ICT - Final Reflection

Finally, it has come down to the last piece of reflection, yet its like 2 weeks later from the last AED class. Why ? well ..... cause I had to complete my other reports first ....

Throughout the SCLP creation process, fortunatly, Shiting and I did not encounter any idea crashing situation. I do not know why this is the case. Maybe its due to our personalities, cause we are both open to all sorts of ideas. hahha ... Besides, Shiting is a very efficient person and super super super artistic person. Just look at the her drawing in the video and you will realise how good she is.

Anyway, the only 2 major changes for the SCLP were the giving up the flash idea and making use of wiki to put everything together. The reason for giving up flash was that its really too time consuming. Of course, we went through a process of looking for the ways to make the video after giving up the flash and fianlly we decided on converting PPT using Windown Media Player.

I have learnt how to create a lesson. Well, some people might want to say that we should have learnt in our e learning week task, but the SCLP allowed me to look from a more complete angle. I learn to think from the perspective of the students, learn to understand that both the students and us are grown up with different backgrounds, learn that every activity does not have to use IT, but has to maximise students' self learning desire. Most importantly, I learn how to learn to use new softwares on my own. In fact, I did not realise that learning to use new softwares can be this easy. Usually, I just need to type in the things I want to do in YahooAnswer there will be answers for me and if i want to find out more on the software, I can google it or read up on the software's webpage.

Well, as for the 1st thing that will pop out from my mind for this module -------- of course that will be SCL !!!

That is like the heart and soul of this module. The very first thing I will think of when looking at a lesson plan. Just like what I have stated in the previous post, its not how sophiscated the softwares or technologies you are using, its how student center the activities are.

WEEK 11

I think our SCLP is more or less done. This is the URL you guys can take a look and give feedbacks. http://2nd-tortoiseandhare.pbwiki.com

Throughout the whole process, especially after the meeting with Prof Tan, I started to realise that a good SCLP is not about how sophiscated your SCLP is, it is more of how it can help the students to learn on their own.

In our SCLP, I believe its the video that drawn by ourselves and recorded by us using Audacity captures most people's eyes. However, I believe its the scaffolding questions and the rubrics in other parts of the wikipage that can help the students to learn on their own.

Besides, we also realise its very difficult to design a good rubrics cause we have to determine what students' levels of proficiency. This is really a big headache, cause without real life experiences, it is really hard to know what are the current level of our kids nowadays.

By the way, for those who are having headache on designing a good rubrics. This is a good resource site http://www.rubrics4teachers.com/. cause it provides some examples.

Week8

Well, this reflection is from a Chinese talk show I just watched from TVBS. Anyway, there is a "well known"(cause I did not know who he is before the show) management consultant. He talked about the difference in the western offices and asian office and 1 of his sentences really hit me. "the hierarchy in Asian is too strong, everyone just sits in the office and waits to be told what to do"

Isn't that what we are used to since we were young? His words highlighted the probelm we have in our education system and at the same time explain the reason why SCL is introduced, hoping to develop thinking individual who are able to take initiative and responsibility.

It is because SCL allows the students to have the chance to decide what they want to learn and when to learn, so they will be able to learn to take responsibilty and use their own creativity. Therefore, I need to go back to think and my my SCLP to be something that allows the students to take charge in their learning and provide the students to have the chance to develop their thinking and creative skills.

Week 6

Again, I am late with this post again.

However, I do have something really important that I MUST share here. As we went through lots of online learning resources by MOE in the last week's lesson.

I was pretty "surprised" with the Chinese online resources provided there. Taking eVideos and eduMall as examples. It is because, they are mostly not up to date. Well, of course I am not saying old stuffs are not good. It can only tell something which is ----- not many people are using the online sources. It really makes me start to wonder how come people do not want to make use of the sources that are free to them? They are not told there is such a place?

The other issue that catch my attention is the Happy Town website. Firstly, I have to agree that it is really a great idea to integrate blogging with students' compositions. However, as I read through the posts by students, I realised that all these posts were mostly from few certain schools in Singapore only. Where are the rest of the schools? Isn't it part of the MP to integrate ICT into students' learning? Besides, I believe the concept of this website is pretty student centered


All these allow me to realise that it is still up to people to make this ICT integrate SCL work. If we are not told about the resources and we are not willing to try out the new ways, a plan can only be a plan. It can never put into practice.

Replies !!!

Hi all

Tks for all the comments.

To Pam ~~~

I am amazed by you when I saw your super spuer comprehensive reflection
sorry, i didnt comment on that cause its really tat details tat i dunno wat to comment. (actually, i its because i find it troublesome to login to friendster to comment) hahha....

To Xiao Shan and kUgApRiYa

Despite the fact that SA do has its flaws, i still think its useful as it do create awareness in us that not to "copy and past" or at least rephase it.
If not, at least we will start to look for book reference which is more credible rather than lazily sit in front laptop or PC just to type in some keywords at http://www.google.com/
Not saying online source not good, just ... well ... depends on the website .. some of them are less reliable
As for the improvment, of course I hope its database can be increased (hmm ... I am not sure if it is a good thing to enlarge its database size)
Secondly, I hope it can recognise people's effort of doing time consuming citation, meaning if people do cite the source properly then it should not consider that as a match, cause I have already self declared its not my own idea !!!

Week 5 - Safe Assignment

To be honest, Safe Assignment is really a easy software to use, all you do is just "browse" select the file, upload and wait for around 10min before coming back for the results and report. It is a much easier way for the teachers to check how much the students have copied and at the same time allow the students the chance to judge themselves.


However, I do find out some bugs or disadvantages of this software. As this is already my second time using this, so I tried to delete all my reference and uploaded my file. Even though I get 33% match in the end, those matches are from the questions and lesson plan templete. This shows that it does not matter if I do reference or not as long the system does not find any match, it will not count it in.


Another finding is that, it seemed to be able to detect the parts that can match with websites. It is because that I did use some journals and books references but none of them come out in the match even I have deleted the citations in my essay.

According to my findings, I can say that this software is not really that perfect afterall, there still room for improvement. Unless my rephasing technique has already reached the superior level. hahaha

Of course there is no software that is perfect, afterall it is just a tool to help us to save time and effort.

Besides, I do not think that having a same match will mean plagiarism. It really depends on each invidual case because I might have used the ideas from my own blog and thus come out as a match, so does that mean I plagiaris ?? Even there is a match with other people's blogs, cannot it be possible that 2 of us are thinking the same thing? Therefore, I think other than looking at the matching percentages, teachers also have to look at what are the sentences that having the match because some of them are really common ideas.

WEEK 4

Think its abit late to blog for this week's reflection.(think I should say this is the last week's blog)

What took me such a long time to blog the reflection for week 4? Well, I feel sort of lost here.

All along, I thought I know what SCL is. BUT !!! As the time to complete the assigment 1, I start to have difficulties in putting everything I know into the assigment. I am not confident that what I have believed in are correct and I am not sure how to put what I have known into the assigment.

Well, I have known that SCL is actually learner centered learning where teachers must design the lessons from the students' perspectives. They no longer deliver, instead they guide. This base on my readings come from constructivism as everyone learns differently. Thus, I think its somehow relates to cognitive learning. Besides, I think it also helps to develop crtical and creative thinking skills. These 2 skills are 2 of the most important skills that educators nowadays hope to pass to our future generations.

They all looked somehow related, BUT somehow I just cannot put them together. Is there really a sequence of which theory or concept come out earlier than others or they are actually the same things? The reason why there are different names is because we look at it from different angles eg, teacher's view, researcher's view etc ... or .. maybe I am just confusing myself.

Well, hopefully, I can start to figure this thing out soon, cause AED 104 is not the only module that has assigment during the e-learning week.

WEEK 3

After the demonstration of ComicLife by the 1st group, SCL has a new meaning to me. For the past few weeks, I had thought that SCL is how teachers can engage their students in learning by various means. However, after going through the demonstration I found out that its not only engaging the students in their own learnings. It is also about choosing the right tools and equipping them with the right skills for them to make their own learning meaningful. Just like what I have learn last semester, meaningful learning (Ausubul) is the key to effective learning. The tools do not just help the teachers to make the lessons more interesting, they also help the students to make connections between the knowledge and learn on their own.


Just like what Pro Tan has mentioned in the class, ICT is not a "must" for SCL, drawing board and markers can do the same job. Thus, it is important for us to make sure the usefulness of the softwares or whatever technologies in SCL before we are going to use it in the lessons.

Pro Tan also mentioned another important point in the class, which is the importance of the preparations before the class. It is such an important step, but yet I believe that most people would overlook it most of time. It is because we will just "assume" everything should be able to work. However, base on my past experiences in Poly or even now in NIE, there were many times things did not work out the way it supposed to be. eg, connection failure, file corrupted, etc ...

Besides, it is actually quite amazing that they are actually more points need to be taken care off compare to the traditional makers and paper's way. Making sure of wireless network is ready for use is already challenging enough especially when most of us have no idea of how to do it. Of course there should have a technician, but what is he or she happen to be on leave? Guess I am just thinking too much over here.


Lastly, after reading the Modeling with Computers as Mindtools, I agree that the advancement of IT, especially the introduction of internet has changed the way we "should" teach. Teaching should no longer be limited to transmitting of knowledge, because we can easily get the information we want by just typing few keywords on the keyboard. It is much more important to teach the students about critical and creative thinking skills. This is where the computer softwares can be useful, but just like what it mentions in the article, it also has its limitation and disadvantages. It is all up to the user and how he or she wants to use it.

Just remember the 2 key words, "help" and "options" They are just 1 of the options that can help in teaching. That's all.

By the way, I start to wonder how do we choose the right software to help students? Of course they must be easy enough for them to use, but the problem is, how easy is considered easy to students and not too easy that they lose their interests in using that.

Hmm ... that's something I would like to find out in the coming weeks.

WEEK 2 - COFT

Firstly, I have to say that I am really impressed by the displays in COTF, despite the fact that there are some flaws in the Bacterial identification part.

However, after giving it a thorough thought on the way back home, I began to doubt if it is really effective to have all these technologies in the classroom to make current learning more student centered.

It is true that these wireless or bluetooth technologies can make learning easier and more mobile and at the same time save teachers' trouble of taking attendances. However, is it really student centered? I am pretty sure that no student will like to be known their whereabout after their classes. All these technology have failed to ensure students' privacy.

Besides, I believe that we do not need all these technologies to achieve the concept of SCL, they just make learning more accessible and looked more sophisticated. No matter how "hi-tech" it looked, it still has to come down to a point of simulating students' interests so that they will want to learn and learn on their own. Thus, the teachers are still the most important elements when it comes to learning cause they are the ones who control the technologies and make them to create a more interesting and appropriate learning environment for the students to carry out their own learnings.

AED 104 - Week 1 Reflection

Before starting the first ICT class, I had thought this class is going to teach us on how to use the softwares, like Photopshops, Powerpoint, to help us on our future teaching careers. Thus, I hoped that I would be able to learn how to create flash and use Photoshop before starting of the module. Besides, my impressions with ICT is just about conducting the lessons with Powerpoint slides and videos.


However, after the first lesson, everything seemed to be almost completely different from what I had known. According to my tutor, there will not be anything lesson on any of the program, instead I was introduced to the term of "Student Centered Learning" where teachers no longer teach instead they facilitate and "Master Plan II" which aims to enhance educational processes and structures through the use of ICT. (http://www.moe.gov.sg/edumall/mp2/mp2.htm)

Personally, I think the Student Centered Learning concept is a bit like the "teach less, learn more" (http://www.moe.gov.sg/bluesky/tllm.htm) concept by MOE in 1997. The teachers are asked to spend less time on teaching and more time to guide the students in their own researches and engage them in self learning. This is to help the students to develop their critical and creative thinking skills as these are the 2 of the most important skills that educators want hope to equip the future generations with in the world today.

Thus, ICT is not about using sophisticated IT tools, it is more about using the most appropriate IT tools to assist you inside and outside the classes to allow students to get the information correctly and easily, and simulate the interests of the students at the same time. That is why it is called "Student Centered Learning" rather than "IT Centered Learning". After all, IT is just a tool, a tool to help the students in their learning.

Besides of SCL and MPII, the word "referencing" has been mentioned quite a few times in the class too. Well, it is not a new term for me as my lecturers in poly always asked for that, but still that is still a headache for me to do citations especially when the length of the essays have increased many many times in NIE compare to poly time.

It is just the first week of the school and I already started to feel stress !!!