The Final Remark

A new week is now no longer to mark a new beginning and new tasks for this semester is coming to its end. Assignments were all completed and handed in. Time really flies. For this semester has come to its end, it also marks a curtain fall for this course; GGGE1155 Computer in Education. It is ended but the knowledge that I gained will never expire. There are tons of bittersweet and memorable experiences throughout this course.

Personally, I shall say that through this course I have grown a lot in computers and technologies. From a person who was pretty naïve about the skills and applications, I am now a total opposite of who I was before. For this while, I have been utilizing internet and computers for social networking and assignment purposes but the skills I have applied can be considered as the basic skills.

Started off with minimal skills and knowledge about ICT, I told myself not to take this course for granted for it is not going to be as easy as we spell out its name. As what has been mentioned in the course proforma, we have 9 assignments altogether to be completed within only 7 weeks of lecture. I was shocked for this was the first time I have 9 assignments in hand for only one particular course. However, now I shall say that I am proud to be able to complete all the assignments within the time frame given with endless guidance and support from our course coordinator, Dr. Siti Fatimah and our own lecturer, Mr. Fariduddin. A thousand of gratitude I praised to both of them.

My diary for assignments started off as early as in the first week of lecture. It was a light start actually for we only had to sign up for numerous accounts on the net and these accounts had to be official accounts. They were Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Yahoo Groups, Facebook, Facebook Group and lastly to create a personal blog for our weekly reflections. For this course, we were required to work in pairs and there were 10 topics to be chosen. I paired up with Vanessa Cordilia and we chose the 8^th topic that was Web 2.0 in Education. Since that, every new week marked new assignments and experiences. Started off with doing an article regarding the topic chosen and uploaded it to Facebook Document in our personal Facebook Group, I realized that Facebook is not only a platform for social networking. It actually can be utilized as a discussion site for educational purposes as every members of the group can post any comments and questions. Then we moved on to learn about Learning/Content Management System (L/CMS). It was followed by writing a literature review on the topic Web 2.0 in Education. After that, we came across the toughest assignment that was the Mini Research. It was really lots of new skill that I have learnt throughout managing the mini research; from designing the questionnaire till writing the report. I think one of the most outstanding parts of it that the other researchers seldom utilize was to design and distribute the questionnaire via online (SurveyMonkey and Google Docs). Normally, the respondents are being approached manually and by face to face interaction but for our research, all the responses from the respondents are being recorded automatically via online. That was really a meaningful experience for all of us in preparing us for a bigger research in the future. Then, saying goodbye to mini research, mark a “hi” to the sixth assignment that was to design a brochure and booklet. It was followed by the multimedia week in which we have to prepare a power point slides using Open Office Impress and to create a courseware after learning to edit songs to be used as the background music for the short movie clip that we created using Windows Movie Maker. It was such a great experience to do create multimedia courseware. After finishing that, we moved on to a more serious assignment which was related to spreadsheet. We were to plan a one year financial management using Open Office Calc. To do that, I felt like I was an accountant. (sigh). Yeah, at least I know a bit about the work of an accountant even though I guess that was just a small partition of their actual work. Moving from the job of an accountant, we faced the real job and responsibility as a teacher. We created students’ score and grade using Microsoft Excel. The skills learnt are very crucial to be utilized in school later. And finally, as the concluding assignment, we were to design a database.

There are really a lot of meaningful skills and knowledge I gained in a short period of time. Seven weeks time flies just like that. One of the most crucial thing I learnt was good time management. Despite the tiredness of completing all the assignments in a short period of time, I learnt to manage my time wisely. Every seconds and minutes were like gold to me. It is very precious and I should not simply waste it. Apart from that, what I have discovered about learning ICT is, it is not an instant, all concrete and an express thing to be learnt. We learnt about ICT directly or indirectly, formally and informally. Learning about ICT is continuous. The skills learnt need to be practiced and renewed from time to time. Like the golden phrase, “PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT”. Besides, I guess there is no such thing as failure in ICT. Every mistakes and unfamiliarity has a solution for it with the permit of a true determination and real patience. It is all about self-exploration. Grasp the interest and determination and you will never be upset by it. Learning ICT I shall say is wonderful, interesting and fun.

As a teacher-to-be, it is very important for me to be proficient and competent in ICT. To make the lesson interesting, I have to utilize various skills such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Open Office Impress, videos and etcetera in order to grab the students’ interest and attention to the lesson. Besides, for database purposes, we really owe ICT for the convenience it served for teachers to record students’ data, score, and grade.

For the concluding remark, I would like to take this opportunity to bid a token of gratitude and appreciation to our course coordinator, Dr. Siti Fatimah for her endless support and guidance to us even though it was all done virtually for we are separated by the distance. Besides, a thousand of appreciation I channeled to Mr. Mohd. Fariddudin Wajdi Anthony for all the knowledge and experiences that he has shared sincerely. Last but not least, I would like to thank my partner, Vanessa Cordilia ak Paterson for all the cooperation and support while doing our assignment. Thanks for always being there with me in sweetness and in pain. I owe you much for that. Lastly, THANK YOU so much to all my coursemates for the endless sharing of knowledge. Seven weeks of course may seem very short but the experience I gained is so precious that it is irreplaceable. 

Reflection Week 7b (Assignment 9)

Database

The super hard effort to complete the assignment for this week continued. Besides doing spreadsheets, we were also being instructed to create a database using Open Office Base (Assignment 9). This was another thing that I have never utilized before. But, nevermind; LEARN, LEARN AND LEARN. Despite my unfamiliarity with the applications, I was so grateful that the instructions given were very comprehensible.  We could clearly see what were the things that we have to do. And for this particular task, I owe it to our beloved lecturer Mr. Fariduddin. He was so dedicated to assist and guide us endlessly. I truly appreciate it form the very bottom of my heart.

Included in the instructions for Week 7b, we are supposed to:

FIRST

1. 1.      Tables: Create table in Design view ( 4 separate tables and using the students ID as the primary key)

v  Student table

v  Parent table

v  Curriculum table

v  Co-curriculum table

NEXT

1. 2.      Tool-> Relationship: Create relationships between the tables by linking the students ID.

AFTER THAT

1. 3.      Use wizard to Create Form:

v  Student form

v  Parent form

v  Curriculum form

v  Co-curriculum form

THEN

1. 4.      Data entry using Form
2. 5.      Create several queries from the database
3. 6.      Create reports based on the queries

By referring to those outlines, I encountered fewer problems in creating the database even though it was my very first time to create a database. I shall never say I have totally zero problem as it was my first time utilizing it so I didn’t even know how to start at first. I owe my work much to Mr. Fariduddin.

            Database is another crucial thing for teachers to know. By using this, it is easier for teachers and school administration to keep the data for each student. Imagine if we were to use a manual file for each student to store their database, teachers’ life will be miserable and the office will be flooded by files of hundreds and maybe thousands of students.

I am proud to mention that I am very fortunate to learn this skill as early as now. Not everybody is given the same chance to learn and explore computers and technologies comprehensively as what have I experienced while doing the assignments. The skills shall be kept tight in my mind and I definitely being applied during my working time in a few more years to go.

<I have uploaded the database that we have done to my Yahoo Group.>

*Happy reading* 

Reflection Week 7a (Assignment 8a & 8b)

*Speadsheets*

Just by a few blinks, the enjoyable week of working on multimedia presentation finally gone. Now, we have to change our mood to a more serious mode for we have three sets of assignments needed to be done by this week by the mean that before we sit for our final examination. I know it sounded pretty a lot and burdening but for me there is no such thing as so call “burden” when we are students who are in the journey of seeking and discovering knowledge.

            As an opening for this week task, we were instructed to work on a one year personal financial management (income, expenses and balance) which was to be our Assignment 8a and upload it to Google Docs when completed.  For this task, we were required to work upon it using Open Office Spreadsheet. Again, this was a new thing to me. As Open Office Impress, I have never used Open Office Spreadsheet before. So I guess, that was the challenge for teachers to keep on moving with technology advancement and always ready for new skills learning and exploring. First of all, before I started with the task, I should at least know what is a spreadsheet all about. From my reading, it has come to my knowledge that a spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet, (Wikipedia). In a spreadsheet application, each value sits in a cell. We can define what type of data is in each cell and how different cells depend on one another. The relationships between cells are called formulas and the names of the cells are called labels.

Next, lets move on to the task. The first step was to record the one year income and expense hence calculating the balance for each month in Open Office Spreadsheet. After that, what we all need to do was to link the formula between the sheets. To record the data might be sound a piece of cake but to link the formula between the sheets, that baffled my head a bit. I finished up the data record and then searched for how to link the formula between the sheets in Google search engine. I managed to find it in a blog so I started to make the link from sheet to sheet. It was not hard actually. Within 15 minutes, I succeeded to make the balance for each month to be able to be added to the balance for the consecutive months. With that, the objective for this assignment was accomplished!

But, that was simply not a sign for relaxing. Realizing that the examination was just a few days to come and I need to do more intensive revision, I have to deny my feeling to take a rest for a while. Without further ado, my partner and I moved on to Assignment 8b, the second assignment for Week 7a. For this assignment, we were still going to work on spreadsheet but for this time, we were to do it using Microsoft Excel. As what was instructed, we were to plan, create and edit a spreadsheet of students’ score and grade analysis. There were a number of functions and formulas that we have to utilize such as VLOOKUP, STDEV, COUNTIF and AVERAGE. These functions are useful fro it allows values of data to be read automatically from the given range. Knowing that nowadays teachers utilize those functions to record students’ examination score and grade, we are consider fortunate to be exposed early to those vital skills. Unlike teachers in schools, some of them are struggling to learn how to utilize those skills in order to catch up with the advance technology and education at the time they are likely to be called as veteran teachers. It sounds pitiful but that is the real life as a teacher. Education globalized from days to days, years to years thus the learning process of new things will never end. By using Microsoft Excel to record students’ score and grade, it makes teachers life easier. We don’t have to insert and calculate the scores manually as in Excel everything is easier and more accurate. We can even use graphs and charts to display the data analysis.

I have learnt so much valuable things from spreadsheet application. It was not something familiar to me for I didn’t take accounting during my secondary school and I personally seldom use it. So far as I remember, I learnt to do a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel during my first semester of foundation which was about two years back. So now, I am refreshing back some of the skills that I have learnt before. I am very and very sure that those skills are very crucial by the time I am being placed in school later. Hence, learning it was not a waste of time but it was a precious experience as a student.

*Happy reading*

Reflection Week 6

Life has been busier than I ever thought. This week was hectic. Somehow I felt worn out over the endless in assignments. For this week itself, there were four assignments need to be done and handed in. Personally, I am worried about the exam. It is just around the corner and yet we still have loads of assignments to be done. I could hardly spare my time for revision.

But whatever it is, life has to go on. The hectic schedule has to be endured as patient as I could. This week was the sixth week of lecture and we were given the seventh assignment (Assignment 7a & Assignment 7b) to complete. Assignment 7a was about the application of Open Office Impress. We have to do a power point slides based on our Mini Research report using Open Office Impress instead of Microsoft Powerpoint. It was indeed pretty challenging at the first place for I have never utilized Open Office Impress for doing powerpoint slides before. For all this while, I have been fully dependent on Microsoft Powerpoint. Well I guessed that was a good effort by Dr. Siti Fatimah, our course coordinator for assigning us to use Open Office Impress. For me, it was not burdening. Instead, it gave me a good experience to improve my ICT skills. As a teacher, I must not merely have a sound knowledge of my major but also the other areas such as ICT.

I explored the application of Open Office Impress as much as I afford to. The assignment was not really hard to do. It was just pretty time-consuming for I have to import, adapt and simplify the information in our report to for the slides.  To fulfill the criteria of good presentation slides, I added few relevant pictures into my slides. Besides, I also employed some of the basic shapes available and customized animation for selected pictures and graphic organizer. After a few hours of exploration and skills application, I managed to complete a powerpoint presentation of 20 slides all together. After that, when it was well browsed and edited by me and my partner, I then uploaded the document to Google Docs for sharing with course mates.

Nonetheless, for Assignment 7b we were assigned to create a video based on our first assignment by utilizing Windows Movie Maker. But before that, we were earlier on being taught by Mr. Fariduddin on audio editing using software known as Audacity. The software was downloaded from the internet for free. During lecture, he taught us on how to cut the audio, make variety in pitch and frequency and a few more skills. The edited audio was then being used as the background music for the video. It was challenging but seriously fun. The skills gained are precious. With the skills, I am sure that I will be able to make my lesson more exciting and heart capturing in the future.

*Happy reading*

Mini Research

* This actually should come before my reflection for Week 5. However, I could not upload it on time due to some constraints. Hope to be noted by all..Thank you.

It was such a momentous experience to carry out a mini research when we are still so call freshie.  It may seem too early for some but personally I think it is not. Time does not matter. The most precious thing is the experienced we gained.

The mini research was conducted as a part of our assignment. It was the combination of the surveys that we have done before based on the same topic as our previous assignments; Web 2.0 in educations.  As what was being required, the survey was done anonymously and randomly via online and also manually distributed questionnaire. The data collected was recorded in SPSS.

For it was the very first time we conducted a mini research, it was kind of hard to be done by us. Fortunately we were working in pairs. So that lightened the burden. Special thanks to my partner Vanessa Cordilia for the full cooperation and commitment in managing the task. 

The report was to be written in journal format. We were kind of choking to death to see the list of the things to be written in the report. There were the abstract, introduction, literature review, research method, findings, discussion, recommendation and conclusion. Since we were working in pair, we divided the task equally among us. The first four were to be done by Vanessa and the next four were my responsibility.

It really took me days to complete the parts of mine. Findings and discussion were the hardest parts to be done. I got dizzy over the charts, tables and graphs. But slowly over the time, I successfully managed to make it done.

Even though it was undeniably tough, I am personally glad that my working partner and I managed to write a complete and informative report for our mini research. Our aims and objectives were generally achieved. Sincerely, I can say that we are very fortunate to be given such an early exposure to carry out research and write a report of in a journal format. This is very helpful to prepare us for the bigger research to be done for our thesis later. Special gratitude addresses to our lecturer, Mr.Fariduddin for the supportive guidance given.

The full report of the mini research can be accessed at: http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/0ARGTpsqsZZWs33E5aR7F5NoTiDC5ZcdmHqDrU526SVin4rVBQ-SLH76Wru3IxfAGjgVGK2oXcX8Y88TE9GlNw/Week%204/Mini%20research%20report.pdf

*Happy reading*

Reflection Week 5

Every passing weeks marks new beginnings for me and definitely there is more knowledge to be swallowed and digested. Again this time I would like to restate that our hectic life seems to be endless. The busy schedule is well-blended with me and seems to be in an endless continuum. The semester is coming to its end, the exam is just around the corner and still there are tons of assignments that are yet to be done. Auspiciously, the assignments given for this week was not as tough as the previous. Personally I think that the previous assignment on Mini Research was the toughest in the list. For this week onwards, we were instructed to design a brochure (Assignment 6a) as well as a booklet (Assignment 6b) related to the topic that we have chosen for Assignment 1, 4 and 5. Fuh! At least it was not as tough as what we had for the previous week. So, there should be no problem for us to make it done in just a day or the most two days as we were again working in pairs.

The brochure to be planned, designed and created was to be done in Microsoft Publisher. For I have ever created few brochures using Microsoft Publisher before, I faced no obscurity to manage the task. Plus, I was assisted by my loyal working partner; Vanessa Cordilia, things got lighter. Within less than one hour, a simple, attractive and informative brochure has been produced by the two of us. The content of the brochure was roughly about the gist of what we have done for the previous assignments focusing on the topic Web 2.0.  

Without further ado, we proceeded to the next task that was to plan, design and create a booklet the moment we have done with our brochure. As what has been instructed, the booklet was to be created using book fold function in Microsoft Word. Perhaps, this task was a bit challenging than creating a brochure for I have zero experience in creating one before. So do my partner Vanessa. Not to make that as an excuse for us to delay the task, we seek assistance from peers and also Mr. Fariduddin, our lecturer. After a few moments of briefing and guidance, we managed to proceed with the booklet planning and designing independently. For the booklet, the content was actually more or less the same as what we had done in our brochure. It was just the amount of information to be included that distinguished it from brochure. Our booklet was just nice in length. It was not too long and not too short. It was just nice to be flipped through and read as well.

Not to be missed out sharing with all of you, before we proceeded with the given assignments, we were exposed to various kinds of applications available for graphic designed. First of all, we were introduced to the learning about 2D graphic types such as bitmap and vector images. Besides that, we were exposed to the various kinds of image file format. There were JPEG, GIFF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, WMF and etcetera. A few links were given by Dr. Siti Fatimah for further reading and exploration about all those applications. Not only that, we were asked to explore the drawing facilities such as shapes and SmartArt in Microsoft Powerpoint and to come up with graphic drawings which would be used later in our brochure and booklet design.

Graphics applications available are very interesting and fun to be explored. It might be trifles to some but for designers, graphics cherish their life of designing. And I would say that I am very lucky to be given chance to explore those things in hands on my own. Even though I am not an ICT-savvy person but I take all the obscurities in learning ICT as a challenge for me to get better. That is what we call the process of learning. No regrets of spending my time exploring for I could empower my knowledge and enhance my skills in ICT. Teachers should be versatile. Am I right?

*Happy reading* 

Reflection Week 4

Our hectic life seems to be endless. So sad that we just have the chance to breathe freely for a few hours then we were showered again by another weekly assignment. The 5^th assignment was being e-mailed by Dr. Siti Fatimah, our course coordinator on Monday. Frankly speaking, we were all kind of lost in the mist after reading the instruction. Everything mentioned was new things to us. Oh yes, before it is too late to be mentioned, actually for the fourth week, we were doing to tasks at a time. In the PDF document that are being uploaded in GE1155 Yahoo!Groups, the assignments were labeled as Week 3b and Week 4. These two assignments were closely related to each other. So, regarding those two tasks, we were required to designed questionnaires allied to our initial topic chosen at the first place that was Web 2.0 in education.

            Before we moved further into the assignments, we were instructed to sign up for Survey Monkey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/ for the purpose of doing our Pilot Test which will be distributed to the course mates in IPGKS. The result for the survey was not recorded because it was to get us familiar with survey forms, methods to carry it out and how to get people to respond. These were all to prepare us for the next bigger and more challenging task in assignment Week 4. For the questionnaire in the Survey Monkey, we were only required to design 10 multi choice questions based on the topic Web 2.0 in education.

            After that, we were to design questionnaire in the Google Docs spreadsheet; checkboxes, multiple choice and scale questions. Not to be denied, it was very challenging to design questionnaire in Google Docs spreadsheet because we need to do it one by one. All we need was full cooperation as we were working in pairs and also endless patience. Done with designing the questions, then it was time to share the questionnaire with course mates in IPGKS as well as in IPGKDRI. Truly speaking, it did take us a few days to get the responses from them. The late respond was not to be put as a blame on them because we understand that each and everyone of us was very busy to get ours done first. Late respond was not a big deal to us. In fact, we appreciated their time and energy spent to respond to our questionnaires. Besides distributing the questionnaires to course mates via e-mail, we also made 10 printed copies of it and distributed them to 10 respondents in the institute. And for this, I should grand a million of thanks to our 10 juniors from TESL 1 and TESL 2 for willingly answering the questions.   

            The next step for this assignment was to collect all the responses, and key in the data in SPSS. Seriously I was lost at the first place for I have never used SPSS before. I just didn’t have any ideas on how to use the application. Fortunately, Mr. Fariduddin was never giving up in guiding us. For the analysis in the Google Docs spreadsheet, it was pretty easy for the reason that we could download the table from Google Docs and open it in Microsoft excel with merely a few clicks. After saving the excel thingy, we could open the converted data in SPSS. It was a real satisfaction in me for I am now able to apply the skills taught by Mr. Fariduddin independently.  

Employing Blog For Assessment

            Blog which performs as an electronic diary for individual has become trendy day by day. It is really not a surprise to see people from all folks of life to have an account for themselves as blog serves for everybody with the permit that they enjoy blogging and love to share their life experiences with others particularly their followers. As Web 2.0 is spreading its wings vigorously in this modernized and globalized world of technology, blog has been utilized as one of the platforms for the students and teachers to carry out teaching and learning virtually. Blog is being used for community building, simple conversation, knowledge sharing, mentoring, reflection writing, peer review and the making. And now, it seems that blogs are slowly standing on a well-built foundation to be employed for assessment. I reckon that everyone is in flow with me saying that blog is experiencing such a drastic and amazing growth. From a simple function as an electronic diary, now it is spreading its wings to be a parameter for evaluating students’ performances in schools and also higher academic settings.

             In employing blog for evaluation, it can be utilized in both formative and summative assessment for it is an ongoing assignment.  To carry it out, teachers should introduce it to the students at the very beginning of the course. Every student is required to create a personal blog for themselves. They should record their weekly reflection and all the learning processes they experienced during lectures, tutorials and also group discussion. Besides, everyone in the class should follow each other’s blog and comment on the posts. These are all to be recorded in chronological order. Hence at the end of the course, each and every one of them will have a blog resembling a journal of their learning processes and experiences for the particular semester. 

            But for nothing in this world can really fit everybody’s shoe perfectly, some teachers might just close their heart and mind from this transformation. Especially those senior educators who are “computer immigrant”, employing blog for assessment might just be a troublesome for them. But for those who are “computer native” and computer savvy, there will be no problem for them to start utilizing it to evaluate their students. Since the society nowadays is also very much computer savvy, I reckon there should be no problem for them to adapt themselves being assessed though blog. Erasing the troublesome that might be being experienced by some people, employing blog for assessment is actually an effectual way of evaluating the students especially students in higher education. Blog is easy to carry out, economical for no paper or printing is needed and so not time-oriented. For the teachers can monitor the students’ progress from time to time I think that the students will be more serious in doing their work. Without doubt they will not overlook the instructions given by the teachers as they know that assessment is being made through their individual ongoing blog maintenance and update. They are very aware that their marks are in their own hands. It is so easy for them to gain marks and to lose marks as well.

            Apart from that, utilizing blog for assessment is also a fairer medium to evaluate the diverse learners. As collaborative and cooperative learning is widely emphasized nowadays, some of the group members might just be parasites to their group particularly those who are not very diligent and weaker in academic. So, through the reflection that each and every student should do weekly to share about their learning experiences, teachers can easily detect those who are not doing the given work accordingly. Hence, the deduction of marks can be done accordingly to the right person who deserve it and not to affect the other group members who contribute much in doing the task. Apart from that, the reason why we conclude that it is a fairer medium for assessment is because it is an ongoing assessment. So, it performs as an advantage for every student with diverse ability, capability and intelligence. As the traditional form of assessment which is still being practiced until today, students are to vomit all of the knowledge that they have on paper within 2 or 3 hours of examination. In this case, some students might just turn “black out” or blank due to nervousness. They can think anything at all and there goes their marks for the particular examined paper. Hence, blogging for assessment may be their saviour.

            Nonetheless, there are still limitations and cons of employing blog for assessment. Before we think for other complex reasons, one fact to be remembered when involving online blogging for assessment is not everybody is committed in blogging. Some might just need to be in the mood of blogging then they will not feel being force or push to update and maintain their blog.  It takes a real passion and self-motivation for one to stay tune with their blog and follow others’ blog as well. Thus, it is not easy to employ blogging as an assessment because some students are just lazy to stay committed to update their blog. So, there goes their mark.

            Apart from that, I think that Malaysia is still pretty new to the modern kind of learning. If blog is to be employed for assessment in tertiary education, it might be acceptable but if it were to be employed since primary school, I reckon Malaysia is yet to be ready for that drastic transformation. This is because our country is still lacking of the facilities and workforce in that area. Inadequate facilities such as computer and internet connection in the rural area make it hard to employ blog for standard assessment. Students in the rural area might just do not have any idea about what blog is all about. Worst come to worst, some of them are computer illiterate. However, in my point of view, Malaysia should move with the flow of modernization in education in a continuum. Since now the tertiary education in Malaysia is so much emphasized on the online learning, the educators should slowly utilize it in the secondary and primary school as well. As for tertiary education, blogging are mainly undertaken mainly by universities, colleges and business enterprises. The meaning of blogging for the institution involved is far from matters concerning entertainment which is mostly used for important work, for research and even professional business. Especially for students who are taking distance learning, blogging is essential for them so that facilitators can keep track of their learning, sharing and even discussing about their work.

            In the nutshell, employing blog for assessment is not to be a troublesome for the tech-savvy society nowadays. Even though there are some limitations that may inhibit the employment of blog for assessment, it should not to be made as reasons for us to close the door of education for the better advancement. Everybody must keep their feet on the real ground and realise that we are now living in the modern world. So, we should try to adapt ourselves for any kind of advancement in education.

 To read the literature review (pdf format) done by Vanessa and me, you can visit the following link.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khatikaho_ipgks/files/Week%203a/

*Happy reading*

The Third Week [Reflection 3]

The third week was tiring. We were again assigned to do an assignment in pairs. For this week, our assignment was to write a literature review. The instructions given required us to find, read, analyze and do a review based on four journals. Two journals are to be downloaded form UKM online library, one from Google Scholar and another one from Google Books.

            Again for this time, I still stick to my loyal pair that is Vanessa Cordilia. As what was instructed by our course coordinator, Dr. Siti Fatimah, the topic to be chose for Assignment 4 and the rest to come must be the same as the one we chose for Assignment 1. So, definitely our topic for this assignment is again Web 2.0 in Education.

            First thing of all before we started doing our literature review, Vanessa and I worked together to find suitable journals from Google Scholar and Google Books during lecture on Monday for we could not get access to the UKM online library. But fortunately, Dr. Siti saved our day. She was willingly to share us her username and password to enable us to get access to the online library.

            After a few hours of searching, we finally managed to find four suitable journals in respect to our topic Web 2.0 in Education. We then read them analytically, identify our problem statement and take the gist of them. For this literature review, we agreed to narrow down the topic. So, we agreed upon the review on “Employing Blog for Assessment”. 

Learning Management System & Course/Content Management System (L/CMS)

What is L/CMS?

·        -  LMS is defined as a set of software application or Web-based application that is used to manage online learning and training.

·        -  CMS is an online system that is originally designed to support education or academic courses in academic settings such as varsities and high schools.

Who use L/CMS?

1.    - Students

2.    - Trainee

3.    - Educators

4.    - Course conductors

For further reading on the essay done by me and my pair Vanessa about L/CMS, please visit the following link.

https://docs.google.com/docume​nt/d/136gv1todBpPYb0HGgq-9OtcT​Af0mbcfqb7gF3pFlPBg/edit?hl=en​_GB

www.google.com

*Happy reading*

Web 2.0 In Education

The fast growing technology does not only affect the technology field itself but it does leave massive and wide footprints in the education field as well. As what it is clearly seen nowadays, education system in most of the countries around the world particularly to be mentioned, those well-developed Western countries. Asian countries are also catching up with the advancement of technology in education including our country Malaysia. 

This we can see through the implementation of e-learning or online learning particularly in the higher academic settings or tertiary education. 

Talking about online learning, questions always come across our mind on how it is being carried out. Will it benefit both the educators and students or will they cause any long term effects on them? Basically, from my reading it has come to my knowledge that Web 2.0 is one of the tools that support online learning. Web 2.0 is not to be an extraterrestrial term for those who are very computer savvy and clinging so much on the internet for their studies and careers. It is associated with the web applications that facilitate and cater information sharing, user-centered design and collaborative learning on the World Wide Web (WWW).  Instances of Web 2.0 tools are social networking as Facebook, blog, wikis, youtube, video conferencing and many more. If I were to list them all out here, surely they will make a super long and wordy list. 

High academic settings such as varsities and high schools are the common places where Web 2.0 is widely being used as a tool to carry out online learning. It is very common to see the lecturers and students interact with each other via Facebook, e-mail accounts, blogs and skype. Assignments are sent through e-mail. Whereas blog, Google document, Yahoo group and Facebook group act as the sites for discussion and sharing of ideas as well as opinions among the students involving the lecturers. Besides those mentioned earlier on, skype is also being used widely nowadays. However, personally I think that skype is more to private tutoring. Maybe the discussion or teaching and learning session can be carried out for two or three students in one go but it will not work efficiently in a group of a vast number of students. Still for me, the best is to carry it out personally.

On the surface, Web 2.0 really contributes a lot of pros to the education system especially now that we are going for online learning. By having the teaching and learning online, both parties do not have to spend their time for face to face interaction. Regardless the place and time, lecturers are able to distribute the materials of learning to the students and so do the students. This will help to solve the problem of missing out materials for learning because of absence or sickness. They can make done their group work without seeing each other at all. All they have to do is to make sure that everybody can get access to the internet and do their part with full commitment.

Apart from that, by using Web 2.0 to teach, the educators can involve everybody in the discussion and presentation including the learners who are very silent and timid. In short, Web 2.0 helps to overcome the problem of shy students being left out during class discussion in traditional classrooms. Discussion via internet allows them to speak out their mind on the topic that is being discussed.

Moreover, Web 2.0 benefits the learners for it is pretty economical. They do not have to travel much to meet the lecturers at the main campus or meet the course mates to carry out group work or discussion. With the permit that they have their personal computer or laptop with them equipped with the internet access, they are anytime to be able to download any materials given by the lecturers without delay thus complete their task on time.

From my own experience, when I was in primary and secondary school, online learning was not so much being emphasized. The education system was concentrating on the traditional method which involved compulsory face to face interaction, chalk and talk and books-dependent. But now that I am in a teacher training institute taking up a course that involve collaboration with a well-known varsity in Malaysia that is National Malaysia University, I rely almost 100% with online learning. Yes, we do have lectures which are compulsory to be attended but most of the tasks are given via e-mail. Especially for this semester I am taking up Computer in Education, online learning is so much being emphasized. For that course,  I have to sign up for numerous accounts online. I have to have an official Yahoo account, Gmail account, Facebook account, Yahoo Group and create a blog as well. The rational for doing those is for information sharing and discussion with our lecturer here, our course coordinator in UKM and our course mates. No doubt, it does make my life easier. I have no problem in accessing new information from peers and lecturers, share my work, carry out discussion and also do my research.

Nevertheless, I reckon that we should not be too flattered and convenient with the pleasure of using Web 2.0 as a tool in education because there are some cons of it too. From what I have discovered in my researches and readings, the presence of Web 2.0 will promote online learning to spread widely and drastically thus will silently erode our social skills. My partner, Vanessa Cordilia does agree with me too. For we are so convenient of using Web 2.0 tools for sharing information and discussion, we prefer to do everything via internet. We seldom meet our peers for group discussion or assignment. We even do not have to spend our time drive or walk to the campus to see the lecturer just for the purpose of handing in the assignment. Instead, we can just send them via e-mail. So, in my thought, less interaction with the outsiders will erode our social skills as well as communication skills.

Besides, strangers are easily getting access to our personal information. Social networking site such as Facebook is the centre where people share about themselves to their friends all over the world. For viruses are exist to disrupt the computer system, hackers and stalkers are also available to stalk other’s accounts be it for good purposes or vice versa. So, without our conscience, by sharing too much information about ourselves in Facebook or even blog, we are indirectly making ourselves vulnerable to fall as a victim for stalkers and hackers.


In the nutshell, there are really a lot of beneficial things I have learned through this Think, Pair and Share assignment. To be honest, it is not easy to work out an assignment in pairs because different people view things differently. Conflicting ideas and opinions might exist between the two of us. But I am very grateful that Vanessa and I never have conflicts or what so ever. We listened to each other's opinion and choose the best of it. We learn to tolerate and appreciate each other's views. Apart from that, we assisted each other a lot in finding resources and managing them. Indirectly, both of us got to polish up our computer skills. So, it short, it is agreeable that "two heads is better that one".


For further reading on what Vanessa and I have come out with, please visit the following link.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/145705692171230?view=doc&id=147600461981753

*Happy reading*

2nd Week of Lecture [Reflection 2]

For the second week of lecture, the assignments given are getting tougher and more challenging. More focus, diligence and patience are needed in order to be able to complete the tasks given successfully. For this week, mostly we have to worked in pairs to complete the assignments. Glad to mention, my partner is Vanessa Cordilia. The first assigment assigned was Think, Pair and Share. There were 10 topics related to computer and ICT proposed by Dr. Siti Fatimah, our course coordinator. Vanessa and I chose to do the 8th topic that is Web 2.0 in education. The topic sounded easy but actually it was challenging. There are a lot of information available in the net but a major thing to be remembered is NO PLAGIARISM. Both of us were trying our best to figure out what Web 2.0 is all about and how it is being used and apply in education today. To make things easier, we divided the task among the two of us. After a few hours of searching the information and discussion, we have finally managed to come out with a pretty long essay. An AUTHENTIC essay from the two of us. Frankly speaking, there are really a lot of knowledge we gained when doing this assignment. We get to know numbers of example of Web 2.0 such as blog, social networking site such as Facebook, video conferencing, Youtube and so on, how they are applied in education, their advantages and also disadvantages. Nowadays, Web 2.0 is leaving it's footprints in the field of education as e-learning is catching its fame worldwide especially in the tertiary education. Teaching and learning process can be carried out anytime despite the time and place as long as both learners and educators are accessible to the internet. However, we should not be tackled too much of its advantages for there are also numbers of disadvantages of using too much Web 2.0 in learning. As such, it deteriorates the social skills of the students. To read more about what Vanessa and I have come out with, please visit the document that I have uploaded in my facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/145705692171230?view=doc&id=147600461981753.

Besides doing the Web 2.0 issue, we also need to do research on C/LMS (content/learning management system). Things that we have to covered are what is it all about, who uses it, how, why and where it is being used. Apart from that, again we have to list out its pros and cons. For this task, we are required to upload it in Google document. Once again, besides uploading document in Facebook group, to upload document in Google is also my first experience.Computer in Education GE1155 really teaches me a lot of soft technical skills.

Lastly, we were assigned to complete the database in GE1155 yahoo group and also create a table of database in our own yahoo group. Being a non computer savvy, i seriously have no idea on how to do all those things. I tried to be an independent learner by discovering how do manage it by myself. Finally I managed to complete it with a bit of assistance from Mr. Fariddudin. He's always being nice and helpful. Without him, I'm sure that everybody in the class will get lost in their journey of completing the tasks given.

Signing up for numerous official accounts on net

Dizziness lingered me as we were instructed to create new official account for Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, Yahoo Group, Facebook and a blog. To create them is never be a huge problem but to manage them involves a little bit of problem. To remember the user name and the password for each account is a real challenge. But as a teacher-to-be, I must have the spirit to try and take up the challenge.

Yahoo Mail & Gmail 
First and foremost, I was to sign up for Yahoo Mail and Gmail on the first day of lecture. The most crucial thing about it was to make them official. Besides, funny names are not allowed to be used in creating the new accounts. The rational of it was to make sure that our lecturers and friends will be able to recognise our accounts easily. I didn't have much problem creating them since I had an experience creating e-mail accounts before. But the new thing I learnt was how to make it an official account. What I meant by an official account is I have my signature at the very bottom of each e-mail I compose and send to others. For example,


Khatika Ho
A135742
B.Ed TESL
UKM-IPG Kampus Sarawak

E-mail address:khatikaho@yahoo.com
khatikaho@gmail.com
Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khatikaho_ipgks
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/khatika.ho
Blog: http://khatika-ho.blogspot.com/
Hp no: 013-8280164


We were very fortunate to have a full guidance from Mr. Fariddudin in setting up these accounts. Hence, zero problems arose. 




Yahoo Groups
Besides creating new official e-mail accounts, we were also to create a Yahoo Group and join the group that our beloved course coordinator, Dr. Siti Fatimah have created previously. These are really new things to me as I never learn to create one before. I literally lost in the first place but after several hours of learning and exploring together with useful guidance from Mr. Fariddudin and also my classmates, I finally managed to tackle it. I have successfully created one and even added all my classmates including Mr. Fariddudin our lecturer and Dr. Siti Fatimah, our course coordinator to my Yahoo Group. After a successful attempt, I found that it was not that complicated to set up a Yahoo Group. All I have to do in the first place was to visit Yahoo homepage. Then I clicked on the "Groups" at Yahoo Services. After that, what I have to do was to follow the steps and instructions provided. I started with a very simple step that was to click on "Start your group today". It was then followed by completing details for my group, customized it and finally added friends to join my group. 
At the first place, I was wondering why do we have to create a Yahoo Group and also join each other's group. After exploring, I finally understood that Yahoo Group is a tool to connect with classmates, lecturers and people of the same interest efficiently. By having a Yahoo Group and get my classmates to join, it is easier for us to hold discussions and share information with each other regardless the time and place. It is truly interesting and beneficial and I enjoyed learning it.


Facebook
As we know, Facebook is very popular as a tool of social networking nowadays. And I am very sure that almost everyone in the world has an account for themselves regardless their age and location as long as they have an access to the internet. I myself has one personal Facebook account. For this course, we are required to create an official Facebook account to stay connected with classmates in IPGKS, friends of the same course in IPGKDRI, our lecturer and course coordinator. Besides, we were also to create a group in Facebook and get our friends to join.  No doubt, Facebook is superbly efficient. We can share pictures, recent activities and latest news by just a few clicks. Steps to sign up for a new Facebook account are as follow:
1) Visit Facebook homepage.
2) Fill in your information and click "sign up"
3) Customize your profile.
4) Add friends to your account.


To make my account an official one, I need to do the verification by visiting my account setting and get the administrator to send the code to my contact number. After the verification is done, my Facebook is now an official account. For this, I would like to express my special gratitude to Barbara Kath for assisting me much. THANKS A LOT BABE!


Blog
Finally...The final one. To create a blog. Oh..That was a real bizarre to me as I have zero knowledge on that. Yeah...I do heard about it before but so sad to say that I never bloom any interest in it. To follow anyone's blog is already out of my mind and what more to say to create one for myself. 
But as we were instructed to create one, I have to do so. I started from zero. A total ZERO. Thousands of thanks to my friends, particularly Barbara Kath and my room mate, Clearance Flora for their generous assistance while I was on my way of creating and customizing my blog. I created my blog using my Gmail account and then filled in necessary details in it. To make it easy for my friends to follow my blog, I took the initiative to use my own full name as in my IC in my blog URL.
Blog is simply an electronic diary. I can post anything, express my feelings and share them with everybody particularly my followers. Now that I already have one for myself, I find joy in blogging and I shall keep on blogging for the days ahead.
There are really a lot of useful and beneficial things I have learnt in Week 1. Just an early exploration but I really enjoyed myself. I really look forward for the nest lessons.


Love,
*ika*