Schema

I was going through some of my fellow course mate, Kat's blog on schema, I decided to blog about it too. A Schema is said to be mental representations of an associated set of perceptions etc. The influence how you see what is going on. Last week, our lecturer, David gave this experiment activity to test our schema based on it.

An experiment

Read the following paragraph and fill in the blanks. If you’re really keen add a comment below with what you got. Actually, gathering a collection of responses from a range of people would be really interesting.
The questions that p________ face as they raise ch________ from in_________ to adult are not easy to an _________. Both f______ and m________ can become concerned when health problems such as co_________ arise anytime after the e____ stage to later life. Experts recommend that young ch____ should have plenty of s________ and nutritious food for healthy growth. B___ and g____ should not share the same b______ or even be in the same r______. They may be afraid of the d_____.

Now, take a look at the original version of this paragraph.
Is there any difference between it and what you got? Certainly was for me.

Lego Robotics

I came across Jennifer's blog about this Lego Robotics. Lego Robotics seems so fun to work with, but it is usually used with children from Grade 5 onwards. The Lego Mindstorms NTX offers a wide range of activities you could use it for especially in your classroom. This video below shows how to incorporate these with the younger age groups of Year 1 & 2 students with the help of the Year 6 students who will fix it up and work together. It is not suitable for the younger age group like those in Foundation year for it would be too complex to understand. Recently when I was watching Running Man, a Korean TV Variety Show, I found out that this is the Top 5 toys that children want for their Christmas present!! If I were a child of their age (year 5 onwards) I think I would love to try my hands at it too!

Class Dojo

Class Dojo is just so cute an app or a website you can use be it if you are a parent, teacher or a student in a class. Class Dojo is behavioral management software…something like a digital reward system which reminds me of how we used to be given sticker stars whenever we do something good/ come early for class etc previously when we were a kid too!. This app/ website really stimulates the children to behave themselves and fully participate in the classroom as they are given points every time they do something good and minus points if they misbehave. Best thing is each child is given an account of their own and they are able to create their own avatar monster and are able to keep track with what they need to improve on during class. Marilyn talked about how she would love to try it out the next time we go out into the kindergarten as now we discovered this too late - after practical is done! I too feel I should try it out one day but I think the downside of it is that you would need to have WiFi access to the necessary and that it would be only suitable for ages 5 & up.

Reflection from the 15 days Practical - Teacher training

I really enjoyed myself during the time I spent at Grace kindy where I had to implement the use of ICT to the children of a class who are not often given the opportunity to work with other technology materials such as cameras, laptops etc in school. In one of the lessons implemented in the class, I got the children to take turns to come up with a sentence each to describe the situation found in the picture given and then typing it out onto a PowerPoint presentation. I  had even taught the children how to use a hand phone camera to take pictures of their plant's growth everyday and we would record it's growth in a Microsoft word document table. The children really enjoyed most was the Video stories that are downloaded into laptop for them all to see and the process of crating their own story in the "My Story Maker" website. Overall, this process of using ICT was a success in teaching children with new ways and methods as Angela had also pointed out in her blog post.

Interactive White Board (IWB)

I have been to a few places in Malaysia like the National Science Center where they have interactive whiteboards for children to play with, however unfortunately.. I was not given a chance to once teach in a school that had one! Most Malaysian kindergarten schools do not have them as it is quite a hassle into learning this new technology and it's also very expensive, whereby most normal schools are pretty much unable to afford! the harsh and sad reality.. on the bright side, there are many uses of this interactive whiteboards where even our college Segi's classroom is equipped with one too! yay! Even our Lecturer uses it ! Especially enjoyed reading Mrs Poulter's blog about how it was implemented to teach children and could even read about some of it's benefits when used in teaching >> here << great read! Here's a picture taken by my friend Hsing Hua who did this lesson with Neena using this IWB in their class.

Blogging for Kids?

After reading Vicky's blogging post, I got inspired to talk about this topic! It's true and quite an interesting and exciting idea to implement blogging to children.. especially after knowing how fun it could be getting them to reflect and post up pictures and videos etc in their kids blog usually done in a classroom. However, after going into school and doing implementation of integrating PowerPoint presentations for children to type words and create sentences on my laptop.. I found out that they were not yet ready for blogging! I couldn't believe that these children have not been exposed to typing much on a keyboard before. Even during their Computer Lessons every week, their computer educational CD program only requires them to type very few words like following their sample word given e.g. "tooth brush". I found this sample of a KidBlog written by Tom, a 6 and a half years old boy who really knows how to blog about anything and everything he learn and of his interest like writing movie reviews! Amazing! You can read about it in Tom's adventures. My 6 year old students in class are barely starting to learn to type and find it exhausting finding the letters on the keyboard 1-by-1!!

Week 8 Project Noah

After looking through Vicky, Carla & Swee Peng's blog about Project Noah. This Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere. This website offers many sample lesson plans and encourages children to spot the different organisms and animals around their backyard or even around the area.It really encourages me to try using it out in my class.. however the downside to it is it consists mostly on Aussie Animals and plants that we do not have here in Malaysia.