Web 2.0 Review for the Relevance of Teaching in Classroom

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Hi madam... Assalamualaikum. :)

For the review for the web 2.0 tool which is suitable for the teaching, I chose to write on blogger.com which is being used widely throughout the world.

In my opinion, this is the best tool for the teachers to use for their teaching in the classroom. Why am I saying this?

There are many benefits and advantages of using this web tool besides of its disadvantages and limitations. However, I believed that any of the web tools which are available will surely have its limitations and I will still firmly stand for my choice of using this web tool as the best. :)

In context of using blog, we should 1) first have a Google account to register our blog. In this context, we can always said that it is very collaborative because we can easily connect to our Google whenever we made any change or if Blogger is informing anything on its update and if anyone is commenting on our blog, we will just get to know from the notifications through our email.
2) Blogger is very user-friendly in term of register new user as we only need to name our blog after creating our Google account, and tadaa, all the templates are already there for you and with just a click, you can choose any of the templates provided for you. And you can now start to use your blog freely since this is a free site. :)

-We can always write our educational lesson in our blog to make it interesting as possible to engage our students to learn. Before we move further, let us first look at the special features of Blogger.com.

These are from my own blog. :)

1) Templates and layouts

There are many beautiful and interactive templates which are available for us to use in our blogs as creative teachers. We can always choose whether to use our own template from our PC or we can also pick the templates which are free on the websites. For example, I usually use the free templates from the website thecutestblogontheblock. All of the templates are very colourful and interactive which will surely attract our future students to learn on the blog too.

As for layout, we can always customize our own layout in our own way that we want it to be. For example, if we feel like having a three-column blog, we can always customize it to be in that way. There are lots of fonts choices too.

Customized layouts on the blog.

2) Graphics

Moreover, we can put as many graphics in the format of JPEG, GIF or PNG on our blog. The maximum capacity for a picture uploaded by PC is at 1GB while for the mobile uploads, there is the limitation of only 256kb file to be uploaded. The usage of graphics in our blog is very crucial as it will motivate the students to learn besides of preventing them to feel bored. As we all already known, most of the children are visual learner who love to learn from pictures instead of plain texts.

This is an educational picture on my previous blog 'Teacher's Anecdotes'

We can also put some pictures with the students so that they will feel loved by their teacher, not just proud to have their picture on the blog. :)

3) Videos

Other than that, we can also put some educational videos to be used in our teaching on the blog. Although there is a limitation which we can only embed a video with the maximum capacity of 100mb for PC, we can also import the videos from Youtube to be shared on our certain posts.However, the Youtube video shared on our blog may be vanished after some time so it is best if we embed our own video on it.

Example of a video linked from Youtube

This are the examples of videos on British Council Site

4) Scribd files and Moodles or students' Workbooks and Portfolios

Eventhough there are some people who did argued for the ability of this web tool in sharing files or slides just like Facebook, we can actually do so by linking the files on Slideshare or Scribd and download them for free. They can also open their school's Moodle sites and their own work portfolios by simply click on the provided links.

Link to Scribd File

Links to the Moodle sites

The students' workbook links

5) Songs / Audio

Other best thing that we can do in the blog is we can also put some audio or songs on our educational blog as an entertainment for our students. We can choose whether to embed the song from any websites which you need to acknowledge them later, or you can also make your own playlists of song so that the students can decide on which song that they would love to hear during their lessons on the blog.

6) Privacy

We can also edit our privacy of the blog whether we would like it to be private and can only be accessed by our students or to make it as a public domain blog which can be viewed by anyone on the internet. More, we can also edit our authors of the blog and not just us who can edit on its contents.

7) Comments
Yeah, unlike Facebook, we can easily comments on anything that we post in it. Posting comments on blogs is a bit harder and complicated as the author will need to approve it first before being published and to be seen by everyone. This is however good as the teacher can always choose the comments which will be beneficial for the students and avoid the inappropriate comments that can affect the students feedbacks. Facebook will just allow anyone to comment anything on the post without one even having the time to check it before it is posted on that particular post. Although we can create our own group for the students, they will tend to overlook on other useless things on Facebook which I believed can bring more harms than goods for the students.

Example of comments on the blog. 

Example of a class group in Facebook.

8) Links

Other useful things that we can put on the blog is the links of other useful blogs to be used by the students to learn. For the language learning blogs like English blogs, we can also put the link to any of the online dictionary to ease the students in finding the meanings of the words that they might not know.

This is the example from an English educational blog.

9) Widgets

Some people might not know that we can also put as many gadgets or widgets that we want in our own blog, such as clock, calendar, games or even animated gadget to interact the students to learn on our blog. However, we should also consider that there will not be too many gadgets as it can distract the students.

10) Games and exercises
To make a best efficient lesson is that we will be having exercises to evaluate the students' understanding throughout the lesson. Even in any of the instructional technology theory, we will have the evaluation part which will come last in the flow, so it is a need to have at least an exercise or game in our lesson. We can do so in our blog by creating the exercises from any online software that available for free and embed it on our blog to be used by our students.

This is an example of games and exercise that we can always create on our own to be put in our blog.

From the special features of Blogger.com as being mentioned above, we can exactly classify them in four important distinguished criteria which can be used in out teaching sessions in classroom. The criteria are social connectivity, user friendly, collaboration and the abilities to be applied in the learning strategies.

1. Social connectivity

In term of social connectivity, we can always use blogs as a bridge for us to connect with our students in the classroom. It has been mentioned before that the students can leave their comments on that particular lesson that have been taught by the teacher. Other than that, we can also put a chat box for not only our students, but also students from other schools and in fact, from other countries as well. Moreover, a teacher can also simply put the questions or exercises on the blog without having to go to the photocopy shop and make a box of copies for the students. This can actually preserve our earth too by decreasing the usage of paper. :) Last but not least, a teacher can also interact with other teachers from another schools which then enable them to change and share their own teaching styles.

2. User friendly

In context of user-friendliness, some have doubted that Blogger.com is not an easy and friendly site to be used as a teaching aids. Well, this is absolutely wrong. It is undeniable that this before, there is not much features to be used in this site, but technology has upgraded it to be as user-friendly as possible. For example, from the beginning of signing up for this site, all the instructions were given clearly so that the users will not feel lost. Even after signing up for our own blog, instructions will still be given for us to choose the templates and to create our posts too. This blog is also free too whenever we are trying to put anything on it.  As an illustration, nowadays as one of the latest update of the Blogger.com site is that we can also embed any CSS file which can be used to replace the provided templates in this site. And the best thing is that, it is also FREE! Some of the available websites might not have allow such actions and only allow us to use the features which are provided only on the site, but Blogger.com does!

3. Collaboration
Blogger.com does have collaboration with other site. For example as being mentioned before, it collaborates with Google. The collaboration with Google can thus import our contacts from there to visit our blog. The contents that we have on our blog can also collaborate us not only with the students but also with other sites than Google through the links shared such as Scribd, Slideshare, Moodle, the link to education ministry's page and other education blogs made by other educators as well. The chat box provided will allow the students to collaborate with each other during the lesson and they might be able to get to know new friends from other schools too. Other than that, by sharing the links to other education blogs by other teachers too, the teacher can collaborate altogether in sharing tips and knowledge to improve the teaching lesson from time to time.

4. Learning strategies
Learning by using blog will actually prevent the students from wasting time playing games on the other site. This is because, even in our blog as well, there are games being provided. The students will not feel bored and that is where the importance of games to be put on the blog lies on. Moreover, the sources where the students might use to find information are also protected and reliable as the teacher has already shared the links of sites that they can use to find information. Using Blogger.com in our teaching lesson can also expose the students to the world of using technology efficiently. The student will learn and try new experience of creating their own blog as well if they find that it is interesting to use blog as everything is in there. For example, for the students who might have talents in creating their own videos or podcast, they can share it on their own blogs with their friends. That is why the teacher himself first try to make the blog as interesting ever too for the students. Lastly, by using blog, we can actually practise many teaching methodologies for the students. For example, by using blog, we are actually using the Silent Way Method as the teacher will not interrupt much in the lesson and only the students who will voice out their opinion on that particular lesson based on the aids those have been provided by the teacher.

So, I think Blogger.com can be the best web tool for teachers to be used in the classroom as we can create many interesting and engaging activities and lessons in it. Moreover, it is free and always get updated from time to time. InsyaAllah. Thank you mdm... :)

Third Reflection : Gagne's Nine Event of Instruction

Source from : http://insdsg619.wikispaces.com/Gagne

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim..
Literally, there are Nine Events of Instructions as according to Gagne :

1. Gain attention (reception)
2. Informing learners of the objective (expectancy)
3. Stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)
4. Presenting the stimulus (selective perception)
5. Providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)
6. Eliciting performance (responding)
7. Providing feedback (reinforcement)
8. Assessing performance (retrieval)
9. Enhancing retention and transfer (generalization)

• For the first event that is to gain attention of the learners or students, we as teachers should first grab their attention to learn on that particular lesson that is going to be done. That is why it is important for us to prepare the induction set for each teaching and learning process.
• Secondly, we should inform them the objectives of the lesson so that they will become clearer on what is the purposes of their learning.
• Stimulating recall of prior learning of the students is for us to know the background knowledge and the schemata from them so that we will know their level of understanding before the lesson takes place.
• Later, we as the teachers should present the stimulus that is to give the ample information on that lesson for that students.
• Then, learning guidance should be provided such providing good examples as to make sure that the students will always be on the right track until the end of the lesson.
• Next, to elicit the performance means that the students themselves will be asked to give their own examples or explanations on that particular lesson.
• After that, the teacher will provide feedback to the students work or example so that their understandings can be enhanced.
• The teacher will then assess the students' performance by giving them marks on their practice and also recommendation for them to improve their performance.
• Lastly, the teacher will enhance the retention and transfer by giving another context but still in the same lesson for the students to recall on what they have learn throughout the lesson.

For me, the other theory which is also efficient for our teaching instruction is ADDIE which study about the Analysis, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluation. 

In my opinion, Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction is a very good theory for us to follow as teachers for our teaching instruction. The level of understanding of the students can easily be measured. However, for some cases like having a 30-minute class session, it would be quiet hard for us to follow all the instruction successfully. We might have missed one or two level of the whole instruction. Wallahualam. :) 

Second reflection : Application of learning theories in teaching and learning

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

These three theories do have their advantages and disadvantages. As great creative teacher, we should always create a new way of teaching by combining the three theories for the best result of teaching and learning process, insyaAllah. :)

First Reflection : Effects of LINUS programme

LINUS stands for Literacy and Numeracy programme which act as the founder for these two learning skills in primary level. LINUS complement the third shift in education blueprint which aims to improve the students in literacy and numeracy skills. Without these two skills, it is quite hard for the students to compete in their career life soon in this developing modern world. Unlike previous efforts to address the numeracy and literacy problems, LINUS focuses on early intervention in the early primary years before the pupils enter Year Four.

There are few effects of the implementation for this programme:

1.     It is observed that the literacy and numeracy skills has improved. For example, the pupils who are in Year Three now recorded the average score of 99.5% in their screening test for numeracy skills. (Statistic from http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2012/09/05/linus-programme-for-early-learning/)

2.     There is no difficulties for the learning disabilities such as dyslexia and others who need more attentions from the teachers.

3.     The teacher learned more pedagogical skills.

4.     The action of reducing the teacher-pupil ratio effectively enable the teachers to monitor the progress of each pupil.

5.     Some teachers find that the programme is quite burdening since there are many other tasks.