I am a Power Searcher!

I attended the Power Searching with Google course and is proud to earn a certificate! It was a simple online workshop about search techniques. I learnt some nifty stuff about searches, for example,  searching images using colour filters. I didn’t know about it before the course. Haha!

I hope Google will come up with more courses related to its applications. The course also features Google Hangout. Although I didn’t participate, I think it’s a great start for Google to deliver online lessons to masses.

感谢左手 2012

I’m so impressed and amused by my Primary 6 boys’ video adaptation of a textbook passage. I don’t think I can produce it myself

Ironically, a few parents told me NOT to assign online work to their children. Perhaps I should show them this video next time. Their kids are really doing amazing stuff

Till 2016, we can be reconnected again.

What would you do if you noticed some of your graduating students spending too much time on Facebook and neglecting their final year examinations? These students shouldn’t be on Facebook too as they are below 13 years old.

How would you feel when a 9 year old boy sent the above Facebook message to people in his network announcing he will be deactivating his account because it’s illegal for him to be on Facebook? He is sad to lost all the connections till 2016.

Everybody likes Edmodo!

It’s the start of the new school year and what a great encouragement from my Primary 3 (Grade 3) kids! The survey above is ‘Do you like to use Edmodo?’. The top 2 options selected are ‘Love it’ and ‘Like it’.  One kid commented she prefers Edmodo because it’s ‘private’. I’m sure the LMS will have lesser love this year, at least for my classes

1 year later, Primary school pupils still prefer Laptop/Netbook

Last year I did a simple survey with pupils from Primary 1 to 6 on their favourite devices for learning in classroom. Laptop/netbook was their favourite device. This year I did another similar survey with a smaller group of students (and ex-students) in Facebook. Laptop/Netbook retains the students’ top choice. Despite the rise of tablets in 2011, it remains as the ‘sub ‘ device, clinching the second place.

Interestingly, Interactive White Board seems to be gaining popularity among students, overtaking the iPod and mobile phone as the third choice. Is IWB is next big thing or fad?

Update: iPod, mobile phone and gaming console just overtook the IWB. This is an ongoing Facebook ‘Question’

Bad choice of hashtag?

I find it strange that the official Ministry of Education (@MOEsg) Twitter account is using the #sgedu hashtag. While the #sgedu hashtag has a much larger following, it is widely used for satirical tweets. Take a look at my Tweetdeck screen shot of #edsg and #sgedu side by side.

I have sent a tweet to @MOEsg but sadly it has been ignored.

I’m not trying to advocate using #edsg but it seems @MOEsg is missing the point. What do you think?

Update: @MOEsg has started to use both hashtags together in a recent tweet.

Best of both worlds?

3 things I learned from the Adelyn Hosehbo saga

‘Adelyn Hosehbo’ is the infamous Singaporean teenage girl who became an instant Internet hit because she boasted slapping her mother on her Facebook. The whole incident went viral when local citizen journalist portal Stomp published it. The rest is history.

3 things I learned from this saga:

1. Cyber wellness, character and family education are very important for kids today.
2. Digital footprints travel at exponential speed in social media.
3. It’s a great teachable moment or resource. In fact I already noticed some of my students doing similar things. This incident amplified the reality.

Reinterpretation of Steve Jobs’ quote

Reinterpretation of Steve Jobs’ quote: “You can’t just ask students what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

Oral practice using VoiceThread

Lesson Idea Synopsis

This lesson aims to engage students in self-directed and collaborative learning using free audio recording and authoring Web 2.0 tools such as VoiceThread (http://www.voicethread.com). One of the main learning outcomes is to improve students’ oracy skills through blended learning in face-to-face and virtual environment. This lesson also offers ICT-based assessment.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students are able to read and record their oral passages fluently, accurately and clearly. 2. Students are able to listen and evaluate their personal audio recordings. 3. Students are able to do small group voice recording. 4. Students are able to evaluate audio recordings of their peers.

Overview

How was the lesson carried out? (Please include level, ICT equipment & resources needed, pedagogy or strategies used, thinking skills taught, if any, duration of lesson, etc) The targeted students were primary 6 students in a Mother Tongue (Chinese) class. The learning space is a computer lab with 45 desktop computers and headsets with microphone. The whole lesson is inquiry and problem driven – we call it the S.P.A.C.E concept. Total duration of the lesson is about 3 hours (6 periods). At the very beginning of the lesson, I tuned in with a scenario (S) “My friend did very poorly in oral exam. He is very depressed and need some help”. After a lively discussion with the class, I shared an assessment rubric with the class and posed a problem (P) “How can we help him to improve his oral performance based on this rubric?” After the students brainstormed for ideas, I guided them to ask (A) questions like “How can this method improve his oral?” and “How do we know this method works for him?”. After this discussion, the class came to consensus that we can create ‘VoiceThread Tutorial’ to help our friend. Next, I assigned a short passage to the students and instruct them to do voice recording in VoiceThread while reading aloud. Since the students have been given hands-on training on the basic use of VoiceThread (http://www.voicethread.com) prior to this lesson, they immediately started audio recording. While the students recorded their reading, I listened to their works and based on the assessment rubric, I picked 1 good, 1 average and 1 poor work for verbal peer evaluation. The next hour was to get my students to get into small groups of 4 to 6. They will collaboratively (C) record an audio story of an excerpt from a text passage using VoiceThread. This process involved role-playing of different characters and everyone in the group had some lines to say. While the students recorded their reading, I listened to their works and based on the assessment rubric, I picked 1 good, 1 average and 1 poor work for verbal peer evaluation. After the students completed their audio recording in VoiceThread, I will let the class listen to the 6 selected audio recordings by peers. Each group will evaluate (E) the recordings based on the assessment rubric. At the end of the peer evaluation process, each group shared their scores and explained the rationale of the scores based on the rubric. After this evaluation process, my students and I have a common understanding of the qualities of a good reading aloud. During the last hour of the lesson, each group got to produce their final version of ‘VoiceThread Tutorial’ which must include audio recordings of both assigned materials. Based on the results of the peer evaluation, each group fine-tuned their reading aloud of passage and role-playing text excerpt by paying extra attention to pronunciation and expression. At the end of the lesson, all groups managed to create their very own ‘VoiceThread Tutorial’ to help their friend improve his oral. How did ICT value-add to the learning process? How did the use of ICT change the learning and teaching process? The typical learning process of oracy skills is to engage students to learn and apply the language in daily conversations. While the traditional classroom setting can provide teachers and students interaction, ICT has greatly enhanced the asynchronous nature of learning a language. This lesson has empowered students to create audio tutorials which can be accessed anywhere and anytime. Most importantly, students learn from their peers more effectively with the affordances of Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 tools like VoiceThread has extended students’ opportunities of mastering the language orally by providing them a self-directed and collaborative virtual environment to learn and share. I used to conduct mock oral examinations to listen to my students one at a time. With the affordance of web technologies, I am able to hear my students’ reading aloud even after school. This has greatly increased the effectiveness of evaluating students’ performance and designing lessons to help students who have poor oracy skills. The ‘VoiceThread Tutorials’ produced by students are also great teaching resources! What were the outcomes? (Benefits to pupils or teachers, re-designing of pedagogy, development of staff, etc) Based on results of feedback by students, most students enjoyed using VoiceThread to practise reading aloud passages. All students are more motivated to read aloud with VoiceThread compared to the typical classroom reading aloud sessions. Students became more self-directed to improve their oracy skills when they are able to evaluate their own reading and learn from their peers. Using voice recording tool like VoiceThread has empowered shy students to speak up and form personal learning networks with their peers in a virtual space. Some students did audio recording of the textbook passages on their own accord. They also shared their recordings and asked for feedback within their network of friends. For myself, using VoiceThread for oracy training has given me a great alternative assessment tool which is ICT-based and asynchronous. How did you assess student’s learning using ICT? (Examples of work produced, etc) Throughout the S.P.A.C.E pedagogy, I constantly assessed students’ learning using VoiceThread for oracy practice. I am able to hear each and every pupil’s reading aloud in the platform and constantly provide feedback for weaker students. This is almost impossible in a traditional classroom environment where only a few more vocal students can be heard. In VoiceThread, I can provide timely feedback in the form of voice or text comments. This informal assessment mode has greatly improve the interaction between myself and my students. In S.P.A.C.E, I am also able to facilitate peer evaluation and this has added an extra dimension to my assessment of pupils’ learning. What went well during the ICT lesson? What would you do differently next time? This ICT lesson went pretty smoothly mainly because the students are motivated to create something from their voices. As compared to a typical oracy training session which does not promote the ‘create’ domain in Blooms Taxonomy, using VoiceThread for oracy practice does that beautifully. I would definitely like to let my students have more autonomy in digital story telling with VoiceThread in the future. I would probably redesign the lesson to allow more room for creativity and facilitate holistic learning of Mother Tongue language beyond preparation for the oral examination. Will you be conducting this lesson again? If so, when will it be? (E.g., Term 3 in 2010; on-going, etc) Yes. In fact I have been exploring the recent features in VoiceThread that allows students to make continuous voice recording while they make transitions from one media to another. I will probably re-craft a similar but simpler lesson for a primary 3 class in the 2011 Semester 2. Which aspect(s) of Self-Directed Learning (SDL) does this lesson highlight? How would the students display the SDL competencies? SDL Construct: • Ownership of Learning SDL Indicator: • Student sets learning targets for himself/herself. SDL Activity: • Students got to apply their oracy skills on digital story telling in VoiceThread. Every student’s audio recording is application of refinement in oracy techniques like articulation, pronunciation, expression and accuracy. Using VoiceThread for voice recording also provides intrinsic motivation for students to improve their oracy skills when they anticipate peer audience and teacher’s immediate feedback. Which aspect(s) of Collaborative Learning (CoL) does this lesson highlight? How would the students display the CoL competencies? CoL Construct: • Effective Group Processes CoL Indicator: • When a student works in a group, he/she shares ideas with his/her group members. Everyone agrees on what everyone must do. He/she uses computing tools to work with his/her group members to complete a project. CoL Activity: • Students worked in small group and role-played different characters in text excerpt reading aloud session. The VoiceThread platform enables students within the group to contribute and students from other groups to learn and critique.

Primary school pupils still prefer Laptop/Netbook

I did a simple survey with pupils from Primary 1 to 6 on their favourite devices for learning in classroom. The survey result from 267 kids shows that laptop/netbook is still their favourite device despite the tremendous popularity of the Apple iPad, which takes the second place. It’s a close fight between Mobile phone and iPod Touch for the third. I also noticed kids are also interested in E-Reader and IWB. They shown little love for digital cameras and voice recorders though.

I think it’s a useful student perception survey if the school is planning for 1:1 implementation. I guess my next survey will be for teachers