14th Week - The end of the Journey of collecting resources for the ESL class...

so, here I am...the second last week of the semester...but still...has modules to be completed...Module 5 has just been given out and I haven't managed to finish it...none the less, there is still one more week to complete it..

as for the individual work for module 4, I've decided to use a song by a malaysian artist, Faizal Tahir - Satu Malaysia.



the song was solely dedicated to the unity of the citizen of Malaysia.... so, it has a very close relationship with the topic that my group has chosen for this module's task.

for the pair work, I and Liyana had came up with a video entitled "The Environment"...the video was created using collections of pictures from the internet with some editing done to it and integrated with the legendary popstar, Michael Jackson's song - Earth song.
I and Liyana first chose a topic to work on which was "Saving our environment" for the year 5...

so, here is the video



hoped you enjoy the video and gained a valuable input from it...

until then..

my last entry for this semester....

chill!

13th Week - Module...module....module....and more module!

ok, in today's class, we received another set of module which is the second last module that we are going to get. This mean there's still a set of module that has not been given which is nodule 5, and it's already the 13th week!!!!!

hope there's going to be an extension for the handing in of the module...there's no way that I'm going to be able to complete all the works by the end of the 14th week...huuuuuuuuuuuuuu

ok...this module basically consist of tutorial for video editing...



here's are what's in this module:

1) Any Video Converter

2) BS player

3)Cyberlink PowerDVD

4) FLV to AVI Converter

5) Free Studio

6) HJ-Split

7) Image Grab

8) Power Video Cutter

9) Prism Video Converter

10) Real Player

11) Riva FLV Encoder

12) SID Video Cutter & Splitter

13) VCD Cutter

14)Windows Media Player

15)Online Downloader

wow..that is sure one long list of software for video editing....



more work I suppose.....

until next time~!

chill!

12th Week - E-Books

wow, time do sure pass by when your are really occupied with something to do....

assignmnets are rising like Mount Santubong, but with little time to do it.



and now there's another task to be done...we are to create an E-book in pairs and me and Liyana decided to create an E-book based on animals.

Before proceeding to the process of creating our e-book, Pn. Foziah showed us some examples and the criteria of how an e-book should be.

So, in brief, an e-book should have:

1) a theme for its storyline.


2) setting (time and place)


3) a plot that shows the conflict, climax and resolution for the storyline

4) characterization (characters in the story)


5) navigational tools to make sure that the slides can work properly

6) clear and colorful pictures to portray the storyline

7) sound effects that come together with the e-book reading.

It was indeed a big help when Pn.Foziah showed us some examples of e-book with a brief information on how to create a good one. That me and my partner had some inspiration and ideas to create ours in a way that will be useful to the pupils' learning. In fact, with all the skills learned from photo editing in Module 2, we managed to edit the pictures that were to be inserted in our e-book.

As it is copyrighted, I decided to insert only the first page of the e-book entitled 'Going To the Zoo'. He he.



So, here is an overview of our e-book:

A trip to the zoo by a boy with his father and little sister. He shared his experience as he described the animals that he saw.

After coming out with the storyline and preparing the first draft of the e-book, we consulted Pn.Foziah for her words of wisdom. Yes, there were few changes that needed to be done.

After the consultation time, she showed us some edited videos of Chun and Ella that were made by their fans out there. She informed us that later we are to create one for each pair. Also these videos are samples for one of the tasks that are meant for Module 4, where we are going to deal with video editing. The videos gave us some basic ideas on how to create a video on our own.

And for the task, my partner, Liyana and I decided to choose 'Pollution' as the theme for our video editing task. just wait for the next post on it ok...

And as expected, Puan. Foziah gave us the addition for module 2..hoooooooooooooorah!

special entry!

Curriculum~

The challenges that will be faced when implementing the new curriculum is that it is mostly based on ICT. KSSR uses a lot of ICT in the practice of teaching. some might find it as a very good and advance step in implementing ICT since it will make learning more fun with loads of resources to be found on the web. but for others, it might be a burden, especially those in the rural areas. it is not that as if i'm trying to look down on those who lives out of contact of the updated world today, but it's to say that they will need to put an extra hard work since some of pupils or even teachers in the rural areas are not use to using ICT in the teaching and learning session. internet connection is also very scarce in these particular part of the country, so works is needed to be done to provide better internet connections. for those school in rural areas who is by chance is lucky to be equipped computers and so forth, they might not be enough computers to use in schools and some might be outdated. this indirectly will cost the government millions to keep the KSSR real and practical to be implemented.


Another challenge is on the assessment of the pupils should the UPSR be abolished once and for all.

For this new curriculum, UPSR will be abolished in this new curriculum and they will then be assess on their performance since year 1 until year 6. In my opinion, it is very good when they want to start assessing since year 1. This helps them to keep track of the pupils development and achievement over the years and the stress and burden that these young people shoulders will be taken off. I can say this as i've experienced it myself during the days when i was living in the UK. the only major exam that we were going to take was GCSE but I didn't take the exam since i was already back in Malaysia.

The UPSR as far as I can say is to satisfy the parents as they will be very proud if their child gets the most A's and then starts comparing it with their neighbours or anyone else when the fact is that, its their child who had to go through all the troubles going to extra classes and carries those extra heavy textbooks to school. Parents would also be only focusing on their child when they got into standard 6 as its then that their children will take the exams at the end of the school year.

Although abolishing of the UPSR is somewhat a good thing, come thing that still lingers in my mind is that, how do they determines which school that these UPSR graduates will enrolled in. this is because most premier schools in Malaysia uses the UPSR to see whether they are eligible to be enrolled to a particular school. and also, with the UPSR gone, don't you think that the parents will lose interest in the achievement of their children and for teachers, they would lose the needs and interest to teach to the pupils since they will not need to prepare them for any exam and there is no more grades or the schools dignity to be kept high as most of the dignity comes from how good that the schools maintains the result.

Bear that in mind.


What strategies would you propose to overcome those challenges?

Ministry of Education(MOE) should held an ICT course for the teachers that is going to be involved in the implementation of the new curriculum. This helps them to be better equipped and enable them to help and teach other teacher with their expertise in ICT in their school. This will also makes sure that the government doesn't waste the citizens money by having a course for each batch of teachers.

For the places in the rural area, MOE could starts a place where the computer experts could teach the pupils and teachers computing and other ICT skills. All this will ensures that these people will not be lacking these particular skills since the implementation of the new curriculum will be mostly based on ICT and also ensures that all of the targets of the new curriculum is achieved. not to forget that the ministry must develop some kind of assessment that will replace the UPSR but does not mirrors what the UPSR is now.

To sum up, the changes implemented is done with the intention to moves us a step further to be a fully developed country as it will gives the future generation a better education. although the new curriculum is to paste a gaping holes in the current curriculum, it also has its flaw and still has a long way to go to prove its effectiveness. nonetheless, nothing is perfect, but try to take the positive out of everything in life so that you'll have a better one.

11th Week! Photo editing Task....

During the class, Puan Foziah asked us to show our task for photo editing..

Here a the photos that I've edited for this task...



This particular photo tells the story about me...I like to travel, so I edited pictures of me travelling places that I dream of going (the cliff is just an exaggeration!)

here's the next picture that I've edited..



I just love cars and motorsport...I did thought of becoming somekind of a racing driver but after a long thought, I think that it doesn't really holds a great future, so here I am...a teacher to be..

the pictures edited could also be use in the classroom..so the task is to help us to enhance our photo editing skills...

ok..

see you in the next post...

chill yaaaaaaaw!

10th Week! Editing songs....

ok, for this class, Pn Foziah asked us to show to her what we have done for the audio editing task...

she asked us to cut a song and making it into a ringtone and to apply the effect of fading in and out prior and at the end of the cut audio...I've chose a song by an american duo, 3oh!3 - don't trust me

I've got a positive feedback from her as I've applied the fading in/out effect to the song and she pretty much liked it.

Task 1



for task to, I've decided to use songs by the same duo with the addition of Katy perry.



and




I used Audicity for this project and I tell you, this software has become really handy since I've using it a lot to cut song to make ringtones for my handphone.

ok, Task 3, Pn Foziah gave us a song sung by the great Dato' Siti Nurhaliza and the legendary M.Nasir - Dua Insan..



the song is a recorded audio from a live showcase and she asked us to remove the audience noise from the song so that it appears to a recorded in a studio. the task was quite difficult but i managed to get the task done.

so, there were time left after I had shown my tasks to Pn. Foziah, so I decided to finish the remaining tutorials of module 2...there's still a lot to be done and from what I hear, there's going to be some more addition to this module.....

aiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~

until then,

keep chillin'!