Every photo tells a story

In session 4, tools for creating vidoes have been covered.  I have created a video clip using some photos taken in the Apple Race, an yearly event of my school, using Photo Story 3.

Photo Story is a piece of very easy to use freeware.  It can help use to create slideshows using our digital photos. Adding stunning special effects, soundtracks, and our own voice narration to ur photo stories are made easy.  Details of Photo Story 3 is available here.

Teaching with Resources on the Web

The Tower of Hanoi Puzzle is one of the problems I used every year to illustrate and teach the concepts and techniques of recursion in programming.

To provide hand-on practice to students, I have purchased 3 sets of Tower of Hanoi game boards many years ago.  Students are given these game boards to try and play in groups.

In recently years, these game boards are no longer needed.  Google “Tower of Hanoi”, plenty of online resources are available.  Some provide beautiful animations letting students to play and try solving the problem online, and animated solution is available.  One of them can be accessed by clicking HERE.
 

Web 2.0 in Education - Building a Virtual Classroom in SecondLife

Have you ever experienced a second life in the virtual environment provided by SecondLife? 

SecondLife has created a virtual world, each participant can create an avatar to represent himself/herself in this virtual world.  Every avatar we

meet in the virtual world corresponds to a real person in the real world.  We can chat or talk with others in the virtual world.  We can build our own buildings, rooms, and create our own settings.   We can share files, images, etc. in the virtual world.  You may click here to visit the website of SecondLife to get more information or to join it.

Thus, a teacher can use SecondLife to support distance learning.  The teacher can ask all students to create avatars for themselves.  He then creates a virtual classroom in SecondLife, and asking all students to log in and come to this place to attend the lesson.  The teacher can talk to the whole class as in the real world.  He can share the lecture notes and other resources.  Students can discuss with each others and with the teacher.

Use of Mobile Technology in my school

In my school, there is two wireless networks covering the whole campus.  One of these network is a secure wireless network providing services like Internet access, file sharing, network printing and school intranet access for all staff members.

All staff members can use mobile devices like smart phones, notebook computers to access the Internet and the school intranet.  Network printers are installed in various locations in the school campus.  Staff members can submit print jobs anywhere within the school campus and choose the desired printer for his/her print job.

Each classroom is equipped with a desktop computer with fast Internet access and a digital projector.  Each mainstream teacher is supplied with a notebook computer by the school while each IB teacher is supplied with a Blackberry smartphone.

Originally, the other wireless is supposed to open to all for accessing the Internet and the school intranet.  Each students can then use their mobile devices to these purposes.  But complains have been received from many teachers that students are using their smartphones and notebooks to access Facebook, msn, nba.com, etc. all the time even during lessons which comes to the concern of the school management.  Since then the network is not open to students until suitable measures are devised against the undesirable accesses.

e-learning standards for educators

e-Learning is getting more popular. When we develop e-learning utilities or courses, how can we ensure the quality of e-learning? To ensure the quality of e-learning, standards have been proposed and developed. The design and implementation of e-learning should then follow the standards, the "standard" of the courses can be maintained to an acceptable level. Besides, the reusability and interoperability of the e-learning “products” can be enhanced.

Many resources regarding e-learning standards are available on the Internet. I found one paper, "The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Distance Education: Guidelines for Good Practice” - prepared by THE HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM AND POLICY COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS May 2000, provides very useful guidelines (You may press HERE to view the paper).

On this paper, a total of 14 standards have been stated. AFT has long been active in distance education. This report constitutes the next step in the AFT’s involvement. In the fall 1999 academic term, the union surveyed 200 members of AFT higher education locals who are themselves practitioners of distance education to produce this report. These standards are expected to be applicable equally to public, private, non-profit, and for-profit educational providers.

Heading of these standards are listed below and the implications to our eLearning course development are briefly discussed.

1. Faculty must retain academic control

Distance learning courses should be reviewed and approved in advance in order to receive college credit. Teaching and research faculty, together curriculum specialists must be involved.

2. Faculty must be prepared to meet the special requirements of teaching at a distance

Proficiency in the communications technology employed is a must. Strategies and skills to communicate with students electronically in the absence of visual and oral cues is a must.

3. Course Design should be shaped to the potentials of the medium

Course design (curriculum planning, class projects, visual aids, library materials and student interaction) should not be replicate of the traditional classrooms, but be maximizing the potential of the medium that will be employed.

4. Student must fully understand course requirements and be prepared to succeed

Students must be prepared of the new mode of learning and teaching. For example, they should be given a clear statement of course requirements in advance and their responses to be submitted electronically.

5. Close personal interaction must be maintained

Distance learning should not scarify close personal interactions, real-time electronic interchange and asynchronous forms of communication must be available.

6. Class size should be set through normal faculty channels

This is to ensure that education rather than bureaucratic or financial considerations drive the process.

7. Course should cover all material

The amount and the depth of material covered should equal that of a classroom-based course.

8. Experimentation with a broad variety of subjects should be encouraged

The process should be reviewed very carefully and courses that have been unsuccessful should not be offered in future.

9. Equivalent research opportunities must be provided

Distance learning students are provided with same opportunities as the traditional students. They should be given assess to all possible electronic research material.

10. Student assessment should be comparable

The level of achievement expected of students, and tested for in a distance education environment, should be as challenging as that in a classroom-based course.

11. Equivalent advisement opportunities must be offered

Same-time same-place advisement should be made available.

12. Faculty should retain creative control over use and re-use of materials.

Students should have guarantee that the course they take is of the same quality as before and has been updated to reflect changes in the subject area.

13. Full undergraduate degree programs should include same-time same-place coursework

The faculty should assume responsibility for carefully considering how much coursework is appropriate to be obtained through distance education. A full program taught at a distance may be acceptable as determined by the faculty.

14. Evaluation of distance coursework should be undertaken at all levels.

We must conduct more rigorous evaluation of distance education programs and disseminate the results broadly.

TSE Chi Kui (Andy)

1988054934

Re-purposing a Web 2.0 application as a Learning Tool

eQuizzer

eQuizzer is a free web-based quizzing program.

URL:
http://www.equizzer.com/

eQuizzer allows us to
- create custom quizzes that can be taken online.
- manage our quizzes and monitor our students' scores.

Original Purpose

The original purpose of this program is to help teachers to create custom quizzes and monitoring students' performances.

Re-purposed as a Learning Tool

This program can be re-purposed as a learning tool to help students to explore and consolidate their concepts.  After finishing a topics, teacher asks students to use this program to set a quiz for their classmates.

To setup a quiz in the topic, students will be motivated to make themselves familar with the concepts and techniques of the topics.  Besides, they are encouraged to explore in further details to set challenging questions for their classmates.

When attempting the quizzes, each student will have sufficient drills.  Besides, students may need to explain to their classmates regarding their own questions.  In the process, concepts and techniques of both parties are consolidated.

Justification

Students being frequently tested by teachers, they will be enjoyed to test others including their classmates.  When self-motivated, they will certainly put effort to finish the task.  In the process, they will explore the topics further to set challenging questions for their classmates.  Besides, they will ensure themselves to be familar with the concepts and techniques of the questions they set.   Besides exploring the concepts and techniques by each student himself, each can also acquire the extras explored by their classmates.

TSE Chi Kui (Andy)

1988054934

Sharing after 1st lecture

Here I also want to share some of my experiences.  I am a secondary school teacher, teaching AL Computer Studies and ASL Computer Applications.  My school employs eClass to assist teaching and learning.  Last year, for each course I was teaching, I created a "Classroom" in eClass and related resources could be downloaded.  I also posted questions asking students to discuss online.  Students could also post questions to me and to other students.  Nonetheless, after a month, I found that the students' participation was not satisfactory.  Some students seldom logged on, few students gave responses to my questions, and even fewer ever posted any questions. 

Later, I found that they all have a msn account and they like to chat using msn.  So I created a msn account for this purpose and joined their network.  Since then, they chatted with me on msn regularly.  Initially, many trivial things were exchanged.  Then they started asking me questions regarding the course.  I would not give an answer immediately but post the questions to others via msn, asking all to think and discuss.  Certainly, I would not tell the origin of the questions.  In most cases I received responses from some of them, and I would give them a summary finally.  Gradually, I would send them the questions, but also posted them in eclass, and asking them to discuss in eclass.  Finally, I would only post the summary and my answers in the eclass.  Though they still mainly asked me questions via msn after lesson instead of eclass, the participation in eclass was much higher and most of them did discuss in eclass.

Why students enjoy communicating with me using msn instead of eclass?  I think first of all they are familar with msn but not eclass.  Secondly, students have the pre-conception that msn is for fun but eclass is for teaching and learning and so must be boring........

Tse Chi Kui (Andy)

1988054934