Reflections on Second Life (Han Kiong)

With Second Life being similar to games like The Sims, I have naturally regarded and classified Second Life as a game. A search on google whether Second Life is a game yielded results with some saying that Second Life is a game and others strictly classifying it as a 3D-online virtual world. For me, Second Life has elements that both resemble and those that set it apart frm games. However, what is most important about Second Life is that it enables one to assume the role of avatars and do stuffs that may not be possible in real life as well as creation of worlds that are mimics real-life environments.

The prevalence of digital technologies has resulted in students being now labelled as digital natives and this meant that they could well be interested and involved in Second Life. There will be implications for education. Second Life could well be a platform where educational learning could take place. The increasing use of Second Life by many educational institutions provide evidence for its practicality for teaching and learning.

The video introduces some ways in which Second Life can be used in the teaching of many subjects ranging from history, literature and science. Teachers can get students to be responsible for their own learning and thus do away with direct lecturing and bring about student centric and meaningful learning. Students can travel long distances within the virtual world and get to go to places where they could never travel to in the real world. The video also talks about students being visual and audio learners and Second Life caters to learning needs of these students.

While it may seem that the advantages are plentiful, we will have to consider the limitations and potential dangers of Second Life as well. Second Life may expose students to adult content which they are not ready for at such a tender age. Fortunately, restrictions placed on access to such materials have effectively averted potential risks and averse effects. Furthermore, as students spend more time assuming roles of avatar, they may get addicted and may eventually get disengaged from the real world. Their interpersonal relationships may suffer making them unable to adapt to real life.

When it comes to implementation of Second Life in schools, teachers may be unprepared to integrate them in their classrooms as it may involve some technological knowledge on how to set up and operate Second Life. This will then bring about relevance to the lesson as teachers may be more focused on the technology and less on the subject content. As for me, I am reluctant to integrate Second Life in my lessons as I feel that my lack of know-hows of Second Life will outweigh the benefits that it will have on enhancing learning in students.

ICT reflection

Second life provides a good platform for learning. In this video, it focused more on training and simulations. SL allows trainees to try again and again. It is very interactive and in the video,it provides evidence that SL can promote teamwork and leadership building. SL is good for distant learning where trainees do not need to be physically there. SL can also promote soft sills and hard skills since role playing can be done as a form of learning.

From what I have seen and heard, I think SL has the opportunity to be a good platform for educational learning. Students are able to be present in the virtual world and gain knowledge from it.

However, I am doubtful over many things. Some of it I find disturbing.I am looking from the psychological aspect of the child's development. Firstly, the world is virtual. The virtual you could be different from the real you. What if the students suffer from split personality? They feel more confident in the real world but they are unsure about themselves in the real world. Secondly, I have never heard about Second life until now. The thing is, from my experience, none of my students ever mentioned SL. I have heard them talking about facebook, friendster, blog, twitter but I have never heard of them being excited over SL. Therefore, if I were to introduce to them SL and they started to get addicted to it and started to meet the strangers online, will I be responsible for it then?

Also, there are many technological barrier to this. I am no IT expert. So it will take alot of time and effort to come up with lesson plans that involve SL. Is it worth it? So I think I shall not pursue SL. I shall pursue other alternatives to traditional teaching for example blogs, youtube and many many more. And I hope the students will benefit from it.

Reflection on Second Life (SL)

I feel SL is rather uninteresting and dead. From my first and only experience till now, I feel that why would anyone be fascinated by living in a virtual world?

But when we were told by Dr Tan that people actually uses it to satisfy the needs they cannot satidfy in the real world, I do feel that there is indeed a purpose to the existence of SL.

Looking at the video, student nurses will have simulations that are programmed to answer a very wide variety of questions that can be posted by the student nurses. This serves as a good practice for the nurses to learn how to question effectively and efficiently. This may also allow them to anticipate any kind of real life situation that may happen. Sl actually serve as a simulation practice platform for the student nurses before they face the world.

With my current level of how interesting and however helpful SL can be, my perception of it is still bases on my 30 minutes of flying and trying to interact with others through typing.

However SL has its own limitations. The biggest limitation I believe would be the lack of face to face interaction. This may eventually cost humans to lose the skill and confidence to interact face to face. That, I feel is catastrophic. Another worry may be the over-reliance of SL where humans will tend to use SL as a form of escape from reality. These over-reliance may create situations where they are too engross into SL, that they cannot detach themselves from the world.

Second Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related

During the 'hands-on experience' with Second Life in my last session, I seriously don't see much relevance of Second Life in my teaching.

The video which I have put up has showcased few ways which I can adopt for teaching. Well, true enough, they are applicable. But I just wondering, if I am going to teach a certain Science topic e.g.Periodic Table, is it already available? Or do I need to hire someone to create the programme for me? I am an IT idiot.

Furthermore, I start questioning myself. How would the future be like when everyone seems to be stuck in front of the computers? I believe Second Life can be rather addictive just like some games available online e.g. Maple story. I have friends who stayed at home all day long just to make sure that they progress to the higher levels.

In school, we are already promoting ICT-based learning. Either in school or at home, students have to use computers for their tasks. Isn't it draining for their eyes and health. Yes, i don't play games. I don't find it interesting to move about in the virtual world too. I am more interested in real-life experience, I don't believe in day-dreaming.

If educational system is going towards very IT-based form of learning, we probably need to think of how could actually bring about adverse effects on the learners. The schools probably need to provide some training to educate students about the proper usage of Internet, how to protect their eyes and their sitting gestures. Ever since I entered NIE, I have to stare at the computers for long hours. I probably need to have a eye-checking session soon.

I can really imagine almost everyone wearing spectacles if our educational system gets very ICT-based!

Reflections on 2nd Life

This is my first time experiencing second life. It's very interesting when we get to change the appearance and clothings of our avatar. It was even more fun when we were given a treasure hunt to find some items. Having said that, I don't think I will be starting a second life anytime soon unless I am required to do so. This is because I would rather experience the real world than explore a virtual world. There is so much more meaning to doing the real thing than just moving my fingers over the keyboard. If ever one day I am done exploring the real world then I will turn to 2nd life to start my 2nd life.



This person in the video is Joe Sanchez from University of Texas. He explains some of the advantages of using 2nd life as an educational tool to replace mundane meetings, lectures and frontal teaching.

He suggests that there is more interaction between the students and the lecturer in the virtual world. More people can speak up and express their views. Students can learn at home using their laptop which is convenient and relaxing for them.

I agree with him to a certain extent. It is true that in an environment with classmates, student's feel more reluctant to speak up for fear of embarassing themselves. Now that they are behind their laptop screens, they can express themselves with relative ease. This might help them in their learning.

However learning from laptops means that they might have multiple windows open at the same time. So they might be listening to rock music, watching a movie, playing a game, all at the same time while "listening" to the lecture. Also, what makes learning fun sometimes is the classroom environment: seeing the teacher's expression when he is telling a joke, feeling the enthusiasm of the class for an interesting topic. These are very different sensations when experienced over the internet.

Are we moving to the stage where everyone is poised to have an alter ego in a virtual world? Would you know my real emotions, for example, when I am typing this blog? Its already quite difficult to read a person's thought face-to-face, whatmore over the internet. For now I cherish what little face-to-face meetings we have and hope when virtual teaching comes, I will be mentally prepared for it.

Chester's 2nd Life

Frankly, i wasn't all too impressed with Second Life (SL) when i got my 1st hands on experience at the mxl. What i didn't know is that universities exist in SL! Why go for lectures when we can do it in SL? You can even fly to your virtual lecture venue. Nonetheless, i feel that SL does have its limitations (based on my half an hour hands on session that is).


In order to interact, most of us type. In a class of 40, there might be too many words on the screen. Even if we use a microphone, our message cannot be delivered effectively because there is a lack of body language (or rather natural body language), which accounts for 70% of communication.

In SL, we can see and hear, but cannot we touch and smell. Disaster for chemistry teachers like us? How are we going to show students that an alkali is soapy and ammonia gas is pungent?

Having said that, i'm not trying to say SL is useless for education. I feel that while SL cannot be the primary source of education, it can serve as a complementary tool. For example, we could conduct e-learning using SL. We could also use SL as a tool to bring students to places. Planning a trip to Marina Barrage? Perhaps we can have a marina barrage in SL to let students have a feel of what is the place like before the actual trip. Or we can take students to the effel tower without actually travelling to paris.

That's all for now. I probably have to sign up for SL to appreciate more of its advantages and disadvantages.

ICT e-learning 2 reflections part B

After watching the video on Singapore’s iN2015 vision, I can imagine Singaporeans no longer using cash (as in coins & dollar notes) in transactions, going through the hassle of travelling to & fro just to get paperwork done, having to worry about the availability of parking lots, taking the trouble to visit the library etc… with all the information and functions available in one small handheld gadget. I see the possibility of Singapore going increasingly digital in these essential day-to-day communication processes. With all these further technological advances, it may possibly reduce paper usage and hopefully help to alleviate environmental problems caused by deforestation (for paper manufacturing). In fact, with more and more Singaporeans possessing iPhones and Blackberry devices that allow access to the internet, newsgroups and emails while on the move, as a nation I believe we are somewhat heading there.

With such further advances in technology, I can picture ICT being incorporated as a very important tool in classroom lessons. Sure, students would be wowed by the frills in accessing information with just a click on the handheld device but over time, will they become jaded as such tools become more common? Will their attention span decrease during lessons & teachers would then have to again go through the vicious cycle of brainstorming even more interesting lesson ideas just to captivate the students’ attention after having exhausted all the possible ICT tools? What if technology breaks down? Will teachers & students be prepared to revert back to the old approach of using the whiteboard, markers and worksheets?

To a certain extent, I think NIE is preparing me by training me in the necessary to develop a balance between a teacher-centred and student-centred approach in lessons. Unlike the days of old, teachers would no longer function as the ‘information bank’ for students, with information now being readily available through the internet and other ICT tools. Nonetheless it is of utmost importance that we keep abreast with what’s happening in the world to remain relevant to our students and be well-read in the subjects we are teaching.

ICT e-learning 2 reflections part A

Digital natives are those whose time is vastly spent on technology-related activities, so much so to the point that their lives can be considered to be pretty much revolved around technology. Their brain process and cognitive abilities are very much shaped by repeated exposure to video games and digital media that they come in contact with day in and day out. Albeit their much shorter attention span than previous generations, they are better able to visualize graphical representations, reason inductively, multi-task and respond to both expected/unexpected stimuli. With the much faster pace of life that comes with technology, digital natives tend not to slow down and reflect, which is crucial before meaningful learning actually takes place.

In my review, I have chosen to compare Virginia (http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-virginia-video) against a typical Singaporean secondary school student. There are some similarities I noticed between her and the latter, in that both spend quite a substantial amount of time on social networking websites such as Facebook, Youtube and even blogging while still keeping up with school commitments. I’m not too sure whether teachers actually teach their students how to blog or even create blogs for classroom discussions at that level here in Singapore though. One thing that struck me was that Virginia was already playing a role in educating the younger ones about cyberwellness at a young, tender age of 14, which is something I hardly see back home; or at least happens at a slightly older age. Like her, Singaporean youths need to learn to exercise self-control in internet usage lest it does more harm than good to them.

As teachers, we face very real challenges in capturing the attention of digital natives. To hold their attention it would be of great importance to vary our teaching pedagogies with ICT tools being incorporated into lessons. This would include choosing the right games (where appropriate) to use during lessons which would enhance the educational value for the students. For students to better make sense of what they are learning, it would be good to present the facts/theories to them in graphic form since digital natives learn better through visualizations. At the same time, it is of great importance that students are educated in cyberwellness since they use the internet for quite a fair amount of time and it can affect them negatively if certain boundaries aren’t drawn.

E-learning 2 (Part B) (Han Kiong)

Having read through the articles and watched the videos, it is alarming how technologies have progressed and evolved. The extension of digital technologies has crept into the educational landscape or is still in the process of increasing its presence.

I am looking forward to changes yet fearful of how well prepared I am to these changes. With students having more autonomy of their learning, it will no doubt drive greater learning as they might be intrinsically motivated. However, at the same time, I fear teachers are rendered obsolete. This is particularly true for teachers not able to adapt to the changing educational landscape.

With the immense amount of information available for the students, they might be at a loss on how to search for relevant information. Teachers could guide the students to their desired learning acting as a facilitator. In this respect, teachers are still very much important. Teachers are no longer regarded a wealth of knowledge but their experience in pursuing knowledge is still helpful to the students. I will no doubt be attempting to assume the role of a guide and let students do the bulk of their own learning.

Living, learning and working will no doubt be taking place in a more dynamic environment. The pace of life will become faster. Beware, those people craving a more serene lifestyle. I strongly believe we have to keep pace with the changing environment or risk being an outcast.

NIE has tried to sway us to in planning a more student centric learning and I believe it is paying dividends slowly or will pay dividends eventually though not manifested explicitly. I have been persuaded to let students have more autonomy in their learning. I will no doubt get the students to realize that teachers are no longer the wealth of knowledge and they are the ones to drive their own learning. I will take on the role of a guide as in the case of a lighthouse, steering the students to their desired course of learning.

E-learning 2 (Part A) (Han Kiong)

What are some characteristics of digital natives? (What are they good at? What are they poor at?)

Pictures speak more than a thousand words. You can basically figure out the differences between a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant from the picture above. Digital natives are those who were born in an age of digital technologies and raised with these digital technologies pervading their lives. We on the other hand are the Digital Immigrants who are left gasping for breath in a digital laden environment (I’m referring to the likes of me).

Based on research and studies, we know conclusively that Digital Natives’ brains are physiologically different from ours due largely to huge exposure to digital media. They would naturally have expertise or competences that are different from us. Digital Natives may be contrasted with the Digital Immigrants in terms of the following:

• Parallel versus linear processing: Digital Natives have parallel cognitive structures while Digital Immigrants have linear processing. While we focus on one task at a time, Digital Natives are comfortable multi-tasking; they could listen to music, talk on mobiles and surf the net at the same time. This no doubts enable them to complete multiple tasks in a shorter time. I question the quality of work done though.

• Graphics first versus text first: Digital Natives are primarily visual learners as the exposure to computer games and other digital media has enhanced their visual spatial skills and texts are subsidiary aids for these visuals. We on the other hand rely more on texts which may then be reinforced with visuals.

• Connected versus stand-alone: the development of internets and other digital media has resulted Digital Natives to be connected even over far distances and it is even extended to the popular LAN gaming. The Digital Natives may then collaborate actively with others over these channels. They thus adopt the slogan “Think globally, Act globally” in contrast with the Digital Immigrants; traditional approach of “Think globally, Act locally”.

The contrast of Digital Natives with Digital Immigrants has highlighted what these Digital Natives are good at but they too have areas they need to address and improve. Digital Natives are weak in reflections which involves learning from experience. Reflections are essential as it enables us to generalize with the formation of mental models.

Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?

Dylan is an interesting subject that I have chosen to review. Dylan is a typical Digital Native who uses a wide array of digital technologies ranging from educational tools to learn phonics, websites to showcase his projects, online forums, chats and conferences to collaborate with others for his projects to making video and publishing them on YouTube. This sounds familiar to what most students in Singapore are using. Singapore children with access to computers, the internet, mobile phones made possible by the affluence of the nation have learnt or are learning to apply these tools in daily life. The pervasiveness of these digital technologies is alarming, you could just observe the people around you one early morning and you are bound to see multiple digital tools used by those people. I, labelled as a Digital immigrant have social networking accounts; rely primarily on the internet to search for information, blog occasionally much less students who are Digital Natives.

How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?

Teachers in Singapore may start by recognising that students or the Digital Natives’ brains are physiologically different from us backed by evidence from neurobiology and social psychology.

From this fact stems the need to innovate the teaching approach to engage students. Knowing that students have parallel cognitive structures, teachers can no longer teach in linear or sequential fashion. They must attempt to create interactive lessons with frequent feedbacks. They can also use text sparingly and have more visuals in their lessons since students use text as subsidiary aids to learn. The use of concept maps may be helpful as it reinforces mental maps in the students. Teachers can pose challenging problems to students to motivate students as they may be bored easily.

It is hard for most teachers including me to move away from traditional approaches to teaching that emphasises linear thinking but knowing that students are vastly different now and learning can only be achieved by revising our teaching approach, we must make an effort to bring about changes.

Sakinah's Elearning 2 Part B

The first impression that came across my mind after watching iN2015 is honestly something like this: Is this for real? I don’t think it’s going to happen so soon. That will be like 6 more years so how can things move that fast?

Oops! I know it’s a very pessimistic view and very shallow. I’m very guilty of that. The thing is I failed to see the big picture of the whole thing. The thing is I failed to realize that things HAVE been moving very fast. Technology has been changing and advancing at a speed never before occurs in history of mankind.

Technological advances have caused a change in many aspects of life. From the way people communicate and connect to each other to the way people learn and observe from the surroundings. I think the way students learn will be very different as compared to 10 years ago. The students craved for other things. They want it fast, exciting, thought-provoking and relevant. The same goes to their learning in school. They don’t want it to be linear and one –way. They want it to be interactive and energetic; like how fast everything is changing. If they don’t see the relevance in it, they simply would not be interested in it.

NIE is doing a fine job in preparing future teachers. Maybe not fully but hopefully the teachers get the gist and CHANGE the way they teach. It may be very hard even for me, since we’ve been brought up in a different kind of technological advances. It may be hard because it has been hard-wired in our minds that there is only certain typical ways to teach. I hope as a teacher I will make my class more interactive and thought-provoking. They want immediate feedback. So hopefully I can incorporate that in my teaching. I shall respect their different ways of learning and not see it as a problem.

I hope I can understand their different ways of learning and adapt towards it.

Sakinah's Elearning 2 Part A

Good at: Problem solving. They think differently and process information differently. They develop hypertext minds and think in a parallel manner and not in sequence. They possess multi-dimensional visual-spatial skills and they are able to respond faster.
Bad at: Reflecting. Reflecting is very important since reflection let us realize and acknowledge our mistakes. How do we learn from our mistakes if we did not acknowledge them first? Are we forever going to live in denial? Reflection also let us realizes what to learn from the environment.


Justin. 16. Very similar to Singapore students. Similar to Singapore students, they are exposed to technology, gaming and internet at a very young age. They utilize technology as a way to express themselves. One of the problems he managed to avoid is game addiction. Like most Singapore students who are gamers, they suffer from addiction. They miss the thrill of adventure and the world of fantasy. Fortunately, he learnt to balance his time. Justin managed to play his games and at the same time, carry out his normal everyday life.
Teachers cannot use the linear way to teach. We must let the students explore and relate the topics learnt to real life. There should be immediate response like how the games do. Classroom activities should include interactivity. Must let them ask questions. Let them enquire. Let them do their own problem-solving.

E-learning 2 (Part B)

It looks "cool" to have the future portrayed by the Singapore's iN2015 vision. Everything seem to be made so much easier and faster. Though it has many benefits which we expect to come, a negative possibility crossed my mind. Teachers are going to lose their jobs! Perhaps, we may require teachers to be around, we no longer need so many! I wonder if it is a good or bad thing...

Things are made far too easy. Are we going to cherish things around us? Since, we do not necessary need help from others (Technology can help us instead)...Are we going to feel grateful upon receiving help from others?

Personally, I am those who still prefer hand-write letters than electronic typed emails. There is always a lack of humane and emotions when we typed things out and send through electronic emails. I do not know about others, that is my feel. In the 2015 vision, it seems everything is made electronic. Did you see any papers and pen ink? Similarly, I do not like the presents given by the kids to their mother- Lack of feelings... Again, that is my feel.

In the whole new world, the working environment will change too. Tasks will will be completed in a much shorter time. Perhaps, we do not need any more face to face meetings. We can all do it online. We need not go around and seek help from our colleagues as information can easily be found. Again, does it reduce social interactions?

In NIE, I can only see my ICT module being relevant to the possible future. Under Dr Tan's supervision, we need do constant reflections and think critically about various issues. Through this module, I learnt that we need to adjust our lessons to cater to our students. Hence, in future, teachers will face a even greater challenge to educate the future generations who are proficient in the technologies. NIE cannot teach us the things we use to teach our kids in the future, it mentally prepares us in dealing with possible situations in future.

To cope with the possible future, we need to equip ourselves with the necessary IT skills. Hence, I will consistently upgrade myself to the new technologies, attend relevant courses and etc. Most importantly, we need to abandon old teaching strategies and devise new ones to appropriate learning environment for students.

E-learning 2: Part A

Digital natives are good at things which are more interactive. They are better at reading 3D representations, discovering things inductively, monitoring multiple locations simultaneously and responding to expected and unexpected stimuli as compared to non-digital natives.

Since, they crave for interactivity, tasks which are non-interactive will put them off. They appeared to be poor at focusing their attention in class. However, after knowing their interests, we should understand that they do can have long attention span, but not for the "boring" old ways of learning environment.

As for the portrait, I chose Olivia almost instantly.
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-olivia-video
It has always been a mind-bogging issue on whether to assign E-learning tasks to the students as some of them do not have computers at home.

During my one year of contract teaching, my form class, a 1NT class has many students under the FAS programmes. It always worried me about those who do not have computers at home. Are they able to finish my online assignments on time? Are they having difficulties in getting computer and Internet access? The school did book a computer lab for those students to use and complete their assignments. However, this issue never seems to get off my mind.

After viewing the video on Olivia, I do have a different perception on those students without computer access at home. I started to reflect on how IT savvy they were. Many of them still have HP (often confiscated by teachers if they were caught using in class) and tried to take photos with me on my last day in school. They wanted to add my on Facebook and also asked me for my email address and contact particulars. Well, I should not have undermined their IT knowledge and how much IT meant in their daily life.

Teachers today should take a step back and really look at the kind of students who they are teaching. Students today are no longer the same as before. Teachers need to adjust their teaching strategies to cater to the digital natives (students).

GBL should be incorporated into the lessons as the digital natives require a more interactive learning environment. Even without GBL, it is crucial for teachers to bear in mind that they need to include activities such that students are able to voice their opinions and interact with one another (more meaningful learning experience).

Teachers may employ Facebook, blogs most students are familiar with for classwork. Students may be asked to blog weekly under a group blog or their class blog. Teachers need to keep track of what the students are doing and interested in. These will help in planning and delivering the lessons better.

Weiqiang e-learning Activity B

SCARY!!!

Looking at the stats shown form the video actually made me becoming more aware of the fast-paced evolution in the world of technology. We can understand that by the introduction of better-improved gadgets like handphones, gaming consoles and laptops.

Knowing that what I studied in technology will 'expire' in two years time, isn't that scary?

If we connect all these onto the educationa landscape, it seems like we will be changing our job title to facilitators instead of teachers. I believe that learning will be geared towards independent and authentic learning. The use of the 'transparent piece of material' seems to enable learning to take place anywhere and anytime. Everything is just a click away and updates are all going to be real time!

One thing I will like to highlight regarding the way Big Picture High School works is that this way of education serves a very noble plan. But I still think the conventional 'old school' kind of school, where the use of summative assessments is still present, is needed for some kids whom had not decide on the future path. It is just that they have to tweak their teaching style with the fast evolution in both technology and curriculum.

The use of digital devices will then be a necessity. This brings along a problem I think applies now but maybe not in the future. MONEY. All these technology advancements do bring along various convinence to life. But what about the cost of living and sustainability of this kind of lifestyle?

What NIE taught me do serve as an exposure to me on what is going to happen in the future of our educational system. BUT, I guess it is not up to us whether we can do it. Rather, it is whether the educational system will finally enforce it. For now, I can only foresee what NIE taught me, especially in ICT, serve as an awareness and exposure for us in terms of what to expect in the years to come. Actual implementation? At least for now, I still think is not up to me to decide.

Weiqiang e-learning Activity A

Digital Native: Justin

In terms of digital background, how similar is Justin to a typical Singaporean student? When was the first time i had my first computer? I believed it was in my JC days. Though that is the case, we were exposed to computer usage as early as primary school. But it was deemed to be a non-necessity then.

Students are now exposed to the use of computer as early as the age of 6 to 7. They cannot do without their computer, laptop, i-pod and others. Digital Natives spent more time using their digital gadgets for numerous different activities compared to doing 'old-school' studying and reading.

Just to state a few characteristics of a digital natives, they are more expressive and extremely social. They want active involvement in every issues and needs constant engagement. They have the fearlessness to engage in task, with failure the least of their concern.

But when there is pros, there are bound to have cons. One ever present problem was their inability to communicate face to face with people. As they are used to communicating in the virtual world, they will feel a sense of unease when doing face-to-face communication.

As for how digital immigrants like us can do to engage the digital natives, I think that a more interactive lesson could be a good start in engaging the natives. As for the infusion of the teaching pedagogies, our main aim is to equip students with the necessary 21st century skills, where formative assessment play a more important role than before. Asking questions and having pauses in between lessons allow discussions to be done and making the lesson a bi-directonal interaction.

I am still skeptical about introducing games into lessons but not the concepts hidden within GBL. Exploration comes before teaching is a good approach where students will be able to have a sense of ownership in what they learn.

Thus I think that being a digital immigrant, i think it will be cool also that I allow myself to be a learner in the meanwhile to learn from my students as afterall, they are still the natives.

E-learning2 Part B (sheng zhi)

Wow... it looks like anything that has a flat surface can become a video screen. If I have sunglasses that doubles as a video screen, I will have to train my left eye to look at the screen and my right eye to look at where I am going, then I should be talking simultaneously, that's too much work!

I think as the video shows, there will be gadgets everywhere to feed us with infomation in the future. There will also be people who will be exhausted from all this information handed to them but they have nowhere to hide because even the toiletbowl lid can become a video screen. That's a scary thought.

In the future, learning for students will be about learning itself and not spewing out facts because the tablet pc will do that for them. There could be no paper exams or even no exams at all. Or maybe the exam is a case problem and the students are given one month to solve it by themselves.

I think NIE is preparing us to be teachers that learn how people learn, know how people know and think how people think. I am tempted to impart what I have learnt in NIE to my students about ed psych, ICT, Chem-learning, Maths-learning on top of their knowledge content. Maybe even make that the major part of my teaching and they can learn the knowledge content themselves. I will teach them to be teachers then they can teach themselves. Sounds confusing? I think so too but these are my thoughts so far, probably I will have a clearer picture of how I want to teach when the future is nearer. Hopefully I don't get crushed by restrictions and the cirriculum before the time comes.

E-learning2 Part A (sheng zhi)

Digital natives think differently from us digital immigrants. While our time we play one dimensional games like tetris, street fighter, mario brothers and other 72-in-1 games; they play Resident Evil 5, Halo and Dead Space. These games are played three-dimensionally, require one to enage multiple enemies at a time and make in-game strategies that are more sophisticated than our games 20 years ago.

They are adapted to visualising spaces that are hidden from view, able to divide their attention towards several items at the same time and come up with competent strategies to solve problems.

However in this age where there is information overload, when one game is completed, it is replaced by the next immediately. They do not think what skills they have learnt from the previous game they played. So these skills are unlikely to be applied in other areas as they have not been processed cognitively.

The digital native I chose is Dylan. He uses internet chats and online tools to communicate with people that lives far away from him, with some even from different continents. Dylan is similar to many singaporean students in the way that he communicates and collaborate online. Nowadays most students have at least one of the following: friendster, blog, MSN, facebook, Myspace. Although they use them for mainly leisure purposes, they are now not restricted to solely face-to-face meeting and are free to talk anytime anywhere as long as they have a computer connected to the internet.

I think teachers today have to break their lessons into small sessions of about 15 min, start and stop many times to ask questions or get feedbacks so that the students' mind are not lulled into sleep that easily. Focus less on memorising and put more effort in teaching skills like observation, communication, interaction, problem solving and parallel thinking.

GBL Reflections (Siyun)

After attending the past few sessions on GBL, I do understand the few positive impacts of what games can do to learners. GBL stimulates creativity and perseverance (as they are more willing to keep trying given the "no harm trying consequences"). It can also conduct assessments "unknowingly" when students learn.

Well, after knowing all these benefits of game-based learning, so how is it applicable in our lesson and teaching schools?

I have just read Verinder's blog. Hmm...Well, true enough, I feel that it is the Gee's principles which we may incorporate into our lessons. The discovery principle, Bottom-Up Basic Skills principle, transfer principle, and the Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-In-Time Principle and etc are things we may take into consideration when planning and conducting our lessons.

However, is playing games feasible and fits into our current educational system? It is not that I doubt the benefit's of playing. I am admit that playing games really do help in developing one's mind and perhaps even help in moulding one's character.

What we really need to think of is how we could incorporate GBL into our lessons. I believe allowing students to spend time at home doing GBL may help in stimulating their mind and create a inquiry-based learning. It can also serve as a tool to consolidate learning. However, I am still quite sceptical of how it can be used to conduct and deliver an entire lesson. Or maybe I should ask "Can GBL be used to deliver a whole topic, Metals (Chemistry)?" Or the GBL is used as an additional tool in aiding the lesson just that the ICT tools which we have been working on for the past few weeks.

It will be a great idea if GBL can be used full-scale to teach a particular topic. But I seriously have yet to see the possibilities. Let's face the fact. Teachers are competing with time in school, rushing syllabuses and trying their best to cover the necessities for exam. True enough, some people will say that if we have incorporated effective and meaningful learning into lessons, students would have understood and these cut down on the revision required to prepare them for examinations. However, seriously speaking, there is seriously not much time!

We can't possibly give students ample time in school to play games and let them explore by themselves. However, I think that perhaps asking them to play relevant games before the start of the topic will help students in understanding the lesson better. After learning the concepts, playing games will again help to consolidate their thoughts and reinforce what they have learnt.

I really like the idea of using GBL to deliver our lessons. However, I believe that in order for GBL to really take place in Singapore, there will be some changes to our current system. These include the amount of content to need to cover for each level and the amount of content need to cover to prepare students for the major exam ('O' Level). Given greater flexibility of time and contents, teachers will then have greater opportunity to incorporate GBL into lessons.

All these are what I think till the present stage. Let's see whether the E-learning will help in shaping my thoughts about GBL.

Reflection for GBL and TEL demo

After all the fun and excitment for the past 3 weeks, it seems that it is time to seriously think about all the activities that had happened for the 3 weeks. Amongst all the fun, I seriously doubt anyone would have stop for 1 second to think about what is the objective of the game.

Looking back at how GBL helps in teaching, it seems that it is the ideas and strategies that are hidden underneath the GBL package. It seems that one of the most fundamental of ideas that make games stand out is the ability to fail without any serious consequences. Students will be able to learn from their previous mistakes and build on their knowledge by trying to overcome the obstacle and carry on with the game. If there are puzzles or obstacles, the student will practise cognitive thinking and subsequently find out the answers through available clues from any sources they have.

This brings out their determination and perseverence for trying to overcome their 'failure'. With the 'failure' being not having a serious consequence, the students will initiate and explore into the unknown.

Students should be asked to experience the idea where they will be given the opportunity to explore the new concept even before the teacher introduce it to them. Teacher can then build on their knowledge that they have obtained from their exploration.

I think this is a teaching pedagogy that suits the 21st century education well. Mixing this into my teaching is a feasible teaching method. This method, if done properly, can even cut down on the overall time taken for the whole chapter to be taught. This also helps students to be more responsible and have a sense of ownership for their learning, enabling them to have a longer retention for their knowledge.

For TEL demo, I had reflected on Grp B (My group) on my first post. But as for Grp C, D, E and F, they bring out the criterias that are needed. Different pedagogies goes along with different tools. Looking at how different pedagogies are being utilised with ICT brought meaning to this course. But sometimes I still wonder whether it will take a longer time to conduct these lessons.

One thing I did learn from this whole package is to constantly remind myself that implementing ICT is not for show and they are just tools to help in learning. The main character of teaching is still the pedagogies. Do not fall into the cool-tool trap.

Chester's e-Learning activity Part B

Cool! All those gadgets and "glass panel thingy", though i'm not so sure if it's safe to have information on your windscreen while driving. Wait a minute, maybe we don't even have to drive in the future!

I would certainly welcome technologies of the future. We've embraced the current technologies, so why not the future. However, we can have the greatest advances in technology and education can stay stagnant if we continue to use O' levels as a form of assessment.

I'm encouraged by the fact that Big Picture School exist in this world! Pardon my ignorance. From what i saw in the article, it's really a cool concept to adopt. I probably gotta research a little more to find out what exactly this school has to offer.


Teaching strategies probably wouldn't be my greatest fear in the future, but assessment is. I believe in order to change the way we learn, we got to change the form of assessment. I know it's easier said than done: Scrap the O' levels, then how?

Whatever's gonna happen in the future, i hope to be part of this history making and stand proud as an educator of the future.

Reflections for GBL

From playing games these few weeks, I thought of how games affected me when I was young. One game that I played alot in primary school was Nintendo Super Mario (one of the first versions) and the first few times I played I died over and over again. It was a painful and tedious experience as there were no save points (like now in PS or Xbox games) so when I died in the middle of the round, I had to start the round over again. But I kept going over and over again, learning tricks and traits along the way, where enemies pop out, how to get over narrow ridges, until I got over that round.

Thinking as a student teacher now, I guess that is where I got my determination from, and it applies to all faces of my life, in sports and in studies. Of course I also learnt to manipulate this determination and added in respect for others when I played sports, and added in resourcefulness when I was studying but my main drive was determination.

Viewing Appelman and Gee's video on gaming for education really consolidated my thoughts about how gaming affected me. Appelman suggests that since students are already playing games 30 hours a week, using gaming for education is really a logical thing to do. Students learn skills from games like formulating strategies, working hard, putting basic skills together and collaborating with one another. Failure in gaming is inevitable and does not stress the students as they can try again and again. These skills and attitude towards failure is very valuable in learning as well.

There are other aspects in gaming as pointed out by Gee that can be transferred to learning and teaching. In gaming, students explore the game before learning the technicalities of it. They learn better when they explore the games first. There is no clear distinction between learning and assessment. They apply what they learn immediately in the game. There is lots of feedback from the game whether they have learnt the skills well or they have done badly.

How does all these affect me as a student teacher or as a teacher in the future? It will change how I want to teach from frontal teaching to putting more games into my lessons. I will let them explore the topic first and tone down the concept of tests and assessment. I can try to bring video games to life by dividing my lesson into stages and of course a boss stage if possible. Rewards and penalties will be put in place to provide feedbacks.

I am not a technology-savvy person, so as Gee mentioned, I can learn along with the students when using technology. Of course there will be many restrictions when I become a teacher in the future, whether I can apply my ideal game-based lesson is still a question mark. But I will keep this idea as my basis of teaching just as I have kept determination as a basis for my life-learning.

Chester's e-Learning activity Part A

Digital Native: Justin
Well, Justin is very much similar to a Singaporean student. IT savvy, can't live without computer, handphones, iPod, etc.

Digital Natives are risk takers and are not afraid to fail. They are actively invovled and demand constant engagement. They are also egocentric, strives to be independent and need a feel a sense of entitlement.



I'm a digital immigrant and soon to be a teacher of digital natives. Do we teachers need to change our teaching strategy to meet the needs of the digital natives? Yes, i think so. A BIG change? Perhaps not.

Student-centered learning will allow digital natives to be in charge of their learning process. I also talked about them wanting constant engagement. Is this entirely different from our digital immigrant generation? Perhaps not.

Some might say lectures are for the digital immigrant generation and game base learning is for the way to go for the digital natives. Are lectures no longer relevant? Do current outstanding teacher award holders not hold any lectures?

Don't get me wrong, i'm not against game base learning, in fact i think it's interesting. Game based learning is engaging, but we can get engagement too through lectures.



This physics teacher engaged her students through her interactive style of teaching. Perhaps both digital natives and immigrants don't speak an entirely different language. We just need to provide them with a platform for interactive learning. This will get them actively invovled, give them a sense of entitlement and allow them to take risk (in a form of discussions, not afraid of voicing their opinion). All of which are characteristics of digital natives i mentioned at the start of this post.

Games played for GBL and TEL demo

For the first week, my group tried the flash-based games and Wii sports games. The flash-based games were simple and easy to play. The instructions involves moving the main character around the house such as in Energy Hog or just choosing the right options in another game that requires us to operate a patient's brain.

On the other hand, Wii sports is of a totally different nature. It has much more complex gameplay than flash-based games. We had to pretend we were really playing the sport and there can be many skills combined in one game such as in Wii tennis, we have to serve, return serve, volley, lob, or even not hitting when we judged the ball to be out. It was more fun for me than flash-based games and there was more interaction in the group as the spectators were very involved in the Wii games as well.

For the second week, we played the Macdonalds game. I didnt really realise it was a game of economics or business at the start. I only feel that 'ok, to get my store going, I have to rear cows; to rear cows I will have to grow more wheat. Just dont get me bankrupt'. Only after one attempt (and getting bankrupt), then I realise it was a simple overview of how a business should be run. There were so many things to focus on at the same time. There are many objectives and all the objectives do not have a direct link to one another. It was tiring but fun to avoid getting into the red.

For the editing of the wiki page, it was not a game so I dont think it is GBL. But wiki is one of the most useful web resource I have experienced in all my school life. I was very involved in rote learning most of my life and I am pretty tired of it (maybe thats why I am a teacher now), so most of the web resources I have encountered is work-based where I do quiz and stuff. I can't use these resources for my own sake or for my own work. Wiki is pretty neat and I can use them for my other projects that involves group work or collaboration. Information is disseminated faster and easier. I have already used wiki for one of my module project outside ICT. It proving rather useful as I can see other people's ideas which I could not have thought of. I will be using wiki much more in the future.

This week we played trauma center on Wii. I was the third pair in the group to try the game and the previous two groups proved to be very good teachers. The results of learning through observing other's experiences was very evident in this game. I suprised myself when we managed to complete the operation in a very short time and even managed to complete the second operation. This game teaches you to apply what you learn in game where we use operation tools (forceps, antibiotics, stitches) in different situations and also learn outside the game when you observe the people play.

It was an interesting 3 weeks all in all. For demo tel presentation, I feel most groups (except mine) managed to put in the four main criteria: introduce the tool, student-centered lesson, pedagogies and limitations. These four aspects were lacking in my group which I regretted not playing out everything that is needed for the demo during the rehearsal. I was probably not on my toes as it was my first presentation in NIE which again I regretted. But something I got out from this experience was I must really check through everything and think through everything for any presentation. My first real-life lesson learnt in NIE which I hope will serve me well in the future when we do the walkabout.

Chester's GBL reflection

I've got to admit i had no clue how games help learning when i was exposed to the games in cotf and mxl. After some readings and enlightenment by Gee and Dr Tan, i thought "Wow, that make sense!"

Gee talked about students being interested in production, not consumption. I think most of the things I've learnt in this ict course have been taught by myself and my classmates. Not to say Dr Tan did nothing, i believe that was his strategy, which work out pretty well. I found myself more intrinsically motivated than a module which i had a newscaster as my lecturer.

Gee also pointed out some obstacles such as teachers being de-professionalised. Yes, teachers have the power to change the way students learn. However, when the big fat monster "Curriculum" comes along, many returned to their old ways.


I'm happy that we're moving in a postive direction in terms of integrating ict and gbl into our lessons. Having said that, i think more needs to be done, such as taming the big fat monster, before we could reach our goal.

So how could i integrate gbl into my lessons as a trainee teacher? Frankly, i wouldn't dare to try anything too unorthodox because $60k is at stake, haha. I'm thinking of using powerpoint games in my lessons. There are ppt game templates such as Wheel of Fortune and Who wants to be a Millionaire readily availiable on the internet. I could play these games with the class as a trigger activity at the start of the lesson, during breaks, review at the end of the lesson, or even during the lesson, whenever it's appropriate i guess.

Reflections

These two weeks had been different. Very different and very exciting. These two weeks there’s game-based learning! It was very fun since I love to play games myself. There were 5 stations. Each station have different types of games. My favourite will have to be Wii sports because it is very physical. I can move about freely, it is very competitive and I love the feeling of victory. I guess that is partly why I joined teaching since teaching requires a lot of movement and each day will be a challenge and the joyous feeling of fulfillment when everything planned are achieved.

It is a very interesting class since we are allowed to explore the games first before going through the ‘drier’ part of explaining what game-based learning is. It will make more sense since we have experience it hands on.

How I can incorporate this in my teaching? Maybe I’ll take the idea of letting my students explore the topic first before going through the theoretical part of the topic as it will make more sense to them.

Game-based learning--- Week 6/7 Reflection

For the past 2 sessions, I have been exposed to some games. During first week, I was tasked to complete the Wii and the 5th station. Well, it was quite a boring session for me. Talking about the Wii, it seriously doesn't interest me. Swinging my arms for the tennis games appear boring to me. I prefer the excitement of playing the real-game.

Last week was totally different experience for me. My group was tasked to complete the Mac Donald and the "surgeon" station. In real life, how many people will have the chance to run the Mac Donald corporation or take up responsibility of saving lives and deaths? These games though not real enables us to experience the process. Through the process, I learnt that games enable us to keep trying. Lost once? No worries, you can always try again. You are allowed to try till you finally succeed. This can cultivate perseverance in the students.

To me, what kept me thinking was the essence of games. What is so fun about gaming such that many kids are addicted to it? What is the key about gaming which I can apply in my lesson?
If students are as actively involved in class as in gaming, wouldn't it too wonderful?

Anyway, for the past 2 weeks, 3 groups have presented their demo. I believe the emphasis of such demo is to help us in recognizing the appropriateness of ICT tool in our lesson. ICT tool should be easy to use. It should have students in learning and not make them spend time learning the tool itself. I believe all tools have their own advantages. However, it is up to us to implement appropriately into the lessons. Hence, checking out the affordance and limitations of tools help to check if the tool aids in meeting our objectives for the lessons.

Alright, next week is my group's turn for demo. Wish me luck. See you guys on Thursday!

Reflections for Week 6 (Han Kiong)

As I am preparing for my ICT presentation on Thursday, I have this realization that ICT tools when ill prepared for it can really be a bane. It takes a great deal of effort to ensure that IT facilities do not pose any problems when having a lesson incorporating ICT tools. Yet when all problems have been anticipated and contingency actions planned out, lessons with the use of ICT tools may bring about authentic and meaningful learning.
Traditional rule based teaching is no longer appropriate as students tend to lose interest easily and they will just deem the subject as boring and will find little incentive to do well in the subject. Lessons incorporating the use of ICT tools with a focus towards student centric learning will drive the students to take responsibility for their own learning as they now have more autonomy and more involvement.
There are many approaches to student centric learning and last week we were introduced to game based learning. There are a number of game stations that we have to go thereby exposing us to the many forms of games that include elements of learning. We played some flash games as well as Wii. I have more fun playing the Wii as it is more interactive and also because the flash games are a tad too childish and simplistic. I feel that students may generally have the same belief and consensus. If that is the case, the desired learning that we hope students will derive from the playing of these games may not be achievable. The flash games should be more challenging and that may then motivate them to attempt these games and learn along the way. As for Wii, the learning that can be derived is ambiguous and like Weiqiang I am hoping that the role of Wii in learning could be elucidated as we have more sessions of game based learning.

Reflection for Week 6

Critiqing my own presentation sounds so weird. But after my own presentation, I realized that IT stuff are really 'not reliable'. While I was awaiting for the Sheng Zhi to present, Mrs Xing came to my mind. E-learning assignment became real.

Other than the technical issue, where java is not found, I realized one important word that most presenters will tend to forget during presenting is the FOUR letter word.

TIME.

During presentation, presenters tend to overshoot their allocated time. Usually we lose track of time because either we are too engross in the presentation or we 'wasted' time due to nervousness. But how do we really keep track of time during group presentation and how do we as group members react after someone overshot their time? I hope i can see the answers from the other group.

Back to the Games my group played. We went to station 3 and 4. Station 3 is where the flash simulations game were. Some of the games do have some underlying meaning in it. Like the flash game involving a pig with a boat. They want to bring across the idea of being thrifty. But some of the games are like both slow and too 'lame'.

I feel this flash games are mostly suited for primary school kids. But Secondary school students may think that they are too slow-paced and to them, may lead them to become bored. Using these games to engage students may not be optimal. But these games may still able to serve the purpose of delivering simple basic concepts.

For Station 4, we played Wii sports. I am still in the midst of trying to figure out how Wii help in learning. I hope I will be able to clear this question as I attend more lessons. But I can say that GBL do create a more relaxed environment for learning. But where is the learning? That's for me or the rest of my groupmates to enlighten me.

More games to come. More time to understand GBL. :)

ICT reflections thus far...

i remembered during our very 1st ICT lesson, we were asked to list 5 things we may possibly learn from this course. mine were as follows:

- how to incorporate other forms of ICT into lessons besides powerpoint & videos
- how to conduct & manage an IT-based classroom lesson
- how to make science/math lessons more interactive with the help of ICT
- the importance of ICT in a student's learning
- more skills related to education technology

given the experiences i've been through the past 5 weeks, i can quite safely say that i've taken home lessons that cover the 1st 3 points addressed. this course has opened my eyes to many other forms of ICT tools and different pedagogical approaches that could be applied into classroom lessons. having the hands-on practice during the ICT lesson itself (e.g. jigsaw approach of learning, writing lesson plans & critiquing what others have written) was essential in retaining, building & refining the knowledge + skills acquired during the course. it definitely helped that dr tan applied the very things he taught the past few weeks into the sessions themselves, and varied the teaching methods. that gave me a taste of different pedagogical approaches that could possibly be incorporated into my future lessons.

the fact that we had to blog our reflections every week, though i must admit that i found a little taxing at first, was definitely something that helped me consolidate the knowledge gathered from the sessions. learning was made more meaningful in that doing these reflections allowed me to clarify some misconceptions i had and thus have a clearer idea about the use of ICT and other teaching pedagogies covered.

i'm definitely looking forward to the lessons ahead!:)

Sakinah's summary

From our group discussion, I learn that many implementation issues can arise with poor lesson planning. As Weiqiang had said a more thorough and detailed lesson planning shoul be in place to conduct the lesson to prevent any hiccups. Peer editing is one way to conduct the activity as an alternative to Mrs Xing carrying out all the editing on her own. From all the comments that had been given to me, I realized that there are a few issues to it, especially regarding the weaker students. Weaker students may not be motivated to edit their ‘better’ friend’s essays as they may feel that their friends will always be correct. Therefore to solve this problem, like Siyun had suggested, the teacher can group them together. Better students should group with the weaker students. In this way, the better students can help the weaker students to point out the errors. This way the weaker students are able to benefit and hopefully improve on their essay writing. It is important to find out the computer literacy of the students to have a rough idea of how well the students can use the computer programme. It is also important to clearly state the instructions of the class. The teacher should also demonstrate first before continuing the class. Ground rules should be set at the beginning of every class.

Sakinah's Reflection

All in all I’ve gained many insights on what ICT is. It is not just merely using technology to impress students and hear all the ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ from our dear students. Incorporating ICT is more than that. ICT is about transferring knowledge and communicating it. It is about feedback and responses that stimulate students’ thoughts. Students are not empty vessels that we need to fill up with information. Students need to assess and deciphering the information and to further of the ‘why’s and not merely accepting it as it is. There are many types of ICT, I realized. There are even blog discussions.
I learnt many terms like self-directed and collaborative learning and experience many activities like think-pair-share and jigsaw. I also learn about the 5 meaningful learning framework. It is vital to include all the 5 factors to conduct a meaningful learning class.
Personally, I feel that I have benefited from this ICT class. It is very different from other classes. Firstly, there’s the blog reflection. No other modules have this. The classes are not teacher-centered; they are mostly student-centered. There’s not much listening to the teacher, a lot of the listening will be done among the team members, where we have to discuss, listen and feedback on other’s findings. It’s nice to have a change once in a while. I think that I would like to incorporate ICT into my classes into the future.

Reflection (E-Learning)

In the beginning of the module, my initial worries came from how to incorporate ICT into lessons and what can ICT do to aid us in the delivering of our lesson. These queries are clearing up but yet, more worries followed suit. One major one will be how to use ICT to create meaningful lessons.

Though it is really taxing for us as there is a consistent level of work coming in everyweek, but we can safely say that learning is taking place. The idea of applying what we learn is a good and efficient way to make us learn and will be retained longer in our memory.

I think being consistent and interested in the learning of the subject topic, along with the help of CL allow us to focus more on the learning topic. If clearing up of queries and worries is a gauge, I think i have been quite effective and efficient. But the main thing that really make things work should be how the facilitator actually really deliver his lesson.

I think the only way to improve my learning will be to enforce what i learnt into practice. That, I feel, is the most feasible way of understanding a concept.

Reflecting and critiqing is a good and effective way to support and substantiate learning. Critiqing helps us to assess the level of knowledge we have and to be critiqued, we will be able to spot our mistakes and misconceptions. Also, it helps to broaden our knowledge for a certain topics.

To improve on this, we could have tried to set a dealine for comments and critique to come in. This will enable us to have timely reviews on our part.

Chester's e-Learning Reflection

One of my initial queries was “How can I apply ICT to my teaching?” As I progress in this course this question of mine became “How can I make use of ICT for meaningful learning?” In almost every lesson, we had components of SDL and CL. I would say this way of learning is effective because my interest level during the lesson is kept constantly high, and definitely prevents me from dozing off (which happens pretty often in other lessons).

On a side note, I think we (as adult learners) are able to judge the reliability of information from the internet (e.g. Wikipedia is not a foolproof). My nephews are secondary school students and they believe all the information they generate out from Wikipedia and Google. Hence, I think the concept of Cyberwellness needs to be cultivated before such learning can take place.



Group activities have been fruitful as ideas are raised and discussed. The opinions of other group members are often valuable as different people think with a different perspective. Personally, when it comes to a platform for discussion, I prefer the use of discussion boards or forums as compared to wikis and blogs. There are probably no big differences but I feel discussion boards and forums provides a better presentation when it comes to a group discussion.

On a whole, this course has been an enriching experience for me so far and I look forward to the showcase of ICT tools in the coming weeks.

Chester's e-Learning Summary

I started with activity B and eventually saw a few of my friends doing the same activity too. Despite coming from the same class and going through the same e-learning resources, we had some varying responses. It was interesting because I initially thought all the strategies would be similar.

There were fruitful discussions on the various strategies suggested. Some strategies were idealistic and required “reality checks”. Some were creative ideas which we would like to try, but not too sure if it is going to work. Through the discussions, we also talk about the mindset and behaviour of students, which is useful information, even for other courses.
Among all suggestions, I think preparation is the most important. Be it an ICT lesson or not, it starts with preparation and without it, nothing flows. I guess that is why we are “drilled” on lesson plans in almost every module.

We are already in the third Masterplan for ICT, but new teachers like us were taught through “old school teaching” methods. Therefore, it takes “great courage” to step out of the comfort zone. Nonetheless, I think most of us are receptive to ICT and probably use it to facilitate our teaching in the near future.

"Before the lesson, Mrs Xing should approach the lab technician for help in ensuring that all the computers are in working condition. Since she is a beginning teacher, she should request the lab technician to be around during the lesson, or at least for the first period. An instruction guide for simple troubleshooting (if any) will also come in handy.
From the start of the lesson, disciplinary rules and activity procedures should be communicated clearly and enforced. Students should also be assigned seats (Chai & Wang, 2009). The class can be split into groups and group leaders help to maintain discipline and do simple troubleshooting. Mrs Xing should have a “Master Control Programme” such as LabCommander, to maintain full control of students' operations. Some even includes functions such as electronic hand-raising and private chat. If such software is not available, Mrs Xing would have to adopt other strategies such as the colour cup alert, dimming of lights, turning over of mouse, etc.
A more thorough lesson plan is required to ensure the flow of the lessons. Scaffolding tools in the form of worksheets and checklist should be used to guide the students to complete their task (Pek, 2003). Students should also be reminded of the time allocation for each activity with an electronic countdown timer. The first draft should be peer edited to expose students to different styles of writing and common mistakes. It saves time too."

E-learning Reflections (Han Kiong)

I agree with Soo Hoon that the ICT course has been rather intense and there is quite a bit to do for the course. Besides that, I realised that our group's blog entries have been rather lengthy and detailed compared to the rest of the groups and this meant added pressure to match up in terms of the length and contents. Nevertheless, I feel it is a good form of motivation in driving one to spend time and effort in writing the blog entries.

The e-learning that we did on Mrs. Xing using ICT in her lesson has allowed me to reflect on my inadequancies as a new teacher in incorporating ICT in lessons. We have to realise that mere usage of ICT does not provide justification of a meaningful lesson. We have to ensure that appropriate integration of ICT with other teaching strategies provide leverage for students to do self-directed and collaborative learning. We will then need to equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills needed to handle ICT with ease.

Even after acquiring the knowlege and skills to handle ICT, we will still need to put in added efforts to prepare a lesson incorporating ICT as we are threading on unfamiliar grounds. To effectively prepare a lesson, anticipate problems that might arise and devise solutions on how to handle such problems. While it may be easy to identify implementation issues, finding the solutions may not be as clear cut.

Lastly, I would like to conclude that to keep pace with our students who are exposed to and are required to use ICT in subsequent stages of life, venture into the incorporation of ICT in our lessons is nevertheless a necessary and inevitable step to take.

Reflection of E-learning Week (sheng zhi)

This week we have e-learning and we learn about implementations issues in a computer lab-based lesson. We also discussed how we can solve or prevent these issues.
Although we have discussed and come up with many solutions for the various issues, the list is not exhaustive. As technology advances, new problems might surface when it is eventually our turn to carry out such lessons in our schools in the future. For example, ten years ago, there wasn’t such a big commotion about social networking websites until they are popularised in recent years by FaceBook, MySpace, etc. Therefore we as teachers-to-be must continue to learn and upgrade ourselves on new and emerging technologies so that we can effectively combat the problems that come along with them.
Another point I feel is that we should get the students to appreciate the advantages of making use of the particular software so that it makes sense to them and the lesson is meaningful. Otherwise the lesson would be just another lesson except that it is held in the computer lab. Letting them realise that technology is essential for learning will be helpful for their studies, especially for those that are less computer literate. Technology is the key to solving many of their problems such as researching, document processing or understanding concepts. Once they master these skills and can use them on their own, then they can really learn and not be spoon-fed anymore.

Summary of E-learning Week (sheng zhi)

I have learnt that to implement a computer lab-based lesson would first and foremost require a deep think through of implementation issues that might arise during the lesson and the solutions or preventive methods to these issues.
The problems of Mrs Xing are quite common in secondary schools, especially in neighbourhood schools where there could be a large discrepancy in computer literacy among the students. Some students may not even have a computer at home as they are in the lower economic bracket.
Few general points that we should always note are 1) we should study the environment of the computer lab beforehand. 2) Take note of the students’ computer literacy level. 3) Plan the lesson so that it flows without much interruption.
One issue I have learnt from my peers through their comments is time-management in the classroom. To ensure that the lesson is completed on time, it is essential to set time limits for the students to complete their work either through electronic timers or bells to signify time is up. The second issue is that peer editing should be used with caution or with specific instructions on what to look out for, otherwise students might reject the idea or get confused about it.

E-learning Reflection

Frankly speaking, ICT has been giving me greatest workload compared to other modules since the start of my NIE days. It is very tiring. However, I must admit that ICT lessons are more fulfilling than some other modules which I am having at the moment. Dr Tan managed to conduct meaningful lessons which helps me to internalize the concepts taught in class.

My aim for this module is really to learn how and what to do to make the lesson meaningful to enhance learning for students. Well, I think I am perhaps half-way there? I believe after the demo sessions, I will have a better picture of how to implement ICT into lessons.

Though it is seriously taxing to blog every week, I feel that blogging help to reflect and recap all the things I have learnt so far. I can refer back to my previous postings to gauge my own progresses. I can also view other people's posting to learn from them.

As for this E-learning session, I think the assignments are a form of authentic learning as we will be working on the individual assignments based on the knowledge which we obtain from E-learning assignments. However, I believe my group and myself could have done more to critique on one another postings. This will encourage more learning to take place. We could have set a dateline for everyone to post the 1st posting so that ample of time could be allocated for commenting. Hence, I would say we could improve on our communication and collaborate more efficiently.

Nevertheless, it is great to read my group members' postings and some have great views and insights! That's the wonder of blog!

Summary for E-learning (Siyun)

To carry out E-learning, teachers need have a very detailed plan to ensure the effectiveness of the programme.

Teachers should foresee the potential problem which may arise during the E-learning week. One issue is on regards to cyberwellness (plagiarisms, pornography and etc). In my plan, I merely educate the students on the dangers of they might encounter during the E-learning. What Sheng Zhi said was right. By merely informing does not prevent curious students from committing the crime, plagiarisms or exploring the dangers, pornography websites. Hence, it is always good to impose severe punishments for offenders. It similar to the case of a drug addict. There is no point telling them how harmful the drugs will do to them, it is more effective to put the law in place.

Next is what Weiqiang mentioned by the way to prevent students from accessing pornography. Well, it is definitely easier to check for plagiarisms (through some programme). What about pornography? In order to safeguard the well-being of students, we should enlist the help of parents. Perhaps, the school can print out a form to inform parents that there will be E-learning week and theirs' help in checking the students behaviour at home will be greatly appreciated.

Though I must admit that most parents will not be at home, but at least they should be informed of the problems which may arise during the E-learning. To enhance cyberwellness education, teachers may bring in real-life examples to illustrate the consequences(rape, suicide and etc) of the misuse of Internet.

Summary for E-Learning

This week's e-learning activity highlighted to me 3 main issues. Firstly, preparatory work is an important aspect to the smooth implementation of a lesson. As a teacher, you should also foresee the problems that are coming. That is where all the interventions come in to serve its purpose.

I realized that we are to be practical in the amount of work that we give for a lesson, be it a normal or an ICT lesson.

One issue that has been highlighted is the importance of giving out precise and concise instructions. With a clear objective to the lesson, students will be performing a task with purpose, instead of taking it as just another meaningless assignment.

Instructional worksheets and simple guiding worksheets can be prepared to help guide students to do the assignment in an orderly manner, especially when it comes to technical issues for the ICT tool.

Learning from the scenarios, it seems that when it comes to technical issues, pre-emptive measures such as seeking the help of a technical assistant and/or a more senior teacher is always a good measure to be taken to ensure that the lesson can continue even if there are technical issues.

Lastly, when using an ICT tool, you must at least know the functions needed for that assignment. It will always be better that you have mastered the tool so that you will show confidence in delivering the lesson. Knowing the tool also helps and enables us to troubleshoot simple technical problems.

E-learning: Scenario 1 Activity A (Han Kiong)

Scenario 1 details the problems faced by Mrs Xing when integrating ICT in her lesson on composition writing. I chose to work on Activity A of Scenario 1 because I feel these will be the problems most if not all of us will face when we try to implement ICT in class after being posted to schools. Knowledge and realization of these implementation issues will be beneficial for us as we try to steer clear or prevent such implementation issues

Moreover, I feel that foolhardily rushing into implementation of ICT just because schools demand it will not do justice to the students as it may not bring about meaningful learning on the part of them. Proper planning should have been done on the part of the teacher to avert the implementation issues thereby condition her when he/she decides to incorporate ICT in lessons.

Although Weiqiang has done a comprehensive identification of the implementation issues Mrs. Xing faced in her lesson, I shall give a take on what I feel are the implementation issues in the lesson. I realized that the implementation issues boil down to one main reason which is Mrs. Xing’s lack of preparation for her lesson.

Main reason for implementation issues: Lack of pre-preparation for her lesson on composition writing

• Implementation Issue 1: Failure to survey the learning environment computer lab’s facilities and proper functioning of the computers that are of utmost importance to the feasibility of the lesson.

• Implementation Issue 2: Failure to anticipate problems that might arise during such lessons and planning for contingency remedies in the case of problems.

Problem 1: Students are surfing the internet after logging on to the computers. Mrs. Xing is unable to observe what the students are doing with the computer due to blocked views caused by the computer monitors. The students could well be accessing websites that are undesirable.

Problem 2: Students were not able to use malfunctioned computers and had to share computers.

Problem 3: Bottleneck resulted from Mrs. Xing having to edit forty scripts and students became restless from waiting for the completion of the process.

Problem 4: Students rushed through the composition writing and submitted work that were not on topic or lacked coherency or badly organized.

• Implementation Issue 3: Failure to estimate, allocate and manage time for each of the activities during the lesson.

Recommendation: Mrs Xing should have surveyed the computer lab and simulated the lesson at least one week before the date of the lesson. She ought to work on each and every computer in the lab to ensure no malfunction. This will help her to foresee problems that could arise and thus have contingency plans.

Scenario 2 (Activity D) Soo Hoon/Siyun

Scenario 2 (Activity D)

In this activity, you are to read Scenario 2 carefully and then describe what you would do differently from Mrs. Xing in order to prepare for the e-learning week (you may change the topic if you wish). Post this in your group blog and invite others to respond.
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E-learning can be a useful tool to adopt but at the same time, if it is not planned and monitored properly, it may result in many issues (in Mrs.Xing lesson, they were plagiarisms and pornography). I feel that Mrs. Xing has great ideas for what is to be done during the E-learning week just that the instructions should be in more details to lead the students and optimize the effectiveness of the E-learning week. Furthermore, Mrs.Xings did not include cyberwellness education into the preparation . The followings are what I will do instead.

Preparation before E-learning week

• Conduct cyberwellness lesson (at least for the components on plagiarisms and pornography) in class to educate them about the dangers which they may encounter during the E-learning week.
• Bring students to the computer lab (Scenario 1) and perhaps for them to use the Freemind to construct mind map on cyberwellness. (This helps to the students to internalise the things they have learnt about cyberwellness in class)
• Ask the students to post at least 1 item on the discussion forum on cyberwellness.
• Group blogs are to be created during the lab session. (Blogger)
• All the above help to equip the students with the necessities for the E-learning week.
• Check that all students have Internet access and suitable Microsoft PowerPoint at home.
• Teacher is to remind the students that after the E-learning week, she/he will build his/her lesson from the mindmap they have constructed. This is indirectly informs students that this assignment does not serve merely for the E-learning week. They are suppose to complete their assignment conscientiously.
• A brief outline of what students are supposed to do during the E-learning week without revealing the topic. (A sheet of instructions can be printed and be given to the students)

Assignment for E-learning week

• A PowerPoint file (2003-2007) will be uploaded into the school's Learning Management System (LMS). The file contained instructions for the task, Web sites students could visit, and some questions to guide and stimulate students' thinking.
• Teacher will be on Skype during allocated slot to answer students questions and provide help if they face technical problem.
• The students are to research on the topic energy and draw a concept map using Freemind to organise the information they found.
• Students are to take part in discussion forum in the LMS based on the concept maps they created. Each of them are to post at least 2 items.
• After the active participation in the discussion, they are to write a reflection on their group blog (at least 100 or 150 words) of What they have learn, what they want to know and etc.