Last Entry: Reflection on blogging and this PBEY3102 course

I have been blogging for almost two years and until now I still continue blogging. What make me fall in love with blogging are the the platform it provides to pour my thoughts and declaration and the connection it provides among the bloggers. Through blogging I can share whatever information, daily happenings and events which I think interesting and contains of 'infotainment' element to be put forward. I can also join and follow other bloggers' blogs and gain some more information and update my knowledge about certain things. Moreover, I can also give my feedbacks and comments to the entries that I read. So, we (bloggers) can learn from each other. As in this course, blogs are used to reflect on our learning. This is superior to alert what we have learnt from week to week and at the same time revising and critically examining what we have learned from these weeks.

However, apart from that, this kind of web 2.o medium gives no privacy to the bloggers. Once a particular person noted a particular blogger's URL, then that person can serve to the web whenever he/she likes. This will give hesitation to bloggers to write whatever they like in thier spaces (blogs) as all people can serve the web. Moreover, it will also cause harm in terms of the content portrayed in certain blogs. For example, nowadays teenagers or even children are getting used with this technology. Sometimes, they get influenced with the harmful and explicit content embedded in the blogs.

Apart form the harmfulness of blogging, I have added up my language skills and critical thinking skills. This is through posting the each entry whereby I need to write comprehensibly and impresively to attract bloggers to read my blog. Then, in the mean of doing that, I have to critically think of the appropriate content and things to be portrayed in the blogs in order to make it interesting. Other, I also sharpen my thinking skills through reading and giving comments to others' blogs.

What do I like about this course is the opportunity that it provides for me to experience and prepare varieties of technology teaching aids which is really useful for us as teachers-to-be. Moreover, it also provides us with skills and knowledge to edit and make some teaching aids interesting and suits with a particular topic. For example, audio editing and photo editing has enlightened us a lot in preparing teaching aids. The same credit should be given to other modules like internet skills, video editing, software for ELT and E-book.

However, what I do not like about this course is the redundancy of tasks. For example, sometimes, we have done this task in this module, then for another module, we have to do the same task as in the previous module. However, i belief that there must be reasons behind this.

Like I said before, via this course, I have expanded my skills and knowledge. There are loads of new things that I have learned for example editing audios, videos and photos. Apart from that I also learned on the consideration to make a good quality of e-book and preparing teaching aids using Microsoft Publisher. All of these modules learned, made me mature in this line of using and developing resources in primary ESL classrooms as suited with the name of this course itself.

I never expected that I would learn how to make videos and thick portfolio as part of our assignments. Apart from that, I expected that in this course I will use the teaching aids that we made for microteachings/simulated teachings. However, there were none have been planned for this.

Like I said before, one thing that I would like to change in this course is to integrate simulated teaching/microteaching as we can use the teaching aids and lesson plan prepared for the assignments so that we can improve our skills as teachers-to-be. This would add up to our holistic development as teachers.

Last but not least, On a scale of 1 – 10 , I would rate my computing and technological skills from 4 (before undergoing this course) to 9 (after undergoing this course). Thank you to Puan Foziah for guiding and helping me improve in terms of my computing and technological skills which would enrich me in this line of teaching and learning in primary schools.

The submission of assignment 3 and THANK YOU MA'AM

This was the last week of this particular semester. This week was the time for us to submit assignment 3 which was the compilation of one week English lesson plans.

Thank God, ma'am gave us time one hour to 'wrap up' all things which was undone. So, we used the time perfectly to combine all the works form each and every group members and we went to bind the assignment neatly.

We felt so glad that at last we submitted this piece of work form us as a group as we poured quite an endeavor to make certain that this assignment is a success. In this assignment, there were loads of discussions and hardwork integrated. There were loads of interesting activities, games and teaching material embedded in this package of one week lesson plan.

We also provide some comments and justification about the lesson plan done so that it will be clearer to be used. So, in this assignment, i can see the link of the previous assignment as we need to integrate the skills and knowledge that we gained in order to prepare teaching aids to suit with lesson plans.

Therefore, this course has given me a complete learning and strong grasp of knowledge from designing, planning and preparing technologically teaching aids for ELT classroom. Apart from that, we also learned the reason underneath the making of each and every teaching aids and this has added to my journey and development of being an English teacher.

THANK SO MUCH TO MA'AM FOZIAH FOR TEACHING AND GUIDING ME IN THIS COURSE. I HAVE BENEFITED SO MUCH AND I HOPE TO UTILIZE AND MANIPULATE AS MUCH SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE LEARNED AS I COULD TO MAKE THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF ENGLISH LESSON EFFECTIVE AND INTERESTING.

The submission of Assignment 2 (the collection of teaching aids)

This week was also the week that i waited because this was the week that we needed to submit our assignment 2.

After so much of hardwork and sacrifice poured for the accomplishment of this assignment 2, we felt so relieve and glad that at last we manage to submit the thick assignment which combines all sorts of technology teaching aids like, edited photos, gif and animations, videos, sounds, e-book, powerpoint presentations as well as microsoft publisher.

This was a very good assignment as for the reason that in the process of completing this assignment, we leraned loads of things and skills that enriches our holistic development of a teacher especially in terms of preparing teaching aids and materials. Not only that, we also provided justification of each teaching aids produced in terms of the audience (year six for example), how to use it as well as the advantages of the software used to make that particular teaching aids.

Therefore, form the skills and knowledge learned, i hope that i can manipilate them and use them well in to make a particular lesson effective and memorable for the pupils so that they will be motivated to learn English more.

Microsoft Publisher

This week, ma'am taught us one more way to enroll with resources in primary schools. This was about Microsoft publisher.

Ma'am taught us about Microsoft publisher, the use of it, how it can be utilized to make loads of resources for teaching and learning in the primary schools. There are loads of things that we can do using microsoft publisher. From postcard, to advertisement, greeting cards, banner and so many more. From here, we can utilize these templates to make many sorts of teaching aids, for example teaching materials in terms of reading skill whereby we can produce advertisements and broucher for comprehension questions.

Then, ma'am assigned us to integrate Microsoft Publisher under the module of Software for ELT as to be submitted together in the portfolio. So, i felt that, by knowing to use Microsoft publisher well, it will somehow or rather help me in preparing matrieals for teaching and learning sessions especially in primary schools. So, it is quite significant for teachers to know to use this software as it would help a lot in terms of planning and preparing teaching aids for the pupils.

The submission of the video

This was the week that i have been waiting. This is for the reason that i was eager to watch the videos produced by my friends.

First and foremost, in this class we were uploading our videos to ma'am's main computer first as that is the only computer connected to the LCD projector and to the smart board in front of the class. It is for the purpose to show the videos to the rest of the class members.

That was the time that i waited which was the showing of the videos. All that i could say after watching the videos was thumbs up to all of my friends. We have created variety of videos with variety of ideas and storyline. I was happy to watch those videos with some funny faces of our friends, Malaysians festivals and so on. Apart form that there were also videos that gave messages to the viewers and made us alert and learned something from the videos.

All that i can say, congratulations to the all of us. The comments that we received were meant for our improvement but all in all i could say all the videos produced were good and interesting. Therefore, i learned that from the hardwork and pure endeavor that we put to a particular, we will find success and wisdom as the payment for the hardwork that we had performed.

The Presentation of the Article

After raya, we did not have class on Tuesday (for those who are in Tuesday class), this was due to ma'am's state of health which was not quite well. So, we had to replace the class and join the Thursday class.

In this class, we heard the presentations about the article of the using of technology in teaching by Thursday group members. I gained loads of information regarding the use of technology in teaching and learning. This had alerted me that technology is important and pertinent especially in this 21st century world whereby children are exposed to so much kinds of technology equipments and gadgets. This is a good sign for teachers to employ technology as much as they can depending on circumstances so that the teaching and learning will be more effective.

After the presentation, we requested for postponement of the video editing pair work assignment. After considering some factors, ma'am gave us the one more week before we could submit our pair work video editing project. Here, i learned that it is good to be considerable and what ma'am did was great as it would us more time to search for more good materials in order to produce good piece of work.

Video Editing assignment (pair work)

This week, ma'am assigned us to find our pairs to do the video editing assignment. For boys, the pairs should be girls and vice versa. Therefore, i chose one of my best friends Ryna to be my pair for the pair work of video editing.

In this class, we discussed the storyline of our video, the story board, the software to be used as well as how the collection of materials should be done. Then, we chose to do a video about Malaysian Bad Habits. The video will portray Malaysian habits especially littering, vandalisme and dirty toilets.

After the discussion, we showed our storyboards and ideas to ma'am. Thank God she accepted the idea but we need to do some improvement and editing to the storyline of the video. We divided works for the video and it was the time we sat together and watch videos on Youtube to find ideas and ways to produce the videos.

Here, i learned that making video will need quite a good planning and preparation especially to produce a storyboard. This is because by doing this, we can have a reference and guidance of each scene of the video so that we will not be off the track and everything will run smoothly. So, in terms of making a video for kids later after we master the skills for this assignment, loads of considerations need to be concerned. Foe example, in terms of the storyline which needs to be simple and comprehensible, the pictures, sounds and songs as portrayed in the video. So, this video editing skills will help me a lot in preparing resources especially video for the teaching and learning of English for primary school children.