iTunes U delivers the facts behind the science fiction.

Mon, 3 Nov 2008
1 min read
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Thanks to the Utah Education Network, students at the Utah Electronic High School get to watch weekly science fiction films, many of which would be perfect candidates for Halloween. That includes films like Black Dragons, Curse of the Aztec Mummy, The Devil Bat, or Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory. Though iTunes U can’t show you the films, SciFi Friday can bring you the reality behind the fiction in them.

Via.

Exciting, no? I like the way in which podcasting and education have merged. And there’s a whole host of universities that have jumped on the bandwagon, including prestigious/older universities:

Programming from two of the most prestigious universities in the English-speaking world — the University of Oxford and Cambridge University — is now available on iTunes U. The two have provided lecture series, walking tours, films, “Interviews with Oxonians,” performances by the St. John’s College Choir, and video series on “Art,” the Environment,” “History,” and a range of other topics. Peruse and enjoy.

Singapore still has a long way to go then…

Reflections: Session Eleven + Twelve / Last shot out?

Fri, 24 Oct 2008
3 min read
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Almost forgot to do this but will bash out a quick post as I have my Ed Psych assignment waiting for me.

We’ve come to the end of the ICT course and I will miss it quite a bit as it was one of the few courses in NIE that could engage me fully (and I’m not just talking about the assignments).

The walkabout sessions were very fruitful and I’m glad to have had a chance to partake in our classmates’ projects (as well as their makan 🙂 because their discoveries also opened new doors/made new inroads into education and ICT for me.

For Session 11, Jo-Ann, Frank and Terence’s group as well as Anjali, Andrew and Shah’s group had the most memorable presentations for me, partly because the subject matter they touched on were relevant to my teaching subjects, and partly because they best demonstrated engaged learning using ICT.

Session 12 was when my group had its presentation, and you can view our finished product here. My take-away from our presentation was Dr Tan’s comments about Wordle – in our haste, perhaps we didn’t realise that Wordle itself could be used as a tool for teaching students.

How we could enable this was through running a compiled list of student responses through Wordle and examining which were the keywords that came out the most. From here, students would be able to tell if they were on track or could improve in terms of, say, their character analysis.

(We can’t update our pages anymore, but I thought I’d note this down here, sort of as a means of filing this bit of information away as future reference.)

Anyway… Is this the end then?

Maybe not.

George Eliot wrote in Middlemarch that “Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending” (832). Or if you’d prefer a pop culture reference, Semisonic sings in “Closing Time” that “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”.

(Or if you want really mind-boggling stuff: The Smashing Pumpkins “The End is the Beginning is the End”. Is the Beginning? Is the End?! Lol.)

I started this blog earlier saying that I wanted to see what it would grow into, and I think I’m starting to see where it’s headed: like Dr Tan, I think I might want to use this space to blog about education.

I’m not too firm about my decision yet because I’m always worried about the boundaries between what is ‘safe’ and what isn’t, in terms of discussing work and the organisation.

But one thing for sure is this: like most of my life, I always find out what to do as I go along, so if anything, this is the approach I’m going to adopt for now.

With that, it’s goodnight, not goodbye.

Oh wait – I still have an essay to write. Damn. Er, oops, I mean: Yay!

Reflections: Session Ten.

Sun, 12 Oct 2008
3 min read
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  1. Our group’s mind map on our thoughts and lessons learnt at the COTF.


    (Please click to enlarge.)

  2. How do you think your tutor has attempted to engage you in this course?

    Using the categories listed on the MOE website, I have seen the following emerge from the tutor’s efforts:

    1. Collaboration with others, where one example would be informed group decisions. We had opportunities to share our opinions on classrooms issues (e.g. the latest online poll we just had on the lesson assignment deadline) so that we are involved in structuring our own learning. I think this is important because it gives students a sense of ownership of the lessons, thus motivating them to want to participate more actively in the classroom.
    2. Meaning making with scaffolds, where each subsequent lesson builds on the knowledge gained in the previous one. This course has one of the best-scaffolded lesson structures I have ever had, and I’m not saying this just to polish any apples – I mean it from the bottom of my heart. My experience and realisation of what good scaffolding really means came about during the Individual Essay Assignment. As I was writing the paper, I realised – hey, this essay has been much easier to do compared to the other essays I’ve done before, precisely because we were given prior opportunities to carry out research + knowledge building. What’s more, those opportunities were also part of the evaluation schema, so we were effectively killing two birds with one stone. I’m a big fan of efficacy, so I was really bought over by this concept, and it’s something I aim to carry on doing in the future.
    3. Real world learning contexts, where we are challenged to create lessons using ICT tools that we ourselves find useful, so that we can conduct classes that are meaningful and have an impact on students, in order to enhance their learning.
    4. Evaluating on-going performance, as exemplified by this blog. I am constantly testing out new ideas and questioning old ones in order to push the limits of teaching. As I type this statement, I am forced to consider: are there any limits in the first place, or are said limits set by our own fears?

  3. Which of these strategies might you use in future and why?

    Ideally, I’d like to use all these strategies in the future. However, we don’t live in a perfect world, and changes are bound to occur. So perhaps a more moderate viewpoint might be useful here, one that might state that we carry out each strategy to meet the needs of students, if it is desired that these needs must be met, according to the environments and contexts that both the students and I are located in.