Reflection (Last Entry)

1. What do you like about blogging?

What I like about blogging is that I can express my opinions honestly. I feel that a blog is one's personal space where he/she can say what he/she wants. Then, there's comments where I can see how people feel about a particular subject and not just being restricted by my own narrow views.

2, 3, 4 What have you gained from blogging? How?

Through blogging, I can organize my ideas and thoughts rather than letting my mind be cluttered and messy. It's a good thing to put down what you want to say in writing. As we look back to what we have written over the semester, we can see how much we learned and progressed. One context that is evident is the evidence of critical thinking. It makes me open my mind on what I think and how should perceive matters. I can also read other people's blog which serve as a guide for me to update mine. hehe..

5. What do you like about this course?

What I like is that I can really explore many avenues for resources, such as videos, and various publications that I can use in the future. Then, there's many opportunities where I can use the computer in the lab freely without restrictions.

6. What you do not like about this course?

the heavy and unnecessary workload. There's tutorials which cost us a lot of time and money.

7. What have you learnt from this course?

That there are many more resources to do teaching aids rather than just flashcards, flashcards and flashcards. There's video editing and audio editing which I don't usually do, but gave me opportunities to explore them more nevertheless.

8. What have you learnt from this course that you did not expect to?

Doing tutorials. As useless as I feel they are, it's my first time doing tutorials and it was enjoyable, in the beginning.

9. What have u expected but do not learn from this course?

As I read from the pro-forma, there's the text book selection and online newspapers that I have not learned from this course.

10. If you can change anything about this course, state what is and elaborate?

That there's more opportunities to learn on how to utilize the resources rather than producing a lot of them and putting them aside.

11. On a scale of 1 – 10, please rate your computing and technological skills for both before and after undergoing the course.

Before: 4

After: 7

The Last Lesson

For this post, I rather talk about the improvements that we have made over the weeks.

As this course is on using resources in the ESL classroom, I feel that this course has partially achieved its purpose. Yes. PARTIALLY. For week 3, it's about being realistic. But, I don't think the works that we have done all are realistic. There's the tutorials, publications and all sorts of things that have to be passed up. Somehow, I feel that doing all the publications in Microsoft Publisher is unrealistic as we don't use them.

Then, there's the tutorials of everything that we have to do. I mean, for photo editing, video making, audio editing and publications. Now, why do need to do all the tutorials? Is it necessary? Plus, we have to print out the tutorials which needs ink and the ink and papers aren't cheap. So, I personally feel that doing the tutorials is not beneficial to me.

Of course, I did learn a few things in this course. There's the print screen thingy that I really seldom used before. There's free softwares that I can use such as PhotoScape and Audacity. There's e-book which I can use in the future.

So, I would say that my knowledge in this area has improved by 40%.

Microsoft Publisher

There's a wonder in Microsoft. The wonder that's called 'Publisher'. Well, actually we have to come up with different publications that can be used in the classroom. There are flyers, business cards, banners and calendars.

There are of course a few ideas that I can come up with when using the publications in the classroom. Calendars can be used to remind pupils of the due dates and exams (which is a bad thing for them). Banners can be made to tell the parents of special events. Business cards on the other hand, can be used to promote my tuition school in th future (yes!!).

But I feel that being required to do all the publications is a bit over. I mean, it's not that we want to use all the publications right. So, it would be necessary to do all the works which add(ed) up to our endless works.

That's all then.

Here comes Video. Erghhhh

Video as teaching aid. To me, all these while video is for entertainment and knowledge. It feels very nice looking at the foreign classrooms where pupils watch videos and learn out of it. For local contexts? I don't think so. Let me explain to you why.

First of all, we need specialized videos that are catered specifically according to our curriculum and pupils. Do we have that? NO. There are of course commercialized products that yo can buy from the shops. But, they do not cater specifically to our pupils.

Then, there's the problem of syllabus. Our country's education system is like changing every five years. Teachers are trained for a few years then they are deemed unfit for the current curriculum, like us. We are studying TESL. But, TESL is not going to be used by the time that we graduated from UM. Until this point, let's not talk about making videos anymore.

Then, there's teacher workloads. Which teacher on earth has all the time to produce videos to be used in the classroom? Frankly, the only enjoyment that I might give in the classroom would be games and treats etc. No videos. Even if there are videos, they will be taken from Youtube. A teacher has to make lesson plans, teaching aids, give tests, correct the test papers, do reports, conduct curriculum activities bla bla bla. Where do I find a slot to produce videos??

That's all.

Audio-editing

So, we will talk about Audacity today. Why only Audacity? Coz I've only used Audacity, and it's free.

Somehow, after doing all the audio editing works, I feel that the authenticity of songs is lost. Many artists I feel, came up with songs that are really nice to listen to. but, when they do life performances, it sounds like me singing in the shower. Come on. It's not real songs sung by real people with good voices. It's lousy songs sung by untalented crap and edited using technological stuff. Many times I prefer listening to Oldies like Abba, Credence Water Revival etc. Many you want to call me old. As you wish.

Then there's an album featuring singing chipmunks with their cute, high pitched voices. People buy their albums which cost almost RM45 per piece. Give me the original songs and I can edit them to sound just like the real albums for free. Come on.

'A' for Audacity!!

My Photoshop Result

I wanna show you the new skill that I've learned in Photoshop. There's this technique called 'tilt-shift' photography where a picture taken from a high vantage point which shows skycrappers and roads etc can be manipulated to show like miniature models of the real thing.

This is a picture taken of traffic condition in Bangkok.

After editing it, it shows:

Like miniature model like that. Hehe..

Well, that's all la.

E-book

Today, we will be talking about E-book. What is an E-book? E = electronic, so it's a digital book where one does not flip the pages to read something, but scrolling up and down like a laptop. Somehow, it was not that hard to come up with an e-book. Everyone can do one by using PowerPoint. Of course, the E-book that we did lacked content and proper materials for young readers.

Somehow, I feel that an E-book can never replace the authenticity of reading a real book. Just imagine the rough texture of the pages, the smell that's like bringing back memories and the fondness of sitting down somewhere just to read. With an e-book, it brings to my mind the sense of rush, doing many things at once and no sense of peace that a real book brings.

The only country as far as I know where the people read E-book diligently would be Japan. Even when we're talking about Japan, it already brings to mind of busy-ness.

Still, I expect e-book to be the future of reading. Which brings to my mind another issue: Malaysians read about 3 books (or 3 pages) per year. I think Malaysians prefer PSP and Nintendo Ds rather than E-book. Nobody wants to be seen as nerdy reading e book in the LRT, right?

So, I expect my kid will be like this:

"Dang. I need a PSP!!!"

Supposedly August First Post

I was supposed to update my blog every week and I didn't. Now I'm eating the fruit of procrastination. Well, now I shall update everything based on what I remember and read from other's blogs.

Okay. So what did we do? There's fire drill. Hahaha. To tell the truth, I've never seen someone using a fire extinguisher before. So it came as a surprise coz I thought we'll just be standing around counting the seconds before we're allowed to go back to the comfort of air-conditioned room.

"I hate Barbeque"- Fireman

"Now I need a volunteer to be lighted on fire. Anyone??"

Then, we went back to learn some photo editing skill. I've heard someone said that PhotoShop is god, meaning that u can basically do anything u want e.g. defame, destroy etc someone's reputation just by editing their pictures with them in compromising positions etc. But I also learned that as a photographer, minimal photo editing is sufficient as photos taken are supposed to convey the message behind it rather than it being beautiful all.

So that's it for this post.

Terrific Videos

Today, we watched home made videos-a task given to pairs alomost 2 weeks ago. Of course, doing a video without any particular theme would be easy and almost enjoyable to say the least. The bad thing is that the themes for all other videos would be almost the same, like friendship, university life and any others that pop into your mind right now.

My video was about friendship, a theme that has been recycled over and over again. What I felt most special about me and my lovely cutey partner's (Siang Shian) video was that we included all the photos since foundation years until last semester. All the photos when we just meet in the first weeks, going for camps and outings, doing assignments together-all made a wonderful montage of what we've experienced together as friends. Even when we were doing the video, we laughed when we opened all the photos and reminisce about the old days all over again. How we've grown and learnt. I still remembered when I wished that my course would be 2 years in Maktab and 4 years in UM. Now, my opinion totally changed. I gotta admit that I prefer Maktab much much more than UM. In Maktab, our relationship, our bonds were personal, close and not so academically oriented. We stayed together in the hostels and meeting each other was like meeting close friends. Now, we seldom meet each other as all of us are living so far away from each other. Sigh..the old days.

Then came the moment when we watched the video together in the computer lab. How the people cheered, laughed, 'Woooooooo' and 'Awwwww' while watching the video. It was clear that everyone thought about the old days too, and how the experience has shaped them into what they are now. Maybe they would think about things that we've gone thru together, and how the bonds that were built can never be replaced by new environment and friendships.

I like the video done by Hayat and Fafa. Of all the videos that I've watched today, their's was the only one with plot: starting with Hayat having bad habits and ending with him changing the habits after under threat of break-up with Fafa. It's pretty entertaining. The pictures were also personalised as they took the pictures specially to do the video.

Overall, I wanna laud everyone for doing an incredible job at the video. =)

E-Booking

Today, all of us sat down in front of the SmartBoard and listen to Pn. Foziah's lecture. Honestly, it's been so long since we looked like a class, regular class where the teacher sits in front and the students listening. Hmm...what did I learn?

I learnt that it's very important to not put snake's pictures anywhere that can be accessed by Pn. Foziah. Sh'es phobic of snakes, like me. Hahaha..this uncanny similarity is patheric indeed. I hate snakes. I loathe snakes. Show me a snake and my blood will run cold. That should be the same 'sensation' that she feels when she sees a snake too. Pity u, pity me. =)
Then there's the story thingy. It all revolves back around what I've learned in Form 4 and Form 5. There's the introduction, development of the story, climax and comes down to the ending again. Classic examples would be fairytales. My life however, is not. Full of climaxes, and negatives. Hmm...

Then there's e-book. I'm not going to be academic here. E-book to me is Kindle, the one they sell on Amazon. A device that functions like a book, only that it is digital. So, bring the device anywhere and u can read any 'book' that u like, provided u donwload them. If u can stand the garing screen, the battery life or the shape of Kindle, good for you. For me, I feel, and will always feel that E-book will never replace a real book. It's just different with holding a real book in your hand. If not, book will not last for centuries, do they? The only advantage of E-book is that you can store booksssssss in one device and can access them anytime without filling up the spaces in your house. Other than that, the feelings are irreplaceable. The smell of old books, the texture, the flips...go to the most isolated God-forsaken rows of bookshelves at UM library 2nd floor opposite the IT class and you'll know what I mean. It's like a maze in there!

See u !!

Ma’am Foziah’s Absence

      I still remembered when Pn. Foziah said that she’s not coming into class. I was actually elated (hihi) coz I thought that I can enjoy- onlining for the whole hours. Then it struck me that there’s a lot of tutorial tasks to be done. Ugh…

      Reflecting on it, I feel that doing the tutorials are okay, at least not difficult to say the least. However, I do wish that the tasks are more specific rather than ‘search for texts’ and ‘Internet Download Accelerator’. It’s vague. If only it specifies ‘search for xxx text by xxx’ or ‘use Internet Download Accelerator to download a xxx’ etc. It would be much easier. Sometimes, the tasks are easy but because it’s too broad, I don’t know what to do instead.

      So right now, I’ll just do what is stated and hope that it’s correct. =)

Reflection for my Third Week

    I hope I haven’t forgotten what I learnt last week. Well, what I’ve learned was how to do the tutorial on how to download a song from a webpage.

    Actually, I don’t have anything to say about this. It’s because, I’ve been downloading songs from the Internet since when I’m in secondary school. Not to say that I’m more experienced or whatsoever, but I just feel that downloading songs from any webpages is very dangerous because of the viruses and malicious softwares there. Last time when downloading songs was all the craze in the IT world, I’ve had quirky softwares auto-installing themselves on my house computer without me realizing them. This experience is enough to make me understanding that like an open market, anything and everything can be found on the Internet. However, choosing reliable and safe resources is the hardest part. Many websites claim that their pages are free from viruses etc but it turns out that the auto-execute programmes are able to feed your personal information to the World Wide Web. Reflecting on it, they need sponsors to continue their webpages and who are the sponsors? The creator of the malicious softwares themselves. Since then, no more.

    Not to say that I don’t download sings since then. I chose installing peer to peer programmes which lets me ‘share’ files on the programme without other ‘peers’, such as Ares (no promotion intended). Until now, it has been pleasant without any crashes whatsoever except when I tried to download keygen files for ‘cracked’ softwares that I use. That, I blame on myself, though not entirely. Malaysians are still far away from buying authentic softwares coz they are just too expensive. Still, that is another story altogether. The positive part form the lesson was that it made me feel like I’m one of the IT guy on the Internet that teaches ‘noobs’ or newbies on how to solve their computer problems. Who knows I’ll open my troubleshoot webpages next time?

Till then, see u guys soon. Very soon. =)

What Have I Gotten Myself Into..

So, this is the 2nd Resources class and I was actually anticipating to use the pc for what-nots. What nots are what I mean by Fb, Youtube and etc. Ya I did do my resources work but that just occupy less than 20 minutes of the 3 hours, including this blogging time. Sadly, the flash player is down and so there goes my Youtube-ing. Hm..I thought Resources class would enable me to access to multimedia stuffs. Again, i'm disappointed by my own stereotyping of how computers in learning institutions would be: restrictive, boring and of course, academic. It seems anything related to academic stuffs would be uncompatible with the latest techs. Why? Is it because the admin can't find the time to upgrade obsolete programmes in here? Sigh..
Anyway, all we did today were reading an article on how children use language creatively with limited resources. I particularly like the statement "Switch off the dark. I don't like the dark shining." It's supposedly said by a four year old in Britain. To me, it's just cute considering how an innocent and naive children would try their best to use the language that they are not fluent in. Personally, I don't have any recollection of children trying their best to speak English by were getting frustrated of their own inability to convey what they wanna say. The article also mentioned about creating unpredictable situations where children would be forced to communicate, regardless of the errors that they might make. I'm worried about this. Previously I learned through Behaviourism Theory that any mistakes that children make must be corrected immediately to avoid fossilization. So, which should I follow? Give them restricted opportunity to use the language by correcting every petty mistakes or giving them absolute freedom to speak as long as they are able to convey what they want to say? I would say that there should be a middle ground, giving children freedom to use the language but at the same time only correct major mistakes. Anyone has better ideas?
Anyway, I just entered the Photo editing section. Considering my immense interest in Photography and Photo Editing, joining this group sounds like the best choice for now. However, my laptop is aging badly. Badly to the point that I only use it for academic works. Installing Adobe Lightroom is a killer. Installing Adobe Photoshop CS3? I shall switch it on and wait for it to load by sleeping 8 hours 1st. Solution: get a good, very good desktop.
That's all for my reflection of today's lesson. Such formality. ~.~

Blog as my assignment

I never thought that it'll come to this, that I'll start to write academic stuffs in a blog which previously only shows teenagers' life perks and quirks in their everyday life. So, maybe I should call myself an academician now, where my life revolves around academic stuffs, knowledge related and all for the betterment of human race.
Let's just stick to basic introduction for now. This blog is supposed to be the place where I write my reflection on lessons learned. Any use for that? Yes. The lecturer is going to read it and understand how much I've learned over the weeks. Any private stuffs here? No, I don't think so. At least not yet.
As I'm typing this, I'm reminded of the little 'ordeals' from yesterday night and this morning. Typing furiously on the laptop while reading an article that I don't really have a hint about. Talking about passing up assignments of a subject that you've learnt of and plus passing up an 8 pages summary on the second day plus another 6 pages of online article summary. University life is definitely ironical, contradicting to my original idea of enjoyment for at least 2 years before I'm officially deemed an adult serving the country in classrooms using my voice and hopefully 'rotan' if I'm permitted to.
A little bit of myself. I like photography, and recently like our guys, like cars. Fast cars I mean. Now, why do men spend a lot of money on Top Gear every month and pouring through the mag featuring cars that cost millions or simpler to say, cars taht they are not gonna own except in the next life? Because, we believe that one day we're still gonna own one, race it through the tracks and laugh our butts off till we crash into a lamp post and reach heaven before we know it. Maybe girls are more realistic as they yearn for expensive handbags and shoes that is achievable by asking their rich boyfriends or husband to buy for them. Guys are a pathetic lot. But, who wears the pants in the house?
Blog as my assignment. Now, assignment as my blog. Preferable. I like.