The '+' & '-' Effects of ICT

With all the encouragement and positive post from all the students of EDC3100 regarding on the benefits of integrating ICT within the classroom setting. I now present to you the negative effects of implementation. As I was reading this article in someone's blog, I began to see some of the reality that is happening to me as well. Lets take a stroll down the list of negativity. This is rather too negative to start of Easter with but yeah I guess it will do no more justice than sharing the ugly truth. 

Nonetheless, all great things will definitely have a flaw. In contrast to the benefits of ICT such as an easy access to information and learning, increased interactivity and multiple opportunities and resources for learning, ICT can be a bad influence to a child if not well controlled. Let's take a look at the first ugly truth of ICT.

Jobless in future

• Machine replacement of manual labor taking over 
• those who are not technology savvy will probably lose their job or won't get a job placement.

Reduced Personal interaction

• Individuals losing touch in interacting face to face as they are growing more dependant on social networking site for interaction
• Individuals lose out sense of emotions and communication skills.

Reduced Physical activity

• High danger of ICT, people start to become lazy. Everything is just a click away.
• Increase risk of healthy diseases

High Cost

• in terms of education, some families could not afford to purchase high tech and expensive gadget for th child and hence the child is not able to experience those gadgets that might be used for learning or working
• inbalance in society as some are tech savvy and some are not, and in a large picture resulting in a unharmonious development for the nation

Exposure

• The wrong use of the internet resulting in the destruction of morality in individual
• Personal security and etc

How bad can things be with ICT? So what do you educators think we should do about this? or probably would like to add on to the list of horror? However, there is always a bright side, I believe that if we as educators use them well and teach them well and with boundaries, ICT would be utilize in the right way without the need to be that disastrous. 

Planning the Lesson

Now that it has been a month since we started EDC3100, and another month to go before we head out for Professional practices. I am beginning to think what should I be teaching? Sometimes there are so many limitation in the workplace that hinders you from carrying out lessons. Therefore before even starting my practical, I am gonna make a critical analysis and proper planning to avoid the unwanted and to be prepared to use ICT in teaching the children. 

Image from GoogleImage

I gotta start thinking how the class is gonna be. Should I allow ICT usage to be 100%, 70% or what. What pedagogical approach should I be underlying my practice to. How many children are there, how many are ICT users for the first time or perhaps not so keen or new to ICT. How well would the lesson go,would it bore the child if they are not able to use the ICT.

Image from GoogleImage

Then it comes to the second part of it, I just realize my school has a standardized curriculum and I am not able to cut through much but implementations can be done. Apparently there is good internet connection, a smart board in each classroom and nonetheless a computer lab. Awesome! that is all the basics I would need to carry out lessons. Now what should I do to make things more spiced up or perhaps better. 

Image source: google

Images source: google

Image source: google

Image source: google

Well well well, some of the equipment that I will be bringing to the school yet I myself am not quite sure what to teach just yet. Well I am gonna plan early and compare with my coursemates to seek feedback from one another. What do you guys think I should do for my lesson? Since it would centered around Science as well as language. I know I have rich ICT sources but are lessons gonna be ICT worthwhile and beneficial to the child's learning? or perhaps I might have rich ICT but I can't even use it well. What say you?

Post Artifact

Wow, wow, wow. Have you checked out my artifact for EDC3100? it looks easy when I was planning out the whole process. I was planning to get it done within an hour, but turns out more than that. It was due to wrong pronunciation, forgetting to mention certain things and some minor technical problems and etc that made it a long procedure. 

The kids that are printed and cut and outlined cause I can't draw like Joe. But nonetheless it's all worthwhile.

More troubles come the way when all the smaller papers need to be sorted out accordingly and making sure that it is in the right order so that the flow of the recording can be done without any disturbance.

I had to bring in table lamps and such to allow proper lighting so that I can record the artifact. Natural lighting was good, reflection was there and here. That took up most of my time again and again. 

My actual set up for the first try. The whole process was truly a new experience for me. I really enjoyed doing this though rather than doing artifact of essay. This I truly believe could be a form of assessment submission in the future. Now with all the artifacts submitted, I guess might as well make another video of reflection using the same method =)

What & Why of ICT in Education (EDC3100 Artifact)

What and why would we integrate ICT within the classroom? This is an online artifact created for EDC3100 Assignment purpose and part of my PLN.

Summary of the artifact.

ICT Artifact Preparation

Oh my goodness! its just few hours more to go to submit my assignment and I have to say that my digital artifact is in a deep mess. Worst than before I started. It seems easy at the beginning of the whole thing. As I was working through it, it would be either time management, props are not in tune with speaking and papers flying about due to the wind.

Now using the built in microphone was horrible at times, and so get out all sound effects of wind blowing, dogs barking, cats meowing and whatever sound there is, I had to use my microphone headset to record good quality sound, and hence no fart can be heard.

Now preparing the paper cut out was one of a time consuming task. Some more with a lot of papers lying around, I must make sure that not one piece disappear right before I need it to get into the scene for recording. It happens a lot that it flew off or stick with another paper and hence spoil the recording and needs to be re-recorded.

Alright, lighting set, audio set, dogs locked up, no one is around and the situation under control. Time to start off with artifact recording. Be sure to check out my artifact tomorrow and do post yours to share =) Toodles!

ICT in assisting Special Education

I came across this video as I was going through some materials I received from a forum I attended 2 weeks ago regarding special needs education. We tend to focus too much on how to integrate ICT within a classroom, but if we do look at the special needs classroom, we could see how much ICT has benefited the learners.

Image from GoogleImage

For example, the most profound one would be students with hearing impairment are now able to hear better with the use of assistive device. I would really categorize this as one of the device used in education. well partly because if it is not used the child won't be able to hear clearly.

Image from GoogleImage

Reading Pen is not something new to most educators. Children facing difficulty in reading could actually use the aid of reading pen in reading. It does help the child in the absence of the teacher. More and more children are using this, those who are facing difficulty as well as those who is not. Reading pen is good start for reading for children, when they come across some word they don't know, all they need to do is just swipe the pen and voila!

Image from GoogleImage

Another device or rather application that seem to be helpful would be the voice to text application. This is especially useful for children with physical disability or children who can't write just yet. Applications and devices like this would allow children to go through assessment in a different way. 

What other devices are there out there for aiding special needs learning? or perhaps just to use for aiding day to day lesson to make it easier for the child to learn? I await your replies peep!

iPads in Music Lesson

As I recall of a session that I attended in British Education Supplies conference a year ago, I could not help but to think how possible it is to implement ipads into music education here in Malaysia. It was a rather interesting concept for me as it was my first time seeing it, however it was nothing new for the person that was presenting it. The guy presenting is a teacher in London, teaching music using Ipads, simple concepts.

The children in the classroom are identified to play an instrument each, whether they are good with drums, guitar, or other equipment. Then the teacher assign each of them to their group to play the equipment on Ipad. The arrangement in the class was amazing. In each section of instrument there are 3 lines. For example the first line using drums on ipad, the second line using an electronic drum connected to the ipad or computer and the last line on the real drum. 

That is fascinating nonetheless! Check out this webpage showing a few music making apps.

Image from Google Image

Image from Google Image

I am still thinking of the possibility to implement this in classroom in Malaysia. Let's take a lot at the pro and cons of implementing this.

Benefits:

1. Children will be able to be exposed to musical instrument from young and they will get sufficient exposure.
2. Opportunities to develop hidden talent.
3. Learning will be fun and interactive

The only few downside that I could think of would be

1. iPads - the school has to provide for each children and if not the parents, which  leads to
2. parents can't afford to purchase and ipad for the child

What's your take on this? Implementing Ipad for music learning in the classroom. I am waiting to hear!

Concept Maps

Going through week 2 materials and making my own concept maps, I share on studydesk, as I look at my peers Megan and Vicky posting on their blog their concept map, it sparks me to compare ours. There is a huge difference in the way we present our ideas and concepts but somehow people do understand what it is about. Speaking of which, concept map really helps us to share our ideas and can clearly be understood by anyone looking at it. It helps us to reorganize our ideas and thoughts in a way that we could see the flow and link.

I have made concept maps on mahjong papers in high school and in college, I have actually not tried doing it online or using the software on the computer. This is indeed a challenging yet fun moment for me. When I stumbled upon the sites that provides free map making online such as bubbl.us, Text2Mindmap, Mindmeister and more. I was confident that it would it be easy to get it all done within couple of minutes, however was proved wrong. But at the end of the day here it is, my personal concept map on ICT learning in education.

But then again, this looks more like a mind map rather than a concept map, sometimes a total failure occurs but from the map above we can interpret data like, there are more benefits in using ICT as compared to the challenges faced. Is this a mind map or rather a concept map?

Visions

The video of vision of students today happen to be somehow disturbing to me. It is in contrast to what we say about technology, that it would help us improving our life in terms of education and other areas of life. In the video found from Encyclopedia Britannica, it shows that the students were expressing how much time they wasted online everyday, how much books they are going to read as compared to the number of ebooks that is going to be read. 

From the video, it shows that technology can either benefits the learners in the classroom or destroys them. For example, when we are going to integrate ICT within classroom, make sure there is a limit of sites to surf the web rather than letting the students turn of facebook and ignore the lesson. I would say that in order to implement ICT in the classroom, there must be a mutual understanding between the teachers and the students before they proceed into the lesson. 

Reality hits, every student in tertiary education has a mobile phone, and out of 10 of them, at least 8 would have internet connection on it, or else the school areas would have free wifi. This would encourage them to use it in the classroom, surfing the web, reading mails or even to call/sms. This distracts them from learning in the classroom setting. I think, in order to use technology properly to benefit both students and teachers, a mutual agreement has to be done before hand.

What do you think?

Teaching without words

Right, speaking of which, there are lot of times when language becomes the barrier in learning and it is still happening today. In the video above, notice that he said that Maths and Science wont even need a language to teach and learn. How true can that be? Well I am sure those symbol and pictures play sufficient role in teaching. I think that sometimes the lack of language comprehension can lead to the use of ICT in classroom in compensating learning. For example, if a child don't know what is an apple and in the case there is no real apple presence in the classroom and an ipad is in hand, here comes Mr Google! to help.

I am fascinated by the idea/concept of using non-verbal learning. However there are some challenges that are faced by teachers in most schools if we are to implement this type of learning.

1. Schools have low tech, not up to date high tech devices
2. Traditional learning emphasizing on writing and reading/speaking

These 2 problems are huge enough to discourage any teacher who wants to implement this learning method, But true enough, in our asian society or culture, it would be difficult to carry out all these since we are not tech updated and also the emphasis of parents into rote learning. 

How would you implement this? Any ideas?

A huge Trade-off - Technology!

I think with technology life has become much easier, we don't have to waste a lot of time doing things like going to the bank to check our money, or to transfer payment to the college. Provided you have internet connection and a device for surfing, consider it done! That is how easy it has become for us to use the internet. However technology is trade-off for us human beings. For example, I have been walking constantly to the bank nearby my house to get some cash to buy pizza for lunch and walk back home.

Picture from Pizzahut.com

Are you kidding me?! I just ordered pizza 5 minutes ago and yes I am still in my pyjamas. Simply because I can log into www.pizzahut.com and order my pizza and complete my payment through online banking or mobile banking. This has saved me a lot of time indeed, if I were to walk to the bank and to the pizza shop and waited for my pizza and then walked home, that would take 45 minutes of my time. However, it is a trade-off that if the internet services are down, and if I do wanna have pizza, I would be lazy to walk all the way out to get some cash to buy them. 

A few notable changes in the society as technology seeps into their lifestyle, changing it.

1. People actually text when they are in the same house
2. Photocopy of notes, they dont have to copy from the board any longer
3. Pirating the original copies of DVD
4. Typing everything rather than writing them with free hands
5. Memorizing numbers is no longer needed as the IPad does the work

My peer, Kym made some notable trade off in her blog regarding how technology has change people. However, what ever it is, teachers should be positive and keep and open mind to accept technology uses in the classroom setting. As technology would give the students learning benefits, teaching them better things and learning things better. In addition to that, keep a balance use of ICT and Non ICT, that would actually reduces trade off in classroom settings too. Have you considered using it? At least I can write this blog post while waiting for my pizza. Cheers!

Cheeeeese & Snapped!

Have you seen the old school camera? I think that is an awesome camera, Camera is awesome, it is fascinating even to adults like me. Sometimes when I am holding a camera, I keep forgetting how much pictures left I can capture since all I need to do is just point and shoot. Gone were the days where every shot is precious and limited. With a memory card, we can just snap away as many as we want.

Source: Google Image

Cameras integration into the classroom can bring meaningful learning experiences to both the teachers and the students. It can be used in variety of ways beyond taking photos of the happy smiling faces. First off, camera can be used in assisting observation and assessment for the learning of the students in terms of photos to be included in their portfolios or perhaps a video recording of how the teacher teach for self improvement and personal development progress. Other than that, recent issues in education related to cameras would be filming teachers in classroom.

Now let's look into using it within the learning progress,

As I was reading my peer's blog regarding how she uses camera in the classroom, I looked back at the times that I brought a camera into the classroom yet for the use of taking photos for assessment purposes only and non educational purpose. Winnie in her blog wrote that  she actually let the children use the cameras to document the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly, taking pictures of the life cycle from day to day. That was rather interesting! How come I never thought of doing that? Should have!

Source: Google Image

Check out this blog here on how this particular teacher uses camera in her classroom for the works of documentation, projects with the children and so on. 

So why and how do we to use digital camera in the classroom?

Well, we have to admit that digital cameras have many benefits when used in the classroom. With the recent drop of price for digital camera, it becomes more affordable for the school to purchase and each family will atleast have one in their homes. Camera nowadays are much more easier than those old models. Simply turn to AUTO and it's just a click away. Teachers can capture pictures of the works of the children and show it to the parents of the children such as the child's work of blocks, drawings and more. Children can also take photos to make a photo story of their learning, or perhaps taking photo of something meaningful that happened in the classroom today and write a paragraph to describe it. Besides that they could take photos of their friends and describe them. Cameras can be used in field trip too, as the students could capture photos and write or tell about them orally in class later on. 

What is that has been binding us teachers from using the camera in our classroom if it is so affordable and easy to use as compared to the ones before.

1. Teachers are afraid that the children breaks the camera, teachers do not fully trust the children in handling something that costs a lot.
2. Time consumption for sharing only one camera
3. Low of budget for getting a camera each for the children to use in classroom
4. many many more reasons!

I find it ridiculous! First off, sharing a camera would be useful in the classroom to teach them cooperation and sharing. Besides that, if we are too afraid to let the child hold our expensive camera that it might fall and break, get them a child friendly camera! bet you havent seen that one! Here it is, I came across this camera in Vicky's blog

Image from KidsZoomPlus

KidsZoomPlus offers amazing cameras built for kids, dropping it wouldn't be a big of a problem anymore. So what's your verdict on implementing and integrating cameras in your classroom? share it below at my comment section!

Say What? Toolbelt Theory?

Toolbelt Theory from Ira David Socol

This was rather interesting, the theory itself by Socol. I wasn't planning to check on the 76 slides but when I was reading on the two Vic's blog(Vicki, Vicky), I was fascinated by the glimpse of idea about Toolbelt. If you haven't been reading or would like to know more about Toolbelt, head down to SpeEdChange. Initially the toolbelt theory was developed for teaching and learning in special education, however it is applicable to all learners. The theory helps teachers to assist the learning process of the students. 

Toolbelt theory is a breakthrough in education as it focuses on teaching students to analyze tasks, the environment, their skills and capabilities. Socol stated that the selection of tool is based on the task presented, and hence came out with the abbreviation of TEST.

1. Tasks

Before selecting a tool, it depends on the nature of the tasks, how difficult the task can be for the individual to carry out. Could it be possible for them to do it without the tool.

2. Environment

The environment decides on which tool comes handy too, depending on where they are at that time and place, the tool is selected.

3. Skills

The tool is however dependent on the users skills, are the users competent enough to use the tools and if not what other tools could be used.

4. Tools

Is the tool itself use-able or what could be done if the tool is destroyed or not able to solve the tasks.

Reflecting on my experience in teaching and learning, sometimes I happen to make the student handicapped in certain test. For example, I remember a child that was in my class before, that he is quite a bright child, he speaks well but writes poorly. There was a test to see their competencies, and we are to use paper and pencil test, he did badly despite he knows the answer. Indeed we need the right tools, skills for the tasks depending on the environment. 

Check out this site that offers free learning, with no boundaries of which sector.

LearnFree

I might as well head down to learn something new for free from the site above, so do you!

This site is helpful considering that the Toolbelt method has a flaw at the tool section. Knowing which tool to use indeed wonderful but how to use it? Sometimes we know what to choose from but the lack of knowledge kills it all. Sites like Learnfree offers solution for learners to learn  more about the tools they are going to use.

Stages of Teacher Development

As I was browsing through the learning path of week 1, I was thinking of how to use ICT effectively within a classroom setting for teaching as I have not fully utilize it just yet. Looking at the stages of teacher development (Finger et al, 2007) which can be found at our studydesk, I would say that I am only in the investigation stage. I am always fascinated with using ICT to teach in all areas of learning in school however due to the confine of curriculum and pedagogy of the school, I am not able to carry out certain things.

Check out how cool would it be to teach the children in the classroom simple piano on the ipad. To the children, using ipad is mainly for gaming and no one ever told them that it can be used for learning. However, to integrate and to use ICT in teaching would require a lot of effort, resources and skills. I have the fear that my classroom will be entirely dependent on the technology for learning and slowly neglecting the real world learning. In contrast, I am sure that the children will learn better things and learn things better with the integration. In addition to that, It would require education for the parents on how to use ICT at home as well and to allow them to see and understand of the benefits of ICT integration in school and homes for learning. I think in order for me to be a competent and confident user of ICT in the classroom with my students, I would have to first understand the reason why I am using the ICT and what are the aims of it. I would need to develop a lesson plan that allows for sufficient time and resources for learning. In this way, my students will have the opportunities to interact with the ICT in classroom as well as non ICT moments.

As much as I would love to use ICT in the classroom, I have to be aware not to convert the learning experience in the classroom into a virtual learning instead, My teaching and learning experience will incorporate ICT in learning however not to the full extend of 100% reliance on it, there would be ratio of time whereby 20minutes of ICT to 40 minutes of non ICT, The use of ICT acts as to reinforce, to support their learning and to make learning fun and meaningful.

First Week, First Class

Presentations used to be done using paper and manila card or mahjong paper long before Microsoft introduced their power-point presentation. With the advent of power-point, presentation becomes easier and business people are able to present their ideas and sales at ease. That does not leave out the education sector. In education itself, students use the power-point to present their findings of their learning. However, ICT does not stop evolving at one stage, it gets better.


Introducing Prezi, the online presentation website with their web based presentation software. Now presentation can be done in a rather more interesting way to make it more unique. Prezi offers variety of templates to suit the right project.

“Prezi is helping reinvent the art of presentation. Farewell, one-dimensional thinking. Welcome instead the power of inter-connection, flexibility, and the unexpected 'Aha!'”

— Chris Anderson, TED Curator (extracted from Prezi)

That aside, take a lot at the presentation above. Regarding why wouldn't we use ICT in our classroom. There are variety of obstacle in using ICT within the classroom settings. Depending on which area it is, the accessibility to internet and the availability of the computer device influences the success of ICT integration in the classroom. In order to carry out a lesson smoothly involving computer, the number of children and the computer should be appropriate. Teachers still find it difficult to use ICT as each child has different level of development in terms of skills in using the internet and devices. 

I think that in order to have a successful implementation of ICT integration within the school, it is important that local authority and government work hand in hand in providing sufficient resources to the school and as well as a well trained teacher. Most importantly would be the devices and ICT facilities as some families find it a financial burden to purchase them.