On the road to 1:1 computing

Ouch my aching shoulders!

Hmm, it has been 6 days since I last had a good sleep or a clear head. I've been on the road to schools in Kelantan, Trengganu and KL, having lugged the luggage, the notebook and the file for the research, a break is most welcome.

Finally the preliminary data collection is done. Talked to more than 30 teachers, 90 kids and many MOE officers. The next thing we need to do is to process the data from the questionnaire and the interviews plus observations.

Let me paint the picture of the classroom with computers. They have beautiful curtains, skirting on the tables, flowers, posters, totally decorated classroom, a real novelty especially in the east coast. The kids looked very comfortable with the new toys, like they have had it for more than 3 months. They seem to know what to do with the tool. They fingered the tool most of the time, even when the teacher was talking or showing things to them. They told me that they use the computer to download games, songs, videos, and in fact surf the internet most of the time. Ever got caught? well, sometimes.... anyway, we do it again when the teacher is not looking.

I would say that the kids are very passionate about using computers in the classroom. However, they need more guidance from the teachers and more monitoring too. Their ICT skills are developing faster than the teachers'. It is unfortunate that the teachers are not given that kind of opportunities to be with the computers all day, I'm sure they would be excellent and if they have more time with the kids they would be able to learn from each other and learning would be more fun!

Teachers need to benchmark good practices, which is still rare. ICT in teaching in learning has its own literature and principles and theories to guide the teachers, however, not many teachers would be reading in this area, which is a shame really, when there is so much they could learn. Learning is an attitude, if we feel that the tool is a burden and that we can still get by using the old way, well, it would be difficult to transfrom, because it is so easy to be doing the same old thing over and over even with the new tools we would still force it to serve us in the old way.

What is the new way for the new tools? It needs someone to keep researching and testing the tools and the pedagogy and the learning to be able to prescribe the right way!

I'll continue the story later. Perhaps after I have processed the data.

Bringing the city to kampung for raya

One week has passed since raya. All that preparation and getting stuck in the jam was part of the raya pleasure.

"I felt liberated" were the words I said to my sister. Why? well, after more that 20 years of balik kampong being driven by my dear husband, I finally drove the two hours stretch from KM260 to Gua Musang. Well under a normal circumstance it would take an hour may be less. However, with traffic going in a wave pattern, my dear husband was under great duress.

I had to convince him to take the back seat and go to sleep, and allow me to enjoy the braking and moving at 5 km/hr speed. It was'nt that difficult, I could really enjoy the view and the scenery and had a good chat with the kid who was trying to keep me company. Sam would usually be fast asleep until we get to Pasir Putih.

The trip was armed with electronic games to keep the kids engaged during the raya. They were definitely engaged with X-box, PS2, Wii, Notebooks... surprisingly nobody wanted to watch TV...

The teacher and researcher in me had a wonderful time teaching and watching my little nieces and nephews learning to use the Wii specifically. It was a great experience to study them learning the new skills (mostly psychomotor) and new competitive strategies (mostly cognitive). I must say the Wii was up all day long for at least 4 days. The day before we left Kampong the kids were complaining about shoulder ache... Hmmm too much of a good thing.

What did I learn? Kids will learn from each other. Playing together is more fun that playing individually. The family that plays together will fill the house with laughter. Kids can learn the language when it is used over and over... "nice spare"

Well, I'll do it all over again next raya haji. Will have to remember to bring the "settlers of cattan " too next time.

Last day of class

Yes it is always with a heavy heart that I said good byes to my wonderful students at the end of the semester. We had a debate today whether to take home the exam or to do a sit down and write the answers.

Hmmm, it was a tough choice. Of course there are pros and cons to the take home exam. The benefit I would say is that the students get to read and explore and try to close the gap in their knowledge, especially when the questions require a high order thinking. Disadvantage would be that I would end up with essays to read. Often, they are more exciting than reading the exam scripts done in haste.

After much negotiations, the final exam questions are uploaded to moodle. They have three weeks to compose the answers and I would expect the answers to be of the highest quality, with depth and scholarly presentation. This is one of the ways to use assessment for learning I would say.

Good Luck all!

Blogging cont.

Been so long since I last spent time reflecting on my day to day existence. Why have I not done it? Hmmm... hard to answer that question. May be because I have not been spending time for myself. I've been moving at a pace that is making me sick. Yes, at my age, the joints and the muscles tend to rebel at a slight pressure and discomfort.

The shoulder and the neck have been the worst hit. This semester had been hectic. With my 75 TEYL kids blogging profusely and discussing in the forum diligently. Amazing what they can do when they found the tools that they like. Just like in the old days, when you give the kid a hammer, everything looks like nails to him. I know the analogy tend to be a little inappropriate, however, what I have done with my kids, is that I've shown them the (Web 2.0) social networking tool and it looks like they love the space. Hmmm the digital citizen, some of them, others are immigrants, just like me.

The amount of learning in PKEY3101 is tremendous. You can actually SEEIT (Students who are Empowered and Engaged in IT) happening. The students are creating content, teaching each other, peer coaching and mentoring is a common phenomena. As I said earlier they have found the tool that they like to learn with. Therefore, there's no stopping them on the road to becoming scholars.

Of course in any changing environment, there are many laggards and non believers. These are pepole who feel that they are forced to join the bandwagon. Dragging their fingers they typed in their blog and all the time thinking about the 10 postings that they have to meet. Innovators are also many. Those who moved into their new blogs and made themselves at home. They bought the curtains, moved the sofa and redecorated the walls. Musics, videos, slides, photos, poems, you name it they have experimented and tested the blog.

Professional blogging may not be a cup of tea for the trainees, however, over the last 13 weeks, some have declared that their barriers are down and will continue blogging long after the class is over. Oh well, I would like to belief that I've touched their souls and made ICT a part of their life and that I hope when they go to schools as teachers, they will be the innovators who cannot live without the ICT tools.

They in turn will transform their students so that they can also SEEIT the fruit of their hardwork. ahhh teaching is so much fun, when the students are doing it themselves !

Of course there is planning that goes into staging the show and making sure that the actors are acting and finally loving every moment of it.

I shall pen off and see you in the next blog.

RM