or a part time instructor is needed to monitor the flow of the lab and also so that the students use it wisely. What I have in mind is to build a module of lesson plans using a maximum of 5 computers in the self access lab and once it is compiled, the students can go to the lab, choose a lesson of their preference and perform the activities on the own and report the results / display the project outcome to their class teacher. This is to ensure that students entering the self access lab will use it to its utmost potential and gain language learning benefits.  

Have a great weekend!

Nur

Starting The Project

This is my checklist for this week which I have managed to complete

1. Identify a class for this project
2. Assign them in groups. (3 students in 1 group). Since the girls out number the boys there will be 2 girls and 1 boy in each group.
3. I have given the students a guideline on how to set up their own blog. Groups/ any members of the group who already have an existing blog can continue to use their own blog for this project if they wish to do so.
4. Their first task is to write an argumentative essay in groups by Wednesday (22nd Feb) and publish it in their blog.
5. Students can work on their blog out of classroom time. 

That's all that I've done this week. I hope to see how they correct other group's essays next week.
xx
Nur

## I don't know what's wrong with my blogger site as there are problems in displaying the comments section. It will never display the comment sheet as it's on reload all the time. :((

From Zero Point to PowerPoint

I teach a small tutorial class of 25-30 students and there are no LCD projectors provided in these tutorial rooms. Because of the situation I hardly use any powerpoint presentations in class, I only use the powerpoint when I have to present information in meetings or for seminars.

Picture via

Looking at the notes and samples on how to create games and interactive so I am keen to start forming some games  for my students to try by using powerpoint slides. With the use of powerpoint I think that there are several aspects that should be taken in consideration

1.      ensure that the activity is preplanned carefully

2.      the set up of the slides must meet the objectives of the lesson

3.      the activities should be suitable for the students age & the number of students in the class (to grab attention)

4.      teachers should have an open and creative thinking to exploit powerpoint as a tutorial tool, exploration tool, application tool and communication tool too.

Among the advantages of using powerpoints are:

1.      teachers can widen the concept of learning

2.      teachers have the advantage to provide a learning situation that intrigues their creativity and interaction

3.      the usage of powerpoint can serve for different kinds of students with different learning styles.

I’m also trying to read more on how games like Jeopardy by using the powerpoint can relate to Skinner’s Operant Conditional Learning where it stressed on enforcement and extrinsic motivation where reward/praise is given systematically based on a correct answer and the process of answering the question is repeatable.

There is also a small relation to the process of retrieval of information which includes the input
(accepting input), storage and output and its correlation with students learning based on this model below

It is just a small idea and I’m still trying to link it together, it might be something or nothing at all.

Xx

Nur

(trying to think) 

Read about What Zero point is in Malaysia..

PBL Plus Tech

At par with the vast development of Internet, traditional classroom teaching and learning can be replaced with project based tasks. Highlights of PBL is the K-W-L chart (Tannenbaum, 1996) for a reflection of what I Know, What I want to know and What I’ve learned.

The strengths of PBL us based on the fact that it focuses on student’s individual growth instead of comparing them and evaluate students’ strengths on what they know rather than their weaknesses (Huerta-Macias, 1995 as cited in Tannenbaum, 1996).

This reveals that we are allowing students to shine based on their own ability and develop the motivation to work on the qualities to help them improve in the language proficiency through a progression of a timeframe.

In PBL, the teacher acts as a mentor and a facilitator in PBL instead of becoming a reference source. Thus the basic steps of KWL need to be reviewed and repeated for a number of times to enable teachers to reach the objective of learning. So the teacher needs to list and have checklists on what the students know, list out possibilities of solutions for students problems and what activities or actions relate to solve the problem and whether it can be implement within the timeframe of learning period.

In the end, both teachers and students need to put in the extra mile in teaching and learning to foster critical thinking for a PBL activity to become successful.

Teachers must be able to monitor progress, place a yardstick to how it can be conducted and evaluate performance of students’ work, without keeping pace of the project and having a checklist PBL will burden teachers to mark at the end of the course and evaluation  at that specific time only would defeat the purpose of progressive learning in PBL. So be more proactive in teaching for the wholesome benefit of the students. I hope we wont be needing  this. :) 

W-e-a-k 4

Picture via 

Week 4 started miserably for me as I was surprised of the grades that I received for Week 3. Feeling a bit disappointed, I found out that the problem was due to the misinterpretation on which task we had to focus on for the first half of the week. It caused a tremendous defect and I hope that things can be clearer in the future to avoid unwanted incidences similar to what I faced in week 3. I also believe that good connection with fellow online classmates via e-mail can help us especially in reminding us about the tasks at hand.

 

Although I was emotionally weak for 2 days after the results was announced I managed to recuperate and set myself up positively. I constantly had to remind myself of the objective of joining this course and that the grades were just grades.

 

So, what was valuable in week 4 is the variation of ESL websites that we can select specifically for reading and writing. I linked a few on my delicious page so I can refer back to them. I also found that my delicious page is getting so disorganized to I am going to do a bit of housekeeping by the end of this week by using the stacks.

 

The project Task which was directed by Jodi helped me to observe my class and find a problem that my students faced. Aside from that, the process analyzing taught me to spend some time to review the choices I have made so that I can determine the further steps to be implemented in the study and have a clear outline on the objective of the study.

So, all is well

Nur