Creating a folder and saving
At the very beginning of the year, it is important to teach the pupils how to create a new folder so that they can save their works in their respective "class" folder.
Below is a video on how to create folder.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
External Mouse for Macbook?
Last two weeks Dr.See came to my school to observe and before he left, he told me that I should get some mice for the pupils because it was obvious that the pupils were struggling with the touch pad.
It's true.
I do realized that pupils were having a hard time working with Mac because they're not very familiar with it. Especially for the year 1 and 2 kids when their motor skills are not fully developed yet.
An optical mouse costs less that $10 and I think its affordable. Furthermore, it also solves the problem of missing "balls" in those ball-mice because we had pupils vandalizing it before.
I guess I'll suggest it to my GB after my course and we'll see how it goes.
*wink*
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Teaching Practice - 6th April 2009
Year 2
Last Monday I'd assigned some work for the Year 2 pupils to do, typing out the lyrics of
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".
First of all as the lesson induction, I played a Youtube video of the nursery rhyme so that they can sing along looking at the lyrics.
Youtube video
Next after singing, I assigned them to their respective seats and asked them to launch the Microsoft Word program and type out the lyrics. Some pupils might have difficulties in spelling the words and therefore I'd typed out the lyrics on the projector screen for them to refer.
Pupils who had completed the lyrics will be rewarded with a sticker as an extrinsic motivation.
One important point I realized while conducting the lesson was, having sufficient resources while conducting the lesson is very important. With 15 working computer desktops and another 10 units of Macbooks, every pupils get a chance to do their work alone without having to share with their classmates.
And because of that reason, everyone was very engaged in their work and the environment in the computer lab was so peaceful and quiet.
For the last 5 minutes of the lesson, I gathered them again, sitting down on the floor and facing the board and sang the song again.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
12 March 2009
1. How can you initiate, sustain and direct activities in an ICT lesson to motivate students?
Activity - Creating a monthly calendar using MS Word.
Before jumping in straight away to the "lesson-content" section teaching them how to insert a Table and so on, it is important to trigger their interest and gather the concentration, initiating the activitie.
I will normally gather them in the front part of the lab, ask them to sit down and show them a "sample-result" of the activities and ask,
"Do you want to have your own personalized calendar to jot down all the important days like your family members' birthdays, school holidays and days of examinations?"
"You can design your own calendar with your favorite colour, insert photos of your brothers and sisters or even a picture of picnic basket to remind you that you're going for a picnic soon!"
"In order to do so, I need your concentration so that you won't miss out anything and please cooperate with me if you want to finish this by today."
This is to show them briefly what they are going to do for the day and make them feel eager to try it out themselves. I don't want them to straight away sit by the computer desks because it will be hard to gather their focus once they have their hands on the keyboard.
After telling them what they are doing to do for today's lesson, I will ask them to stand up and walk softly to the computer desks but, they're not allowed to sit on the chair yet.
They will be asked to launch the MS Word program and those who has successfully launched the program can sit down. This step is for my convenience to spot who are more capable so that they can my little helpers helping out their friends later. And also, it is also easier for me to know which computers is having problem with the software and so on.
Lesson:
--------
I will stay at my computer table and show them steps by steps on the screen so that they can follow simultaneously.
The first few steps in creating a table is simple:
1. Look into the menu bar, click on the "Table" then, look for the word "Insert" and click "Table" once again.
2. The dialogue box will popped-up, you need 7 columns and 6 rows.
3. Next is to fill in the first row with the "DAYS". Ask the students how many days are they in a week and name them. While they are answering, I will fill in the first row. They are some student who appears to have below average learning abilities so by showing them the correct spellings, at least they can still follow and not feel helpless trying to look at their friend's screen or disrupt the class by walking around and ask.
4. Ask the student whether the month we're doing has 30 or 31 days.
5. Tell the student the 1st day of the month lands on which day and ask them to carry on fill in until the very last day.
While carrying the above steps, I will still walk around the lab and check on their progress to determine whether I can speed up, slow down or continue with the current pace. And also, when the students see me walking around, they will behave too.
After completing the first 5 steps the table in the MS Word will look like a calendar already, next I will be teaching them on how to personalize the calendar by adding colors to the table cells and inserting pictures.
To add color into the cells:
1. highlight the cells you wish to color
2. right click and select "Borders and Shading"
3. Choose the "Shading" tab.
4. Select the color that you like.
To insert Picture:
1. Move your cursor to the cell you wish to insert picture and click once
2. Choose "Insert" from the menu bar and select "Picture" or "Clipart"
3. Browse for the picture or insert.
The student will be given 5 - 10 minutes in personalising their calendar by typing in text, adding colors and pictures.
To motivate them in order to finish their works in today's lesson, I will announced,
"For those who can finish it by this lesson, I will help you to print it out and it will be given out to you. The best
designed calendar will be pasted in the board"
The printed calendar is a form of extrinsic motivation and pasting the best designed calendar is an intrinsic motivation in
order to get them interested and engaged in what they are doing.
Sample Output:
Activity - Creating a monthly calendar using MS Word.
Before jumping in straight away to the "lesson-content" section teaching them how to insert a Table and so on, it is important to trigger their interest and gather the concentration, initiating the activitie.
I will normally gather them in the front part of the lab, ask them to sit down and show them a "sample-result" of the activities and ask,
"Do you want to have your own personalized calendar to jot down all the important days like your family members' birthdays, school holidays and days of examinations?"
"You can design your own calendar with your favorite colour, insert photos of your brothers and sisters or even a picture of picnic basket to remind you that you're going for a picnic soon!"
"In order to do so, I need your concentration so that you won't miss out anything and please cooperate with me if you want to finish this by today."
This is to show them briefly what they are going to do for the day and make them feel eager to try it out themselves. I don't want them to straight away sit by the computer desks because it will be hard to gather their focus once they have their hands on the keyboard.
After telling them what they are doing to do for today's lesson, I will ask them to stand up and walk softly to the computer desks but, they're not allowed to sit on the chair yet.
They will be asked to launch the MS Word program and those who has successfully launched the program can sit down. This step is for my convenience to spot who are more capable so that they can my little helpers helping out their friends later. And also, it is also easier for me to know which computers is having problem with the software and so on.
Lesson:
--------
I will stay at my computer table and show them steps by steps on the screen so that they can follow simultaneously.
The first few steps in creating a table is simple:
1. Look into the menu bar, click on the "Table" then, look for the word "Insert" and click "Table" once again.
2. The dialogue box will popped-up, you need 7 columns and 6 rows.
3. Next is to fill in the first row with the "DAYS". Ask the students how many days are they in a week and name them. While they are answering, I will fill in the first row. They are some student who appears to have below average learning abilities so by showing them the correct spellings, at least they can still follow and not feel helpless trying to look at their friend's screen or disrupt the class by walking around and ask.
4. Ask the student whether the month we're doing has 30 or 31 days.
5. Tell the student the 1st day of the month lands on which day and ask them to carry on fill in until the very last day.
While carrying the above steps, I will still walk around the lab and check on their progress to determine whether I can speed up, slow down or continue with the current pace. And also, when the students see me walking around, they will behave too.
After completing the first 5 steps the table in the MS Word will look like a calendar already, next I will be teaching them on how to personalize the calendar by adding colors to the table cells and inserting pictures.
To add color into the cells:
1. highlight the cells you wish to color
2. right click and select "Borders and Shading"
3. Choose the "Shading" tab.
4. Select the color that you like.
To insert Picture:
1. Move your cursor to the cell you wish to insert picture and click once
2. Choose "Insert" from the menu bar and select "Picture" or "Clipart"
3. Browse for the picture or insert.
The student will be given 5 - 10 minutes in personalising their calendar by typing in text, adding colors and pictures.
To motivate them in order to finish their works in today's lesson, I will announced,
"For those who can finish it by this lesson, I will help you to print it out and it will be given out to you. The best
designed calendar will be pasted in the board"
The printed calendar is a form of extrinsic motivation and pasting the best designed calendar is an intrinsic motivation in
order to get them interested and engaged in what they are doing.
Sample Output:
2. How can you help students plan, monitor and modify their cognition to develop self-regulated learning of students in ICT?
Activity - Designing a House Plan
When we mention Microsoft Word, most of us will only think of "typing" because it is a word processor. Apart from typing, we can also insert pictures and shapes in it to create a drawing.
Ask any student to draw a house and they will come up with a very stereotype "house" with a combination of a triangular roof and a rectangular wall with a door and two windows. In this lesson, I will ask them to design their "dream house" in a bird-eye view.
They have to plan:
1. the numbers of rooms in their house
2. the layout of their house
They have to draft their drawings on a piece of paper first and show me before drawing them in MS word because their house plan can be either too simple or too complicated. I can also check whether their design are practical and so on.
They will be inserting shapes to their drawing and add colors to make their house plan attractive.
For the next lesson, they can enhance their plan by adding in the furnitures.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Three Clusters of Concerns
My teaching experience as a whole
1. Self-Concern
From my working experience, I realized pupils are easier to manage when they’re given task which they are familiar with. When introducing a brand new area/topic, it would be disordered as the pupils get very excited and enthusiastic with the lesson.
For classroom control, if the pupils misbehave, I will assign “jobs” to them taking away their privileges on using the computer. I prefer giving them “jobs” such as appointing them as “the duster” (wiping the black/whiteboard) or “class police” (checking on the classmates who are talking or walking around and the next who misbehave will take over the “class police” job and he/she will go back to his/her table and do their work) instead of punishing them (example, standing behind the door) because by giving them a “job”, they will at least have something to do and not interrupt others.
Discipline is very important in my classroom. It’s fine if the pupils can’t complete their works but I cannot accept pupils who disrespect or misbehave in the class. Normally for the first day of school or their first lessons with me, I will make my rules clear to them and I even printed it out and stick it on the wall as reminders.
I try my best not to compare between the classes and respect them as individuals but sometimes I can’t help it, saying things like “If they can finish it, why can’t you?” I know it’s bad, so, ya, I’m in the middle of quitting this bad “habit”.
2. Task Concerns
Before the lessons begin, I will turn on the PC for the pupils first because I don’t want them to waste any time waiting for the PC to boot as I only have 30minutes with them, unless I want to check whether they can turn on the PC independently without instructions for the Primary 1. In doing so, I can also check whether the PC is working or not and if its not, I will place a note saying “ROSAK” on the monitor.
There’s 20 PCs in my lab but not all of them are working so for bigger classes that exceeds 40 pupils, I will break them into 2 groups assigning different tasks so that they can take turns. But the work has to be simple and short, finishing within 10 minutes else the other batch will not have the chance. If its just 1 or 2 PCs short, I will let the student use the PC on the teacher’s desk or even let them use the Macbook.
I will display pupil’s work on the wall if their work is very good in order to keep motivated. And also, similar exercises will not be given twice as the pupil’s will find it boring and stay out of focus.
Printing out pupil’s work is very hectic because the computers in the lab are not “networked” with a printer. Hence every time when I wish to print out pupil’s work, I have to go to their individual PCs and save it into my pen drive. It’s easier for me now as some PCs have built-in wifi connection so I can just email their work to my inbox. As for those really old computers, I still have to do it the “traditional” way.
My Expectation - For different classes I have different expectation. For those classes who are brighter, of course I expect them not only be able to achieve the lesson objectives, but also behave better. Even without computers at home to practice, I expect them all to be able to work with computers independently at home. The good thing was, most of them time they are able to complete their work on time or even faster than the time given. If they can finish the work before the lesson ends, I will let them surf or play computer games as a reward or motivate those who are still doing to finish their work on time.
3. Impact - Learning Concerns
I try my best to cater to every pupil’s needs but since I’m the only teacher in the classroom, it is sometimes hard for me to split myself up to entertain everyone.
One of my rules in the lab is that, if anyone has question, they have to raise their hands up and only talk when I acknowledge them. This is because I don’t them to have the habit of shouting “TEACHER!” and disturbs others whenever they have doubt. Therefore I will only entertain pupils who raise their hands with their mouths close.
For those pupils who are above average and able to finish their work before the rest, I will ask them to help me to walk around the lab and see if he/she can help his/her classmates as my “little helper”.
If my lesson seemed a bit tough or too easy, I will re-edit it on the spot so that they can carry it out in their pace.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Reports on 16 Feb 2009's Lesson
The iChat program is inappropriate for Year 5 students as they are not mature enough to work independently without supervision. They were not taking the task seriously and were joking around when conversing with their classmates.
The initiial plan for the next lesson is letting them experience web-conferencing but with the previous encounters in the lab, I've decided to let go of the idea and let them do web-quests instead.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Teaching Practice - 16 Feb 2009
I have TP (Teaching Practice) in SR. Pg Setia Jaya Pg Abdul Momin every Monday.
And for today's lesson, I'd taught them (Year 2) how to log in to the "Student" account in Macbook, launched the MS Word program and instructed them to type the simplest karangan (composition) of all, "DIRI SAYA".
It was their first time using a Macbook and they seemed to be encountering some minor problems with the touch pad because they kept accidentally brushed through it while typing and caused the word processing screen "un-highlighted". Letters would not appear on the screen and they would asked for help. I was the only teacher in the lab and hence I find it difficult to split myself up answering the pupils' problem.
Apart from that, the pupils were confused by the "Delete" and "Backspace" buttons. When using desktop, both "Delete" and "Backspace" buttons exist, whereas for Macbook, there's only one "Delete" button but instead of erasing the letter on the cursor's right-hand side, it erases the letter on the cursor's left, just like how "Backspace" is for Windows systems. I thought this little problem is tad confusing for them but they adapted to it soon after I explained.
Even though they're not very familiar with the new system, they did tried their best to finish up their compositions (I only asked for 5 lines) and I was glad that none of them roam around the lab disturbing others.
The kids having fun with Macbook
Batrishya and her composition
She's the only one who completed the task given.
Instead of giving the lesson planned last week in Dr. Leong's class (Instant Messaging) for Year 3, I'd decided to play safe and let Year 5 do it and see the outcome first.
And the outcome was... (one word) CHAOTIC!
First of all, I asked them to launch the iChat program in the dock and look for "Teacher" and send me a message like "Hello" to see how the program works.
My screen on the board
Observing the pupils' activities on their screens
Unfortunately, some pupils encountered problems like:
1. The "friend" that they messaged did not responded to their questions.
(Solution: I asked them to chat with another person)
2. One person might have multiple chatting screen and couldn't cope with it.
3. Some of them lied with their answers!
Example-
Q: Where do you live?
A: In Malaysia.
4. Some of them were using informal Malay to chat. I saw some words like "ntah" and worse, "muamu"!
Before ending the class, I gave them a piece of mind summing up with all the "disappointments" I had from them. They were noisy in the lab (over-excited trying new things I reckon) and they did not carried out the instruction I gave them (using Bahasa Brunei to chat) and lying for fun with their friends. I told them if they still repeat their mistakes for the next lesson, I will "lock" their macbooks for 5 minutes as punishment everytime when they misbehave.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)