Researching..reflecting week

today we just got another task: doing an analysis of a research report. well, used to encounter and work with this kind of task before..and here it comes again. time to read, time to put that long lost thinking cap back in action, time to crack your mind and juggle between raya celebration and doing assignment. well, that is life. if im not a student, then it would be so awkward doing all this stuff. but the problem is I AM A STUDENT..and that's the problem hehe..been too lazy lately..

so today we had another boring presentation session; kudos to those presenters who make their presentation lively and fun enough..but majority: just read from the slides..yes..reading session..why dont just give me the slides and i'll read it at home eh? just wasting my time..well, honestly i had not been listening to much of them..and friends i guess did the same..except those flattery ones..of course,,such hypocrite brats. i dont mind at all..mind your own business then.

so back to our newest task: this time it is getting serious, and deeper. im afraid i'll get lost along the way..well..hate it! hate to be lagged behind others who are and quicker and smarter than me. luckily, whatever we need to do and are required of us is listed down ( clearly) in the task question paper..so i'd better hury up and read it in ADEC forum...

basicly we need to find an article and read it and carried out some kind of deep analysis by taking out all the information from that research paper and then....(lost my words)...em..emm.. ok..better read the instruction better this time around hehe..

tHE designer part II

last Tuesday we were given a task to explore Microsoft Publisher, and to come up with our own design of name card, pamphlet, poster, book cover and a newsletter. i like this session best as we were given ample of time to work on the task on our own.

this is the second time im using Microsotf Publisher. the first one was during the IPIK-time where we were asked to come up with our own brochure for explaining our assigned topic. i learned a lot from previous experience, and this time didn't face problems when the lecturer asked us to do this activity.

i dont know about others, but i really enjoy the session. my partner and i, we planned to come up with this funky ideas as a group. we each take a role:- im the Divorce Planner: my job is to advice on unhappily married people to opt for a divorce scheme that my company offers, and to help them throughout court sessions and procedures. while my partner: Syaza:- she's a marriage counselor, her job is to advice couples on how they could rebuild their marriage and solve their problems.

i'd like this made-belief play come to real action:- to see how many "customers" we get. we had a competitive hours while carrying out this task, like we were those people in real life. and it made both of us enjoy the task, it also help us brushed aside the stress and burden of our assignments.

being imaginative and living in your own imaginative world is not a sin: if you get inspired from your dream, why not bring it in the real life and enjoy it. who knows what could come out from just a simple childish dream..i think people nowadays have forgotten how to live a simple life and laugh at jokes. why we take it so seriously? we are so selfish...i wonder how today's people were brought up by their parents.


so back on our task, so far my partner and i managed to complete the partner task. the newsletter task, since we haven't discuss about the materials to be put inside, we still far left behind to complete it. i wonder if other groups (it is to be done in group of 5@6) have started working on it.

any idea??

Developing Materials

the second assignment was done on saturday. that leaves me with just enough time to work on my other assignments. this assignment which initially seemed to be hard to handle really challenge my creativity. we were given a video and need to use the available resources from that video to create our teaching aids. i've never done this tasks before. usually we just take a video and edit it wherever possible so that it suits young learner. but to extract all the possible materials from that video and reuse it to create another teaching aids: wow! that's totally new to me. and i found it difficult at first to gather ideas and to start essemble back the materials to make one teaching aid. but finally i made it. and it was worthy because now i learn that there are so much teachers can do to adapt a material to suit the young learners.

i find e-book is very useful and mostly the effective teaching aids to be produced. since Power point allows animation, gif pictures replace the old still pictures, and the animation is made possible here. almost all items in the slides can be animated. and with added program like my Capture Wiz Pro: e-book is possibly turn up into a video like teaching aid. that would be a level up from what im currectly doing..

but to finish the tasks earlier make me breathe at ease..and still, i have enough time to edit my work before i submit it to the lecturer

Working Without a Coursebook

we had just presented the reading materials given by our lecturer..my friend and i were assigned to present a topic on "Working without a coursework". i was quite nervous as this is the first time for me to step up in the front to present the topic (for this semester..) i have been very quiet and dull when the semester started on 7th June..and finally there is a room for me to show my true colour..i found presenting to my friends quite annoying because majority of them were tired after several couples had presented earlier..so when it was time for us to present: (we were the last one!) everyone was busily doing their own stuff..that's common i guess. i didn't pay attention either but was slightly disappointed: that's all.

under my topic: i discussed about "Deciding How Frequent And How Long Language Lessons Should Be". i read the Power Point slides and the notes given it for couple of times and by the time i presented it: i was quite sure that i understood what i was talking about. the subtopic is mainly about how teacher should get on their work: dividing the 2 hours given time to teach language wisely to suit the need of the children. i just learned that if teachers don't have that syllabus or CS in hand, they could actually divide the 2 hours into 2 one hour lesson or 4 half and hour lessons. there would be however the PROS and CONS to this practice.

i find this pieces of information really useful and practical..again: it depends on teachers themselves to consider it. having short language lesson will make children feel less bored. but what i am concern about is whether we as teachers one day could actually sort all things into that short lesson while ensuring that the children are engaged in meaningful contact hour.

when talking about this concern: i remembered my past experienced in SK Sri Suria for the School Based Experience last semester. we were given a double period lesson to teach language. unfortunately, because the school practises a mini assembly after each recess hour, we were left with almost 35 minutes to carry out the lesson. we tried to squeeze the planned activities into that 35 minutes, but as we are inexperienced in handling the real bunchful of children, we didn't manage to carry out the complete lesson. the Post stage was made short and we didn't even manage to carry out the Closure stage.

we learn a lot from our experience and will not stop from learning..

Finally..

we already uploaded our e book task in 4shared.com. finally we can start working on our next assignment which is due on 9th September. this time around i didn't have problem with the uploading process..but i wasn't quite satisfied with my e-book. i think i could do more than what i had produced and submitted.

the narration thing: i just learned that Power Point 2007 has this feature to record our own narration for every slides. i just discovered that this feature is useful for me since i dont have any recording devices at hand ( my phone has poor quality when it comes to recording voice). so i just reset the setting for narration, increase its file quality and start recording my own narration.

it did work well..except for the annoying sound while the slides move to another slides..and poor me because of the last minute work, i didn't have enough time to edit the narration one by one (there are about 20 narrations with each narration takes only 3-8 seconds).

but for the portfolio, i find this could be further improved. there are plenty of time for me to improve my work and hopefully i manage to do that.