Ohhhhh ….. is 8th of June today ! Today is our last class for ICTs with Ms.Kim. Time flies huh.! 15 weeks had just gone like this and is already mid of year now.! Still feeling unbelievable as the memory of countdown for 2013 is still fresh in mind.

So, this would be the last post for this course that need to be moderated. I wanted to say that I really learn a lot from this course especially about ICTs. I changed my point of view about integrating ICTs into my lessons after the classes. I learned that ICTs tools are not just for entertainment but can be utilize to enhance in children’s learning. I realized that ICTs has a really great impact on us and even on the children nowadays. Thank you for Ms.Kim and David and of course other who are involve for the effort putting in throughout this course. I believe that everyone had an amazing learning through the past few months and gain a better understanding of ICTs now.

I will use what I’ve learned in my class and would definitely integrate ICTs more so that I can help my children to learn the best throughout the lessons.

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Hi everyone, I am actually pretty sad now. Why ? Because I just realized that school holidays are going to end soon !!!! T_T Can I have more holidays please ?………

I remember when I was still in primary school, I have different type of games to play on during my school holidays. Most of them were the silly kind but it makes me and my siblings laugh a lot. Even now when we recall back our childhood memories, we were really thankful that our childhood was pretty awesome and had did quite many silly thing and stuff.

I browse through GermaniProductions in YouTube channel and found this cute video (50 Awesome Childhood Checklist) and reminds how silly was I. HAHA. Laughing all the way while viewing with my siblings. I even forgotten some of the activities ! Luckily the technology is very advance now and this talented guy- Joseph Germani able to make it into such an awesome video clips ! It is definitely a worth to view on. (=

 

Oh well, finally it comes to the week 15 which is the last week of this course. To be honest, I am quite stress up with the overloaded assignments that have the same due date. That’s the consequences of doing last minutes work ! sigh.

But I believe that everyone have the very own way to release stress level isn’t ? Sing K, blogging, exercising, shopping, talking ….. these are all the possible ways for us to relax our mind from stressful environment for a while.

My way to release my stress level would be listening songs ! But, I have limited time to go out to buy those CD or album. Hence, I really like YouTube channel to the max ! It saves my time and money as I don’t have to step out from house but still able to enjoy those good music that available in the channel. From MTV, comedy shows, movies, advertisement and even videos about education info can be found ! Seriously I think the channel has did a really great job in providing such a convenience FREE channel for us.

Well, do go to the channel and select your favorite songs and listen to reduce your stress level like me now ! haha

Till then.

(=

 

Hi all. For your information, I am someone that love photography and willing to spend time on editing the photos before uploading into my personal blog. I usually use Photoshop for all the editing. I don’t mind spending time on editing the photos as long as the results are satisfying. The reason why I want to edit my photos is because of not having a really good camera to capture a nice photo. Hence, I need to edit the photos so that they can be publish into public and seen by others.

Haha. I knew that some of the people might think that the photo would be fake after editing and is not original anymore. But oh well, I love the results though.

So recently I browse through the images from Google, I found few photos that edited using photoshop and I was laughing all the way while viewing it. Photoshop edit tools really can do a lot huh ! Unbelievable ? You better believe it ! Let’s let the photos speak and do try out your own version after viewing it ! (;

All the photos are credited to Google.

 

 

Shocked ? AHA ! Try it out yours now ! It looks like a hybrid version of animals ! haha

Talk about Hybrid, my classmate- YinSan inspired me on having this blog post ! Her version of hybrid is totally different with mine though.

Good day people.!

 

While I was doing my research for assignment, I browse through the net and found this article  and this article  from an educator Lisa’s blog.

The topic had caught my eyes- Is technology ruining attention spam ?

I personally think that technology may affect a child’s attention spam as it may help in increasing or reducing the hour spend. As we all know in order to get the children to learn the best, we would need to meet their interest and needs. For example, when we allow the children to use computer to play some education software game for their mathematics, some of the children would definitely willing to spend longer time on doing the exercises or playing the games with computer. Even though they are facing computer, but they are doing the appropriate activity. However, if we allow the children to use computer in other inappropriate way, they might misuse it and cause their attention spam in normal learning hour to shorten as they were addicted in using computer for useless purpose.

Hence, I still believe that guidance from adults are important when the children are too young to expose to ICTs world nowadays.

Oh no ….! My professional experiences for this course has officially started since last week. I am busy planning on the lesson that is appropriate for the group of children that I’m going to handle.

I am trying to integrate ICTs into my lessons to enhance children’s learning but not fulfill the assignment’s rubric requirement. I am planning to integrate different ICTs tools such as computer, camera, printer, smartphone and software. The planning is still going on although I just carry out one of the lessons. The results were satisfying where the children were able to cooperate well and listen to my instructions. Thank God they did not spoil any gadgets that I brought into the class. ><

Till then, more sharing to come till next lesson.  Oh by the way, I read Jia Lerk‘s blog post about her experience on her practicum about integrating ICT into the lesson and how she manage the class and I think that she did quite well. (=

 

Hi everyone, today I’m going to introduce a FREE software that available in online for phonics learner. No you did not get me wrong, is FREE ! Who doesn’t like free things right, I would definetely won’t say no to it. The software that I found is Starfall.

Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

(Starfall, 2012).

I actually knew this site from my working school as I need to teach phonics class. My colleague introduces me and I found it is quite useful for the beginner year of phonics learner. Me, myself were not very familiar with phonics at first. I learn to produce better and the context is actually very simple to understand and function. My students love this and there is a short exercises for each alphabets after the reading part. I noticed that my students can pronounce the phonics better after listening and viewing this. It does help for the very beginning learner like them.

It is all just on my point of view, do share with me if there’s any other website that helps children to learn better ! (=

Reference:

Starfall. (2012). Where children have fun learning to read! Retrieved May 4, 2013, from http://www.starfall.com/

Well, I believe that most of the children nowadays know ICTs well (or maybe better than me). I can see that the latest trend that happened around me is that most of the children knew how to utilize ICT gadgets such as IPAD, smartphone, computer, camera and others. I noticed that parent tend to leave their children alone with ICTs gadgets when they are busy or to avoid them to making noises. For me it is a very unhealthy habit. I will still prefer interaction with the children instead of allowing them to ‘talk’ to ICTs gadgets more than me.

I’ve just carry out lesson that inquire children to use camera and there was technical problem happened. While I was thinking how to solve the problem, one of the children in class already showing me the way to fix it. I was so impressed by his knowledge about ICTs, he can even explain to me how the camera works. Undeniable that ICTs has a deep impact on adults and now on children as well.

So I would say that integration of ICTs into our life is beneficial and make our life easier. But, we still need to be aware of the impact of technology on our children as time goes by. We shall help them by assists and guide them to choose the appropriate tools and even website or software to use on. As all said, prevention is better than cure, guide the children before they go wrongly in utilizing ICTs tools in their life.

Oh well, I found that few of my fellow course-mates were introducing different type of software that suitable for young children, you may want to check them out – Emma Smolenaers  and Kristie Willadsen .

 

 

 

I believe that most of us, an educator has known Interactive White Board (IWB) since it was being introduce into education line. The functions of IWB are actually quite amazed me and I found that children and even teacher can have a lot of interesting and fun activities with it. I was browsing through Internet and found that this- Interactive White Board is interesting to view on.

I am quite interesting with IWB as I found that it is a very high tech tools that help children in their learning context regardless in any subjects. I really like the way of teachers and children can utilized the board with just a click and moving and personally think that it save time on preparing different materials to fulfill the needs of every child in class.

However, my working school do not have IWB as my principal think that it may reduce the real interaction between the teacher and students. And I am quite jealous that one of my classmate – Megan have the opportunity to try this in her professional experience setting. >.<

Well, it still depend on how we utilized it in our class and how we integrate into our lessons.

Here’s the information that I search from web.

What is an interactive whiteboard?

An interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive screen that works in conjunction with a computer and a projector. The first interactive whiteboard was manufactured by SMART Technologies Inc. in 1991. Educators were the first people to recognize the interactive whiteboard’s potential as a tool for collaboration, improving student learning outcomes and streamlining lesson planning. Educators continue to comprise the largest user base for this technology, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom.

( SMART Technologies Inc., 2006)

How can an interactive whiteboard be used in a learning environment? Interactive whiteboards are an effective way to interact with digital content and multimedia in a multi-person learning environment. Learning activities with an interactive whiteboard may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Manipulating text and images
• Making notes in digital ink
• Saving notes for later review by using e-mail, the
Web or print
• Viewing websites as a group
• Demonstrating or using software at the front of a
room without being tied to a computer
• Creating digital lesson activities with templates,
images and multimedia
• Writing notes over educational video clips
• Using presentation tools that are included with the
whiteboarding software to enhance learning materials
• Showcasing student presentations

 

References:

SMART Technologies Inc. (March, 2006). Interactive Whiteboards and Learning. Retrieved May 1st, 2013, from http://downloads01.smarttech.com/media/research/whitepapers/int_whiteboard_research_whitepaper_update.pdf

So I just read these two reasons of using ICT from study desk. Here they are:

– Enhancing – the provision of some form of relative advantage.

– Changing – the ability to do something new, something not previously possible.

I kinda agree with these two reasons as it is obviously enhancing and changing our life isn’t ?

Yesterday night I was out with friends to a cafe. Once we got our table and settle down everything, I started to observe people around me. I noticed that most of the people are holding a smartphone or IPAD. Some even have both in their hands. The scene had impressed me like seriously. If everyone wanted to play with their gadgets, then why don’t just stay at home right. I’m not saying bringing gadgets out while a ‘tea’ session with friends is not encouraging, but we shall know what’s the main  point of tea session, is to know your friend’s current life better or listen to friend’s problem or just some relaxing moment with besties. Why use gadgets during the tea session? I guess this is an unanswerable question.

Anyway, it is undeniable that ICT would be able to enhance our life’s quality and make our life easier. For example, I hate it when it is end of every month as I need to pay for my phone bill by going to communication center and line up for hours. Now I don’t have to go to the shop to pay for my phone bill but with only a click on internet, I can settle everything. It saves my time a lot and I can use the time for other purpose such as spend more time on lesson planning during my practicum. ><

Well, ‘why use ICT’ ? I’m sure that there’re a lot of different answers from different people, there are no right or wrong. Just for me, I will remind myself to use it wisely but not addicted on it.