Questions on ICT....

If you had the chance would you utilize ICT (CALL) in your teaching?
Of course I will.

How do you think it would help (or would not help) your students to learn English?
It will help them a lot because of the mass information that can be retrieved (if using the Internet) and because of the ideas and information that we try to deliver is not dull and boring like what traditional learning materials have.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing CALL in the Malaysian schools?
the advantages are too many to be stated here. I would say that it will be more fun and interactive and students could use ICT as their second teacher and do not depending 100% on their teacher. The disadvantages are it is sometime very hard to master the technology in using ICT and students might use the technology to go deviance. There are also a lot of school that do not have basic facility and equipment to implement ICT well.

What are the barriers in implementing CALL in the Malaysian classroom?
As I mentioned above, there are a lot of school without basic facility and equipment to run ICT related class. The students are also unfamiliar with ICT because its implementation is still new in our schools. The students might also rejected the idea of using ICT if they are too exam-based.

Please also include any other comments/thoughts/ideas on this topic
ICT can be implemented well in this country if government is very serious to make it a way of learning. it should start from the students' early days as kindergarten students and continue to primary and secondary. it will also take time to see the effect and it should be evaluated from time to time to see if there are any flaws that can be mended.

Lesson Plan - School House Rocks

Lesson Plan (Worksheet has been sent to izahamsi@gmail.com)

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK




LEVEL: Form 1

TIME: 35 minutes

AIMS:

To find specific information on a Website; to learn and understand what is adjective and adverb.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:

One computer per group of 2-3 students with an Internet connection and a Web Browser.

Websites: http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzGLzFuwxI (adjective)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8kD1A7wtDo (adverb)


PREPARATION:

1. Find several information from the Internet.
2. Using the information on the site, prepare a worksheet.


PROCEDURE:

1. Ask the students to open the website indicated.
2. Play streaming videos on adjectives and adverbs from the Internet.
3. Give the worksheet on adjectives and adverbs. Ask the students to answer all the questions. They could play the streaming video on their computers to get playback option for better understanding.
4. Discuss students’ answers.
5. Tell the students notes on adjectives and verbs have been posted on the class’ blog. Ask them to answer the questions regarding adjectives and adverbs provided in the blog.
6. Ask the students to watch streaming videos on noun and verb in Youtube before the next class.

Website Evaluation

Website Evaluation

Sorry for the late post. Just got back to Shah Alam. Here is the assignment anyway.


The website I evaluated:

http://esl.about.com/

1. The websites I chose is targeting people from the age of 5 years old through 18 years old. This shows that the contents are quite versatile and cover a lot of ground. It also is targeting on the ESL teachers. There is also a link on teaching ESL section.

2. When using the websites in learning or teaching, it is best for users to go through all the notes they want to have a look at. Then they could jump to the sections with quizzes to test their understanding of what they have read. As for teachers, they could refer to Teach ESL section to get ideas for teaching as there are a lot of useful information can be found there.

3. Basically, to use the website, a user needs to have knowledge of using hyperlinks because the contents are neatly divided to several sections. Besides that, the user must know how to download stuff since the website has prepared a lot of download, mostly on the quizzes.

4. While using the website, it did remind me of the time I had in the classroom where my classmates and I have to answer question sheets by referring to notes given. The quizzes with the audio files did feel like listening session in the audio visual lab. However, I do not feel it is the same as when I am study alone because it much much easier to understand the notes and activities compared to when I used reference books or notes taken during class.

5. In my opinion, the best setting to use the website is in a lab associated with a class, with earphone provided for every computer. This is because there are activities that need the users to use hearing aid to complete it.

6. Theories used in the website apart from Vygotsky’s constructivist theory and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory are Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition and Relational Frame Theory (social-interactionism).


7. As for the Vygotsky’s constructivist theory, it is largely applied here as to use the website because to effectively using the website, students need to have background knowledge of the things they want to learn or answer in the website and the students could learn the scientific concepts out of what they know from everyday notions and adult concepts. While for Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory applied on the reading and listening activity. ICT is also integrated into the lesson.

8. In my opinion, computer will never able to replace teacher’s position. Therefore, it will only be an obedient servant to students and the teachers. However, it really need to be integrated in lesson since it makes learning process is much easier compared to the traditional method of using paper and whiteboard.

9. I would really like to use the website in my future work because I found the contents to be relevant to teach wherever I go because the topic range from easy to advance. It will also be interesting to have class session using the Internet in the lab and out from the boring setting of a classroom.

10. I saw the website is too straight forward in delivering its contents. It contains a lot of quizzes but no interactive activity at all. I think this is to promote learning and not playing, but it resulted in the website to be quite dull. I suggest the webmaster should incorporate interactive lesson in his website to make it more interesting.

The In Class Assignment

For Work Only

The general purpose of this website is for education and exercises only.