engaged learning

let me first start off by sharing my own definition of engaged learning. to me, engaged learning is about engaging the learners (students) in meaningful ways to learn new things. as the learners are engaged in the lessons, they are encouraged to construct and produce meaningful knowledge. for example, to engage us and to help us to learn to incorporate ict into our lessons and curriculum, we were involved in using various forms of ict for presentations in the class. this provided many of us with opportunities to learn new forms of ict tools. we, as learners in this course, were involved in the whole learning. i should say, we were all engaged in the learning!

engaged learning is also student centered. students are at the very core of the learning process. they are the reasons why lessons are planned in a certain way. engaged learning is also interactive as the learners are actively involved in the learning process. besides that, teachers played the role of facilitators to guide students to discover new things for themselves. students play the role of explorers and in our case, we explored various forms of ict tools in this course and shared the new found knowledge with each other through peer learning.

i guess this is one of the classes that i enjoyed myself. engaged learning elevates the entire learning environment of the learners and helped us to look forward to every lesson. for now, i'm back to rushing my projects and assignments. till then, take care! :D

classroom of the future

i visited the classroom of the future (cotf) with my buddies on monday afternoon. the moment i stepped into the room, it was as though i had entered another world. the first scene was that of a bar or drinking place. it wasn't a conventional classroom setting! but we could still carry out lessons in that environment... so what's the point to bring back? lessons should not be restricted only to classrooms. we could learn anything anywhere. the influx of technology was overwhelming! from the umpc that we were allocated to try out, to the multi-user learning tables where collaborative learning took place, learning was pure enjoyment and fun! :)

learning is really fun and student-centred in the cotf. for example, we could discuss or collaborate with people from other countries for projects. language barriers no longer hold as there could be built-in translators to do translation of conversations. asking teachers questions could be done so much easier and faster. however, i wonder when we would see cotf implemented in the schools. it would definitely be exciting and something that i look forward to. perhaps not the whole aspect of it... maybe just relevant parts would suffice.

as for iN2015, i think it's a realistic possibility. with the advancement of technology in the world today, it is a matter of when what's being protrayed in iN2015 happens. learning in singapore in 2015 might no longer be textbook-centred or classroom-centred. it will perhaps be a combination of face-to-face learning with computer-based elements. according to iN2015's blueprint, it aims to give everyone seamless access to intelligent technology and the ability to take charge of it. so that's going to change the educational landscape with our IT masterplan three already in place. ict is going to be the new buzz word. lessons will no longer be done in the same manner.

as a whole, the preparation or training given in nie is not sufficient for us to face such environments. so how do i as a teacher better prepare myself? i guess i would simply have to keep myself relevant and up-to-date with the technologies and always stay in the frontier of technology changes. be daring and courageous to explore and learn new things. do not be put off by the demands of making changes but chart into uncharted waters. embrace new technologies and make it a part of my life. only then will i truly enjoy the emerging environments in the near future! :D

getting ready to enter cotf

issued with my umpc

a ride with buddies in the "future" train!

educational gaming with me via video conferencing?

wide screen projection... cool!

second life

this was my first time exploring second life. i think it's really fun and the whole class practically enjoyed ourselves through the changing of the appearances of our avatars and etc. being an avid online gamer, i'm really surprised that i haven't heard about second life prior to this lesson. i shall sign up for an account soon and explore the educational benefits of second life.

as mentioned in the video, one educational benefit is for students to explore role playing in second life such as going back to a period in history to witness certain historical events. i think this is one area that is lacking in normal classroom lessons now and would certainly enhance the some current history lessons.

besides that, students could also participate in guided tours to replicas of famous locations in the world. however, as these areas are replicas of the actual locations, i think some of the details might not be as accurate as what we would see on actual ground. but second life would definitely bring the world into our classrooms! students can also explore, co-create objects and embark on experiments in the virtual world. this provides many opportunities for students to communicate and interact with one another. there are just many educational benefits from second life as listed in the video.

however, educators have to be prudent and helped students to understand what they are doing in the virtual world and guide them back to live in the current world. else, students in the future might be only able to survive in the virtual world and neglect their real world. but again, that's another issue that we might face in the world. for now, i'm for learning through second life!

can gaming be educational?

can gaming be educational? from young, parents have always told me not to play while i'm studying. so the first thought that struck me was... how can gaming be educational? if it could, surely my parents wouldn't stop me from playing games all these while. however, this happened many years ago.

today, gaming has become a language. according to Social Impact Games, gaming has become an avenue where ideas are expressed. in fact, many game designers are looking to maximise the social impact of their work. so back to the question, can gaming be educational? what are some of the factors to consider for making gaming educational?

i learnt that parents and educators are to adopt positive attitudes about video gaming. with the change in attitudes, we would be able to introduce games and simulations to learning. educators, in general, are skeptical that gaming could be educational. i think all of us would be more convinced if we could back up the claim that gaming is educational with experimental data. this would reassure all major stakeholders such as parents, students and educators that gaming could be educational.

with many educational games around, i have to train myself to use learning games and also incorporate gaming into my lessons when possible. gaming would provide me with an additional option of activity for lessons. till then, i'm back to my games to explore how i could include these games into my lessons!

e-learning week

this week has been great! with the full timetable kicking in, the workload is piling up. almost as high as it could get now. it's been a while since i did my reflection over here. as much as i embrace ict and am a regular blogger before coming to nie, i find it hard to find time now to sit down and blog my thoughts with the amount of work coming my way. ict is good but it is only good when people know how to use it and have the time to use it? just something for me to think about as life goes on... :)

this week in e-learning, we read about issues that occur during the implementation of ict into curriculum. i found out that there are indeed many areas to consider when implementing ict into lessons. it's not just about choosing the form of ict to implement. in fact, it goes beyond that! there are issues like class room management, student motivation among others to consider. no foolproof plan for implementing ict into lessons but the key is to be well prepared before implementing ict into lessons. this week's lesson added another dimension to my understanding of implementing ict into lessons. in the past, i thought it's simply just using a suitable form of ict and try to use it in the lessons. there's actually so much more to it!

besides the implementation issues, we also had to think of strategies to tackle the implementation issues. there's not a single way or strategy of solving an implementation issue. so i hope to learn from others how they would tackle the same issue. this would widen up my scope and we would all benefit by learning from one another. so i'm going to go wiki-hopping this weekend to pick up the tips from the rest.

in the coming weeks, each group will be doing a demo and i hope to learn new things from the various demos. i think some of the things on demo are rather new to me. even if it's not totally new, i guess i could discover some new things that i didn't know previously. looking forward to the weeks ahead! in the meantime, have a blessed weekend! :D

week two

week 2 was great! for the second lesson of this module, we began by forming ourselves into groups of four and sharing with each other the most engaging activity we had in school. interestingly, many of the groups shared about what we had done in literature lessons. i concluded the lessons were engaging because it was pupil-centred rather then teacher-centred.

i knew the use of ict will enhance the learning environment in the classroom. however, there isn't a single form of ict that fits all lessons. the use of ict has to be carefully crafted into the lessons. using ict for the sake of doing it may defeat the very purpose of introducing ict into classrooms. there are times we come across teachers who used powerpoint slides for lessons and they merely read off the slides. perhaps that don't engage the students enough.

from lesson two, i learnt about the four dimensions of engaged learning. the four dimensions are already present in our classrooms in various forms but this lesson helped me to understand more about the four dimensions clearly. to me, all major stakeholders like students, teachers and ict have to come together for engaged learning to take place. a delicious cake needs a good chef to bake it, good ingredients to make the cake and also consumers who likes and knows how to appreciate the cake. in the same way, for engaged learning to take place, teachers must understand their roles in doing this, ict must be adequately and properly use and students must play an active role in the process of learning.

i hope that i can learn how to better incorporate ict into my lessons and also to continue to engage my students in learning. with the rolling out of the master plan three for ict, ict will continue to be the buzz word in the education environment. i also hope to understand more about the usage of ict in classrooms and how they can better enhance learning.

i shall share in the next post how one of my colleagues used ict in one of her history lessons. till then, take care! :D

first post

yes, this is my first post! had my first lesson for qed 522 and met up with new classmates in the lesson. that was our class pic!

prior to the start of this course, i've already my own blog. in fact, i "experiment" with new blog templates from time to time. besides blogging, i also create my own youtube videos and have accounts in friendster and facebook. so these things are not really new to me. during my school experience in school, i have also used youtube videos to teach lessons. i suppose IT would play a big role in the current curriculum.

there's always things i won't know, such as podcast and etc. for this course, i hope i'm exposed to many new IT tools and also how we could better integrate them into the curriculum. for things that i have already learnt how to use, such as blogs and youthtubes, i hope i can learn to better use them for teaching of lessons.

for this week's lesson, i've learnt about moe's master plan one and master plan two. i have never heard about these master plans till today's lesson.

so far i have no questions yet. but i guess they will come and i'll ask along the way.

looking forward to next week's lessons! :D