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:
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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.