Week 9

Time flies and we are coming to the end of the course.

As I am trying to recall many things I have learned, and I tried to implement new technology tools in classroom situation and in the virtual world. It is not easy and it takes time to reflect and write the final report and at the same time read more and discover more things.

The end has come and yet it seems that it is beginning of something new. Over the weekend, I attended Teachers Christian Conference 2013 in Cameron Highland, Malaysia. In one of the hobby session, I discovered some new application in mobile technology. Again , it opens up my horizon to new things as we are discussing about online learning, there are talks about using Ipad to engage 21st century learners. They are advancing in using mobile learning, using new free application in Ipad such as popplet, showme  /educreations, flashcardlet, Khan academy, poll everywhere, todaysmeet, twitter, facebook,evernote and the list goes on.

Back to our assignment, I have implemented the new technology in the weaker class. I am waiting and hoping that my students will be able to catch up with their studies.It amazes me the importance to read the articles posted online for our reading. Due to my ignorance and busyness, I was lost in the platform provided in the reading assignment. As this week was a school break, I am able to catch up with my reading and at the same time marking of examination papers.

Just a while ago, I actually sent some messages to my students from the better class to attempt the questions I posted in the blog. I am still waiting for their reply. I am not sure whether my students are ready for the new technology or not.

The first week reading assignment about Weblogs for use with ESL classes by Campbell enlightens me the purpose of the blog. This year, I was assigned to help my colleague to update the school blog with latest news.It never dawned upon me to use blog to teach and as a  referencing tool for students. Woe to us, teachers, who are still making our students to copy notes by hands. I feel so guilty about that where my students should be exploring and discovering themselves the vast information out there.

In my country, the public school is still quite backward , they are debating not to allow students to bring mobile to school for it brings more harm to students, forgetting mobile learning is getting popular worldwide.

Week 8

It is rather challenging week. Quite a lot of things to do and meeting deadlines

Project Task
Please write your draft Project Report or your draft Project Plan. Add your draft report or plan to your Partner Page on the wiki.

Read you partner's draft project or plan. Using the Project Report Checklist or the Project Plan Checklist, give your partner feedback. Add the checklist to your Partner Page on the wiki.

Add some general comments to your partner on the Partner Page on the wiki.

My reflection:
It is important to plan early so that I have time implement the new technology tools with the students.  I managed to try two technology with my students in 70 minutes English lesson. It takes a lot of time to put the steps in the format given. by answering these questions cause me to think and evaluate the technology tools I have implemented in class. As I am using it without an obsever, it is difficult for me to monitor the actual learning that was taken place.

Week 8: Task – Create an Online Exercise/Technology Tool
Create something to use with your students.
I have tried using flash cards

Upload your creation or add it's URL (if it's a website or online tool) to the wiki page called "Week 8 Resources."
I actually have linked into the blog for he student to make reference easily after class time

  Week 8: Discussion – Online Exercises/Technology Tools

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After exploring some of the different tools and exercises for this week, share your ideas about how using these might change the way you teach and/or the way that your students learn.
I have used Blog as a platform for the learning through the technology tools to happen. I do not want my students get lost in looking for information.

How could using these tools promote learner autonomy?
I want my students to take responsibility to learn up the syllabus contents to improve their grades. They have a variety of activities to learn from. I need to consider the feedback from my students to improve the outlook and the display to make interesting attractive to them. I need more time.I realised that some of the vocabulary may be difficult to them. Students are responsive in giving the ideas in their own language and picking up the new language, English.


What are the constraints that would make it difficult to use these tools, and how will you overcome them?
Firstly, availability of internet access is problematic.The equipment is not working well. I used mobile technology to support the learning in class and mobile-learning is workable. 

Week 8

I actually introduced the cIkguwongll.blogspot.com to my students this week to two of the form 5 end classes.
Unfortunately, using one-computer classroom (ETEMS room) was a failure. Some teacher trainees has infected the computer with virus. The other alternative I used in class was to demonstrate how to go to blog using my mobile phone. They were amazed that they said they would try to access the blog at home.

I actually wanted to try out the interactive PowerPoint  with my students but it was unsuccessful due to virus attack.

This week Donna also put up some links for templates, I created some flash cards using British Council free templates
for revising Chapter 3. It is very convenient and easy to select picture from the library and type in whatever information needed. The weakness of using British Council templates is I could only print it and I could not save it for future use.
Therefore, I scanned it and converted it to Jpeg format

I can't wait to share this with my students in class.

Wong Lai Leng


Here are some evidences of what happened in my class.

A student attempted the essay question

Another student tried to write the essay question

Students in groups of two play the flash card game.

That's me trying out the game based interactive PowerPoint

Week 7

As I shared last week my students were not doing well in the literature component in writing essay, so last week I created and posted my interactive game-based PowerPoint. Sadly, I cannot test out this technology with the students yet for they are in the midst of sitting for the examination.

This week we are supposed to work on a new technology to help my students. I choose to develop a blog where my students can access and share the information on literature component. Come to think of it, I can share this with other teachers in my school who are teaching this novel.

This is my Blog for teaching the novel Step by Wicked Step(Work-in-progress)
http://cikguwongll.blogspot.com/

For a start, I have put in some information on the blog regarding the novel from general to specific. I could have display all the information I have found on the blog. I plan in a way that students should take responsibilities of their own learning (autonomy learning) and computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The students and teachers will learn though discovery method and post whatever they find online as comments.

Later on I will include some links on grammar lessons and vocabulary list for my students to work on their own weak areas..Whoever is interested to comment and join me as a partner.

Some model essay will be given, students have to create on they own essay

Week 6
As I have mentioned Mid Year Examination Week in my school had just began last week, my students from the weak class did not perform very well in their English paper 2. I have finished marking their paper. The last question which carried 15 marks. They left in empty. only five students attempted and they wrote 2-3 sentences,

My approach to introduce the characters in the novel is the literary text The Novel on Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine. I have used youtube,com to show the storyline from chapter 1 to 7 over a period of 4 months, each week a 35minutes lesson.  I have used the character mind map to differentiate all six major characters and their stories. Students read the text and made a summary  of what they read yet they did not write anything in the story. I am still marking the first class answers.

Currently, I have been teaching 2 classes of form 5 students aged 17, the first class and the last class in the school.There are 28 students in the first class while there are 33 students in the last class.


I have just developed interactive game-based quiz question in order to test and provide immediate feedback to students. At the moment I cannot use this new technology with them as they are still still sitting for other papers. I intend to use it once the semester reopens in June.

WEEK 5
This week was a busy week for me due to serious family problem and I was on duty as a polling officer in one of the polling officer for Malaysia 13th General Election (GE13) or Pilihanraya Umum ke-13 (PRU!3) on 5 May 2013. Therefore, I did not do anything online.

That's me on duty as polling officer

Thses 3 weeks of Mid Year Examination Week began from 3 May till 23 May 2013. On 11 May we just had Excellence Awards for our students.