Assignment 3: Designing Teaching Aids For Primary Schools

This assignment is to be done in group. Though it is a group work, but all of us are required to do our own weekly plans for listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The topic that i need to work on is "Fit as A Fiddle". In order to start drafting the lesson, of course i need to refer to the textbook what are the subtopics that cover the topic "Fit as A Fiddle". It is undeniable that some of us even bought the textbook just to do this assignment. For this assignment, we are required to plan three 30 minutes lesson plans and an one hour lesson plan. To begin begin working on this assignment, I search for as many videos, songs, pictures and other materials as i can. I think, this is just in order to make it easier for me to develop the lesson plan once I have draft the ideas and search for the materials. Another reason is, because it is the raining season, so the internet connection at my house will not function well due to the current weather lately. As the saying goes, "save it for the rainy days".

Another task is MS publisher. Until this task is assigned to us, I just knew that I do not have MS Publisher in my notebook. And now i know that MS publisher is one of the programs in MS Office. To be frank, this task is supposed to be done few weeks ago. But since I do not have the MS Publisher window, so I decided to work on some other tasks and assignment first. I only fix this problem once I got back to my hometown for "Raya". Well, at least it is on my mother's bill. Luckily, this task does not require me to crack my head, so I guess I do not have so much troubles in finishing the task during my "Raya" holidays in my mother's crib. Since this is a pair work, I would definitely refer to my partner Kamal for the confusions in completing the task. This is what I like about working in pairs. You don't need to worry so much other people's work, but a partner is enough for me to ask for some advices and opinions when you are looking for the solutions. Life is a lot more easier then.

Working on assignment 2

Assignment 2 in progress

Finally, I have chosen a video for this assignment which i found from the "British Council" website. It takes times for me to pick a video and plan a rough idea on how i am going to use the video in the ESL lesson. In general, the video is about "Lisa the lemur" who lost her tree house due to deforestation by the irresponsible, insensitive and reckless human being. I chose the video because it is not only interesting but also contain moral values in it. Well, I have to admit that, it really takes a lot of courage in developing a lesson from the video. This is because, it requires me to edit the video, capture pictures from the video and also extract sounds from the video. Converting the SWF file to AVI is already a matter to me. Now I know, SWF file is a type of flash files. Little did i realized, I have learned a lot from this assignment from encoding, downloading, extracting and editing.

Manipulating and developing materials

This assignment is to be done in pairs where me and my partner Kamal have already decided to work together again. I guess this is much easier for both of us since we both feel comfortable to work together. For assignment 2, we are required to develop the teaching materials from the video given which is "The Earth Song" by Michael Jackson. Instead of that, we are required to find another educational video that can be manipulated and developed as the teaching materials in the ESL classroom. Since there are two videos that we need to work on, so we have decided to do one each. Though, we did not really sit and work on the assignment togeteher, but we still keep in touch via "Yahoo Messanger" and e-mail to exchange ideas and opinions regarding to the videos that we have chosen to work on with. Well, this is what we call it as 'the world is just a mouse click away'. I guess, both me and Kamal has really make use of technology to the maximum. I think I better get started to search for the second video for this assegnment.

Four Language skills

I guess that i had any other choice now. By hook or crook I need to finish this "Four Language Skills" task before the holidays start. This is because, there are lots of task and assignments coming and of course, all of them need to be submitted after "Raya". All I can say is that, "I better get working". For this task, i decided to use e-book as the teaching aids. this is because, I chose to do a writing activity, thus, i guess e-book is more suitable to be used to develop a writing activity. Besides, I think e-book is practical to be used since we can include text, pictures as well as sounds clips in the e-book. Besides, I use e-book to compile all the ideas that I have came out with for the activity for that particular stage that i have chosen. From downloading, recording and photo editing, e-book requires me to use almost all the skills that I have learned. I guess, i better get working on the task now. Time to go...

Working on the 4 skills

Well, i may say that it was quite confusing initially, to start on the four skills' task. The task for this time, we are required to do it in a group of four. My group chose the topic on Clothes. For this task, i was assigned to do the writing skills lesson, together with the descriptions, tutorials and rationale. I guess that i am already in the 'raya' mood, so it seems that i lost my fully concentration to work on the 'four skills' task. As the beginning, I looked back the previous assignments that i have done when I was in IPIK in order to get some ideas about the lesson that i am going to develop. Not only that, I even looked up for examples of activities that I could use or modify for this 'four skills' task from my little brother's tuition exercise book to generate some ideas. Though it is a good news that Pn. Foziah has extended the due date for the "four skills" task submission, but still, I need to start working on it, for at least I have the idea and once i have got back from holidays, I will finish the task later. All I can say is that, "give me streghth"..

E-boook

A Surprise Birthday Cake E-book

Well, another task to go. E-book, it may sound easy for most people but for people like me, it takes time for me to finish the task. creating the e-book itself is not a big deal at all. Perhaps, it is due to the requirements that we have to follow on how to submit the e-book. The best thing i have learned from the e-book task is, always check your soft copy which you have burned in the CD so that it can be opened as an e-book (i mean together with the sounds and motions). But what happened to me was, early in the morning, when I was about to go to bed, I found out that the sounds in the e-book cannot be opened. my friend think that it could probably because I put the sounds and the e-book in different folders. So, I gamble to make another one and put it in the same folder with my e-book before I could burn them in a CD. Thank God it works...

Video Editing

So You Think You Can Dance?
To be frank, this was my first time I open the 8tv website and to my surprise, I can just click to watch or download my favourite television programs or dramas as simple as that. Well, I guess I have to admit that the world is moving so fast nowadays. Since when, I can't even remember. as far as I could remember, everytime I heard some of my friends talk about the technology and the software that they found or use, I would just sitting back as if I can't even interrupt to what they are talking about. But now perharps I can flaunt for what I've learnt and discovered. Seddenly, I feel much more (perharps I could say it as) 'knowledgable' about programs and softwares compared to the old days.

Though I have to admit that, it wasn't that easy for me and my other group members to finish editing the "So You Think You Can Dance" video. "Downloading" is already a 'thing', while "editing" is another 'thing'. But I guess, editing is the most challenging part because it takes me to really spend time working in front of the computer. The most important thing that I have learnt from this task is, "save the video that you have edited to the file that can be opened in any computers" since I've experienced "lost files" and video and I end-up editing the video again and again. Resulting that, I have to extend few days to go back to my hometown for the mid-semester break in order to finish the task. "What an exprience..". But, there's another video editing task to be finished by Friday, 22 August. And of course, that is to be continued after I come back from my holidays...