Selling clothes here!

Hi all,

I’ve decided to sell my clothes in this blog. Some of them are first hand but some are worn once or twice. All are in GOOD CONDITION and selling off at a lower price. Please look out for the new entries. heehee.

Will try to do it asap. My work is piling and piling and piling. Roar!

Love,

Joselyn

How Does COTF Promotes Student-Centred Learning?

The classroom to the future (COTF) is the marvel of technology that enhances the multisensory experiences targetted at raising learning potential in schools. It promotes learning environment within schools to become unbounded and emulate behaviors and characteristics of the world that is out of the classroom context.

In COTF, students are assigned personalised lightweight ultra mobile PCs (UMPC) that is loaded with digital textbooks. Thus, instead of carrying heavy textbooks around, students can attend lesson anywhere and they are also able to take down notes, complete their assignment online and submit assignment online to their teachers. In the COTF tour, we were brought to 5 different sections namely the cafe, biolab, MRT, house and classroom.

In the cafe, students can simply place their UMPC on the tables in the cafe and the information available in UMPC will be transferred to the big monitor that is in-built onto the tables. In this way, students can share information with their peers as the information will be reflected on the monitor for everyone to access. This is particularly useful if students were to share information when doing a project together and it also promotes exchanging of ideas and communication between the peers. Also, students are allowed to create avatar to interact with people from all over the world despite language barrier as there is a language translator program that allows translation of foreign language to English language. On top of that, the students are allowed to view the work of others as the other party from another country can also transfer their work on to the big screen in the cafe for students to view.

Students are empowered to connect with their classmates, teachers, professors and students from other regions to collaborate, consult, interact and share educational resources and information anytime and anywhere. This makes learning go beyond what our classroom can offer.

Next, we proceed to the biolab where once again, students can connect via conference calls with professors, teachers or other learners to exchange ideas on their research and laboratory work. Interactive online learning allows students to learn at their own pace and and get instant feedback of their learning. The students are no longer limited to the use of textbooks. Instead, they can make use of the electronic encyclopaedias, wide range of data base, audio and video clips to construct their research and presentation. Students also have the chance to visualise biocells or watch real-time chemical reactions occur without the need to perform the experiments. The technology enhances more opportunities to widen students’ exposure and knowledge.

After which, we got onto the MRT where students can copy posters they see on the train onto their UMPC by simply waving their UMPC over the posters and they can also track their peers location via GPS. This makes learning mobile as students can download any information from any location and they can also keep track of where they or their friends are. The teachers can also message students to send reminders or give instructions to them through UMPC. This makes learning environment out of classroom and becoming a lifestyle and is autonomous.

Then, we were brought to a house where the appliances are voice activated. This makes it user-friendly for physical disabled students to learn from home. Students’ parents can also send message to them and keep track of their school activities and daily work via the school portal. Parents and teachers are also allowed to interact to follow up with their child’s performance in school. Now, not only students are active participants in their learning, their parents are also deeply involved and constantly updated with the help of technology.

At home, students can play video games that encourage them to think more wisely. For example, they can play games which allows them to use the facts or theory they have learnt to accomplish the tasks at hand. This stimulates students’ interest to explore for a solution and also allows them to apply what they have learnt through a fun and enjoyable manner. Students can also interact with their peers or teachers even when they are at home. They can be sitting on their couch watching tv or playing games and at the same time, they are also on MSN with their classmates discussing and working on their project. Thus, there is a great deal of interaction and collaboration within and outside classroom between the teacher and students and learning is taking place almost anytime!

Lastly, we entered the classroom where attendance marking is done simply by placing UMPC on the students’ lap. This saves time and the time saved can be put to good use in conducting lesson. Students are allowed to draw or write on the built-in screen on the classroom desk to comment on the lesson or ask teacher questions. Online quizzes are performed and markings are done by the computer. Students can use their UMPC to access interactive online learning activities and learn independently. They are engaged in self-directed learning and problem solving which makes they responsible for their own learning and to learn at their own pace. Another advantage is that the teacher acts as a facilitator and thus have more opportunities to spend more time with weaker students.

In the classroom of the future, students are enable to use virtual construction tools such as compasses, protractor, set squares and ruler. Students can learn independently to gain understanding of construction, map reading, transformation and etc. These content based software allows students to learn creatively and independently in a interactive, virtual and fun learning environment.

Visual Design Critique

Slide 1

Strengths The lettering size used in this slide is ideal for a presentation. This allows good and clear visibility for everyone in the presentation room. The words on the slide are kept to a minimum. The presenter should be presenting the details to the audience and not asking the audience to read chunks of words. Relevant picture and audios of frog are used to introduce the topic and to illustrate the topic better.

Areas of improvement  The lettering styles used in this slide makes the words difficult to read thus a consistent and non-complicated lettering style like Times New Roman should be used. The title should be typed in capital letters to capture attention of audience and also to differentiate it from the rest of the text of the slide. The “play” action buttons on the subtitles that lead to the rest of the slides may be neglected or mistaken as bullets. It should be placed at the right hand side of the subtitles. The “click on the buttons to learn more” instruction should be placed under the title to guide the audience on where they should click. The “click on the icons to hear some frog sound” should be classified under another subtitle for neater delivery. Also, the sound icons should also be labeled with the type of frog that is producing that particulate sound.

Slide 2

Strengths  The photographs of the frogs illustrate the points on the slides well. The audience will be able to refer to the photographs to verify the information presented to them. The key word “Amphibians” is bolded to capture the attention of the audience. The lettering size used in this slide is ideal for a presentation. This allows good and clear visibility for everyone in the presentation room. The amount of content presented is just nice and not overwhelming. The short sentences make it easy for audience to read.

Areas of improvement  The photographs can be enlarged to give the audience a better view. The text should be properly aligned and bulleting such “dots” (black) should be used. This will make the slide neater for a clearer visual. The text animation and sound effect can be minimized as too much of it will cause distraction to the audience.

Slide 3

Strengths   The lettering size and style used in this slide is ideal for a presentation. This allows good and clear visibility for everyone in the presentation room. The choice of the colour of the fonts creates pleasing harmonious effect to the eyes. Orange is a colour that symbolises warmth or energy and thus appeals to the audience. Directionals like arrows are used to direct the audience to look at the visual in a particular sequence.

Areas of improvement  The colour used for the word “stage” should be of one that attracts more attention. Red should be used as it is a colour that represents action. The “click on the stage that you want to find more about” instruction text should not be in capital letters as it is more than 6 words and will distract the audience. The audience may also mistake it as the title.  Real photographs should be used for each cycle for better delivery.

Slide 4

Strengths   The picture of the frog eggs is large and clear and allows the audience to visualize the clump of eggs. The navigation buttons on the bottom right are useful.

Areas of improvement  The first point of the slide can be simplified by breaking down into two different points. The points on the slide can be aligned neater so that the audience can read the slide without difficulty. There are unrelated picture of frog eating insect on the bottom left of the slide for decorative purposes. It may distract the audience from the main content. The text animation is too slow and distracting, thus word by word text animation should be avoided.

Slide 5

Strengths  The layout of the pictures and text in the slide is balanced and neatly aligned. The information is also delivered in sequence thus allowing the audience to follow better.

Areas of improvement  The navigation buttons should be consistently placed at the bottom right-hand corner of the slide so that the audience will not be confused by the sudden change. Also, the navigation buttons should be placed at a less prominent location.

Slide 6

Strengths  The layout of the pictures and text in the slide is balanced and neatly aligned. The information is also delivered in sequence thus allowing the audience to follow better. The navigation buttons are placed at the same position (bottom right) as the other slides. Easier for audience to locate them.

Areas of improvement  There are unrelated pictures on the slide for decorative purposes. These pictures should not be included as they may distract or confuse the audience from the main message. Word by word text animation should be avoided as it is too time consuming and distracting.

Managing ICT-Enhanced Environments

a) Do you think the classroom environment chosen is appropriate for the learning activities? Explain why.

In video 1, lesson was conducted in a full computer lab where each students had one computer to himself/herself. The environment was quiet and conducive as students were instructed to use the red cup if they had any queries and to get their attention, the teacher will dim the lights. Thus, noise level is low and students can concentrate on working on their Mathematics worksheet. Also, with the aid of the computer software, student were responsible for filling up the blanks in the worksheet prepared by the teacher. I feel that students could learn more effectively if they were responsible of taking down their own notes or if the teacher gave them problem solving sums to do after the lesson.

In video 2, the first lesson was conducted in AV theatre where the teacher used powerpoint slides to conduct lesson. The students were seated in the first few rows and the projector screen is big enough to capture the students attention thus creating a conducive environment for learning. The second lesson was held in the half computer lab where 2 students paired up to use one computer where one of them was supposed to read out the content and the other was supposed to jot down the important points. This enabled discussions and clarifications between students which makes learning takes place. Generally, the noise level in the computer lab was quite low as students were asked to work in pairs and students can learn the topic content from the useful CD-ROMS.

In video 3,  class was conducted in learning centers with 5 different stations allocated for the students to try out the 5 different activities. Each station was planned to take around the same time to complete so that students could move on to their next station at the same time thus avoiding disturbance. Overall, the environment was conducive for learning as students had a chance to try out the activities and search for the answers to the questions themselves. They worked in groups of 4-5 people and had chance to discuss, clarify and generate ideas which in turn, allowed learning and understand of the subject to level up.

In video 4, lesson was conducted in computer classroom where a big projector was used to ensure that the words were clearly visible to all the students. The pyramid game was introduced in class to stimulate the student’s interest in learning and expanding their vocabulary. The game encouraged students to interact and to use their prior knowledge of the words to describe to their members or to guess for the correct answer. This way, students can learn from one another.

b) The students seem to be focused and on task. What strategies do you think the teacher has used to achieve this outcome?

• Teachers designed the lesson in such a way that was non-traditional and interesting. That captured the students’ interest.
• Students were responsible for their own learning as they were tasked to fill up their activity worksheet provided by the teacher. They also had limited time to complete their exercise thus pushing them to be focused and on task.
• Clear instructions were given by the teachers at the start of the lesson to make sure students were clear of their roles and were able to stay focus.
• Students’ seating arrangement were arranged according to their index number thus saving time as they could directly go to their respective seats.

C) What potential classroom management issues can possibly occur? What proposed solution(s) do you have?

In video 1, the teacher may not be able to cope if too many red cups were flashed. He could encourage the rest of the students to help those in need of guidance. Also, students sitted at the back of the computer lab may copy each other’s work as they may think that the teacher was too busy or too far from them to monitor them. In this case, problem solving sums should be given to students as homework to test on their understanding of the topic instead of just asking them to fill in the blanks of the activity worksheet prepared by the teacher. Also, the teacher should set a targetted time for students to complete their work to ensure that lesson time would not overshot and curriculum would be covered.

In video 2, there may not be enough time for students to finish their work. Teachers may set a targetted time for them to complete their work so that the students have a guide on how fast they should work. Students’ understand could not be ensured as there was no homework given to the students. Homeworks should be given to students to ensure that their learnings were on the right track and the teacher could have done a quick summary to wrap up the lesson and also to stimulate students to think for themselves if they had clearly understood the topic.

In video 3, the students may not have enough time to cover all stations resulting in copying or exchanging of answers from other groups. Thus teacher should set a targetted time students could spend at each station. Disorganised arrangement of students’ movement will lead to waste of time and increase in noise level thus it will be useful if the teacher planned a ’smooth’ route for students to reshuffle themselves. Materials used in the 5 different stations may not be placed back to their original position/state which may cause inconvenience to the next users. Therefore, teacher should instruct the students to be considerate to the next users by placing everything back in order.

In video 4, as only 4 representatives from each group were allowed to play the game at one time, the rest of the students may daydream or lose interest in the lesson. It will be good if the class is split into smaller groups to play the game so as to make sure that students are involved most of the time. In this way, learning can then be more effective as everyone plays a part and there is continuous interaction and learning taking place. At the end of the lesson, the teacher gave instructions to the students on asking them to use 7 words they have learnt from the lesson to construct a short story. Instructions should be given in the beginning so that students could jot down the words. If instructions were given at the end of the class, the students most likely have already forgotten the words they came across during the game.  

How Student-Centered was the Lesson?

After studying the lesson, here are my two cents worth:

Teacher roles (score : 7) 

The teacher stimulates students’ interest by making them role-play as different characters like the Secret Agents and the World Bank Budget Committee members. The lesson was designed in such a way that that teacher doesn’t provide the students with answers or limitations to the content and students were responsible for exploring information of the topic via sources (eg textbook, internet or online forum). The teacher served the class as an instruction leader.

The teacher also managed the lesson by setting and keeping the curricular goals. She monitored the students’ time management to ensure that the curriculum was covered. However, there were no enough time allocated for the students to take down notes and categorise their learnings in the form of mindmaps thus resulting in certain students unable to fully capture and understand the content.

Lastly, the teacher also monitored students’ discussions and participated in the forum discussion. She included intervention, facilitation and skillful questioning to restate students’ understandings. The forum discussion also allowed conversation and collaboration between students.

Student Roles (score : 8 )

The students were the main character of the classroom. They were responsible of finding information via prior knowledge from what they had read or seen from television programmes or by doing individual research over internet, online journals, textbooks and books. They assimilated the information that fits into their lesson and drew a conclusion for the different perspectives they gathered from their research. In a way, this helps them develop analytical skills and experience hands-on learning journey which helps them connect better with the curriculum.

On top of that, students were also in charge of taking down notes for their own learning and creating better understanding of the curriculum using mindmapping tool. Students who were presenting also made use of Microsoft Powerpoint to put their presentations together for the other students. These IT tools encourage students to improve on their oral communication and also prepare them for future workforce demand. However, proper guidance on usage of IT tools were not given to the students, thus resulting in some students unable to catch up and making learning ineffective.

Informal conversations like online forum were also created for the students to talk about the topic presented. Students may ask questions or feedback on the presentations. The presenters may also circulate among their classmates for discussions or to clarify doubts and provide solutions to their classmates’ problems. Social interaction enhances learning as every individual gained knowledge and understanding from discussions, conversations and explanations.

By and large, students were less reliable on their teacher as they were independent and initiative for knowledge creation. As they gathered their information via real-world resources, their learnings expand beyond the textbook. Technology also allows students to manipulate information which aids in accelerating understanding and stimulating higher-order thinking skills.  

Curriculum Characteristics (score : 7)

The lesson was created in such a way where students take responsibilities in their own learning and were allowed to construct meaning and understanding for themselves. Students developed analytical and decision making skills as they compared the different perspectives they gathered from various resources and analysing them before concluding and synthesizing the data into a refined report using digital resources.

When asked to use technology in their learning, students were unable to tap the full potential of the technology tools provided despite being technically competent due to the lack of cognitive guidance during the first lesson. However,  with the teacher’s modelling and guidance during the second lesson, they were able to capitalise the full potential of the teachnology tools to enhance their learning thus leveling their understanding on the topic.

Students were also engaged in online forum for questioning, clarifications and sharing of ideas. By discussing, explaining and listening, students learnt from the interactions exchanged, which helped them develop understanding and allowed the flow of ideas.

Learning Goals (score : 8 )

The students were tasked to develop their own understanding based on prior knowledge, experience and gaining new knowledge from various resources like the internet, journals and textbooks. Students were able to work independently as they relied lesser on their teacher and became more initiative in knowledge creation. In a way, they were also decision makers as they compared and contrasted the different perspective research found on various sources and formed their own understanding and conclusion.

By presenting their research via powerpoint and taking down notes via mindmapping tools, the students are now trained to meet demands of the working force.

Students were also encouraged to discuss and interact over online forum in order to learn more through discussions, explanations, exchanging of ideas, feedbacks and listening. The informal interaction allowed flow of ideas which challenged students to use higher degree of thinking skills thus allowing them to analyse, create or synthesis ideas which in turn elevated the students’ level of understand to a higher level.

Types of Activities (score : 6)

The types of activities involved are firstly group project with hands on exploration for content. Students with the role as Secret Agent presented their topics via Powerpoint Presentation and students who were in the World Bank Budget Committee took down notes using mindmapping tools. Next, students were encouraged to interact in the online forum and at the end of the lesson, they were asked to vote in an online poll and also to indicate one thing they had learnt from the lesson.

Of all the activities listed, only the online polling and to indicate one thing they have learnt from the lesson were compulsory for all students to participate in. Some students may be neglected in other activities which may result in unconducive learning to take place.

Assessment Strategies (score : 6)

Students were asked to vote for either one of the projects through online polling. They were able to make a decision on which issue they were supporting and they were required to indicate one thing they learnt under the topic. The teacher provided a decision-making template for the students to rank the issue but due to lack of proper guidance, students did not manage to rank correctly until the second lesson, where proper instructions were given to them by the teacher.

There was no written test given and the only things that could be used to assess the student’s understand of the topics were the online forum, online polling, the presentation and the mindmap done by them. I feel that based on the given choices, it was not enough to confirm that all students fully understand the topics. Therefore, a written test is still needed to test and confirm that student fully understand the topics.  

Use of ICT (score : 6)

Technology indeed enrich, extend and facilitate learning. Independent learning through sources like internet, online journals or online forum gives students the chance of having complete control over the topic and enables students to build on their own understanding.

Mindmapping and Powerpoint Presentations serve as excellent visual organiser for students to display their projects and conveying their understands and interpretation. Online forum also encouraged discussions, clarifications and flow of ideas when different perspections were expressed.

Students were asked to vote for the project they support via online poll. This served as a feedback for the presenters on how convincing they were. Students were also asked to indicate one thing they learnt in the lesson to let the teacher keep track of their understand of the lesson.

However, there are many other IT tools like simulations, multimedia and hypermedia which are not used by the students. These IT tools require proper guidance and training thus it will be useful if experts are engaged to deliver the IT skills to the students.

All in all, I feel that the lesson was quite well planned except that more time should be allocated for students to process the mind maps and also for discussions and clarifications. I feel that if more time is allocated to these 3 areas, students will be able to learn and understand the topics better.  

***Greetings***

Whee!!!

My first post in this blog.

Still trying to figure out how to modify the mainpage. Would like to change the font colour and the display pic. Any ideas anyone? Oh yes, i need to link everyone too.Maybe Mr Loke should just conduct a student-centered lesson to guide us on how to blog using wordpress.

hohoho. Just a suggestion!

Baby and I