4th WEEK LECTURE...

Salam...


Todays' lecture was more focusing on photo editing. Since it is a relieved to know that we are not going to submit the 2nd assignment today, I feel more spirited to learn this topic. Besides that, the lecture was very important to be implemented in our coming assignment, in which we have to create e-book for learning in the classroom. Starting from basic photo editing, we were moving towards the advanced photo editing (which we actually have to study on ourself last week), which I found very helpful and interesting to be implemented when we want to use pictures as our teaching aids in the classroom. I also got to know that there were quite numbers of photo editing software available in the internet, for instance Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw.It can be downloaded freely and I cannot wait to explore this kind of technology after watching how Puan Foziah manage to edit an ordinary picture until it become such an extraordinary picture for use in the classroom. For instance, we can change the background of the picture, remove the red-eye effects, crop the picture that we don't want, add the sky, and many other changes that can be done by just clicking the mouse.

How photo editing can be very useful in classroom teaching? Imagine a teacher bringing a blur, distort picture into the classroom for use in teaching English. The students will be confused, hence creating a threatening and uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom. They will not fully understand what is taught in front, and learning become just a waste of time. As we know, young learners are mostly visual learners, which means that they are more attracted to pictures and images while learning, and learning will become more meaningful if the materials used are clear to them. If the teacher used such a blur picture like I describe above, the learning process will be disturbed and the objective of the lesson will not be achieved.

Hence, I can see now the importance of photo editing skill for teachers who would like to integrate technology in their teaching, so that the integrated technology will be exploited at its maximum level. 'Picture worth thousand words' , and it depends on the competency of the teacher to manipulate it for the reason of education in classroom setting.

A FOCUS ON CHILDREN CHARACTERISTICS...

This was the third week for the lecture and photo editing was one of the focus in the classroom. 'A picture worth thousand words'. This expression depicts that even a single picture may tell or describe you a lot of things, and the message brought through the picture may be differently interpreted among different people. Hence, it is very important for teachers to choose a picture that is suitable to be displayed in the classroom, considering its size, colour, brightness and others as this will influence the atmosphere and the acceptance of students towards the classroom activities. Since children were very attracted to colourful pictures, it is like a must for teachers to apply the skill of photo editing in the classroom, especially if the picture was taken from the internet, since not all pictures available in the internet are suitable for student viewing. Pn Foziah told us that there were numbers of tutorials and software downloads available in the internet, for instance using grafix_design.com and online photo edit, for instance fotoflexer.com and mypicasa.com. Although this was a bit complicated to me, I cannot wait to explore the beauty of photo editing, since it sounds qiute interesting and really useful for future use in my assignment.

In addition, the lecture for this week was also focusing on young learners characteristics and how the working process with them will take place. As we know, young learners were very unique. It was not easy to work with them and due to their special characteristics, many educators and researchers has spent a lot of their time in discovering the uniquness of young learners, so that the teacher may apply the best teaching method in the classroom to suit with their needs.

Working with young learners require knowledge of their ability to grasp meaning, creative use of limited language resources, capacity for indirect learning, instinct for play and fun, the role of imagination, and the instinct for interaction and talk. The discussion on all this criteria has been done through group presentation, and all of us get to know all the criteria clearly and in details, since Puan Foziah asked us to simplify the notes given to each group. For instance, in my group presentation, I get to know in details about children's capacity for indirect learning, and as teacher, it is a must for me to balance the indirect and direct learning, which can be done through real task activity. One of the best example is using games, in which both direct and indirect learning may work at the same time. In conclusion, the variety and complexity of children's characteristics required teachers to be well-equipped with skills and knowledge in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the lesson.

2nd ASSIGNMENT...

Since we have been given the second assignment, the second lecture were more focusing on the details of this assignment. This assignment required us to download any useful resources that can be found in the internet for use in teaching in the classroom. First of all, we were given the chance to choose our own group members for this assignment. Although there has been a little chaos in choosing our group members, I cannot deny the fact that the way Puan Foziah grouping us has its own benefits. Different races, different gender were all mixed up in one group in order to create the opportunities for a wider interaction between us, besides avoiding the tradition of 'same race' group or 'same gender' group.

Besides that, it is a must for us to tie every lesson that we plan to teach with curriculum specification (CS), especially Year 5 CS. Why curriculum specification is very important for teachers? This is because it is like a guidance or the blueprint that guide teacher throughout the lesson. Imagine a teacher who came into the class and teach without referring to the CS for the lesson plan. There will be no standardization in the content of the lesson between each school, and this will lead into a big problem when it came to public exam like UPSR and PMR. The validity and reliability of the question will be questioned by many parties, especially the parents.

Besides that, there will be a high tendency for teacher to insert the element of biasness and sensitive issue for instance issue like politics, religions and gender if they are not using CS in their teaching. It may be done unintentionally, but the impact of this mistake can be very serious towards the personality of the students. As we know, children easily absorb and learn on what is happening around them. As the result, they may turn out to be very prejudice towards certain things that they are not suppose to. Hence, I can see the importance of maximizing the use of CS in our teaching and as'teacher to be' ,this assignment is like an eye opener and a training for me towards the core business of teaching that required big responsibilities of the teacher in achieving the aims and inspirations of the National Philosophy of Education, for instance in producing a balanced, harmonious citizen of Malaysia.

Some may said that CS block teachers from becoming creative in their delivery. In my opinion, this statement is not true since CS is just use for guiding teachers and giving them the standard way of content. So, it depends on the teacher on how he/she manipulates the materials available in order to achieve the Learning Outcome (LO) stated in the CS.
In addition, Pn Foziah also displayed the example of tutorial task made by her, which giving us a clearer view on what we actually have to do for the task. Although it looked simple, the ability to use technology for instance video editing is very important since it is very helpful in producing a good resource for students.

Furthermore, in order to help us for this assignment, there has been a little discussion on the software that are available for downloading and encoding, for instance keepvid.com, Daemon tools and others. I found that this discusssion is very helpful since it provide assistance for those who are not really familiar with all this software, besides giving wider choices for us in adapting the material.Lastly was the brainstorm session from each group members on the planning of the assignment. Although this task was quite tough for me, it taught me to be more dependent and resourceful, since it demands a great amount of consideration on the behalf of students' needs and the application of technology itself.

FIRST LECTURE...

Salam...
Unexpected... that was the first word that pop up in my mind after the first lecture last two weeks. At first, I thought that this class is just about using and developing the resources given by the lecturer in the classroom. Since we have been exposed to this subject by our previous lecturer in IPIK, I never expected that this subject will mainly focusing on how we as teachers 'manipulating' the advancement of technology in using and developing the resources for the ESL classroom. This is because in IPIK, the tradition of being dependent towards the lecturer was very dominant, and most of the teaching materials were provided by the lecturer.
Puan Foziah, our lecturer for this subject is very knowledgeable about all this technology stuff. I am very impressed because looking at her age, I wonder how much time that she took to learn and master all the soft skills and those technological stuff. However, I can see her determination in teaching us, and I notice that her strictness somewhow taught me to be more discipline and systematic in my work. Hence, It is my hope to be able to cooperate and work together with my lecturer so that a conducive, encouraging learning environment will be created.
Besides that, I realised the importance of being an independent learner, and as undergraduate university students, it is a must for me to be able to stand on my own feet and become a productive learner, with less dependent towards others. Hence, this subject is like a platform for me to become as such, since it requires me to find my own teaching resources through the internet, and developing it for use in the classroom. Besides, this subject also taught me to be practical and concerned with the needs of young learners, since not all materials available in the internet can be used in the classroom. I have to 'filter' up certain teaching materials and this task is not easy to be done. I have to explore and learn the soft skills like downloading, video editing, converting files and many of other technological stuff that sometime I have never heard before. This course is very challenging for this semester and I hope that I can cope and learn something useful for the betterment of the students in Malaysian context. Why Malaysia? This is because the application of technology was not yet well spread or practiced among school teachers. Although not all school are well equipped with laptops and LCD, we can see that there are many schools which didn't maximise the use of technology although they are well equipped with computer lab, media room, and others. The use of technology is just limited to movie viewing and video watching. Therefore, it is my responsibility as 'teacher to be' to maximise the use of technology in the classroom so as to optimize the students' potential and educating them in a more creative environment in the classroom.