Session 8 (2/3)

This week, the last 2 Demo groups presented their ideas. We were introduced to edublogs and classtools.net.

I've heard about edublogs before the presentation and I know it's catered mainly for students and teachers, but I have never gone into the exploration part. The group's demonstration gave me a clearer idea on what we can do on edublogs. I would have to admit that this is a good blogging platform as compared to other blog service providers as it provides a lot more "services". I especially like the catergorizing of posts part as I think that it will make the blog easier for both students for teachers. It is also a very good communication tool (which can be tracked by the teacher) and it provides a platform for ideas sharing. As it also comes with 100MB free upoading space, it makes it very convenient for students and teachers to upload files onto it and does not have to constantly worry about lake of memory space. This saves the trouble for the teacher to look for another medium or program for students to upload and share their files. Also, I went "wow" when the group introduced that edublog users can import and export posts from other blog service providers (pardon me for not knowing that), it is all so convenient for students' learning. The main advantage of using this tool is that the students can find everything that want (related to their lesson) in just one platform. It makes it so convenient and reduce the possible grumblings from students that they have to go to so many places to look for what they want. Just like all of us who has to blog after each lessons and reflect about what we learnt and such, I believe that this is a good tool to promote engaged learning in students. I say it is useful as in mty own experience, it is. It got me thinking about certain issues after lessons, after blogging, and even while playing the DS or PSP. Game-based learning that is...

Anyway, the other ICT tool is classtools.net. Again, I've not heard of this tool before. But after the Demo, I came to realise that this is such an interactive tool! It's definitely going to get students' attention for all the games, games creation, creative templates of mindmaps, and even all the bright colours. (Won't students feel dull and unmotivated seeing everything in black and white?) I think there are some aspects of both lesson plans proposed which I like/caught my attention. For lesson plan 1, it's stated that 2 groups will share the same passage to facilitate comparing and contrasting. I think it's good because if each group is assigned to different passages and teacher gives feedback to each, the students only get a very vague idea on this idea or that, and there isn't really any impact. However if the students are able to compare ideas with other groups, they might "see" different ideas presented out and not just hear it from the teacher. In this case, students would learn better and have a deeper impression and greater impact on their learning.Also, students also have the chance of learning from each other, and this is very important for students' learning as well. As for lesson plan 2, students get to create their own games and have to play all the games created by others. I think this is such an "open" and interactive way of learning. It's also hands on and provides first hand experience for students in creating games. Students are sure to be motivated in the playing and hence learn something academic at the same time as a result of that. I mean, how many times do you actually get to create and play games for your lessons? (not including the gaming in MXL) The gallery walk is also a great idea where students get to display their works for everyone to see. This is sure to induce thinking and learning!

That marks the end of all the demo group presentations, and I would say that I learnt a lot from this, and is definitely going to provide some aid for my future teaching! This is all going to be useful because of all the focus of ICT in schools, especially in future. Now I have better and wider ideas on how such interactive tools can be used for teaching and learning.