TED

Affective Questions -> Affective Questions -> Re: Affective Questions
by Sieng Chong Ling - Thursday, 23 September 2010, 04:02 PM
Yesterday as part of my Program Evaluation course, two ladies, LouAnn Pioli and Laurie Snell came to our class to present their 'Banish Bullying' program so that it could be evaluated by us. They shared with us some of the activities of the program. Among them were:

Receiving:
1)Students were asked to define what are violence and bullying
2)Knowing various form of bullying (brainstorming activity)

Responding:
1)Students did journal writing on their learning.
2)Sharing on what they have learnt.
3)Role-play activities (including puppet show)
4)'Fake it Till You Make' activity
- To heighten students' ability to exhibit confidence, assertive body language and responses in order to avoid being bullied
- Students practise being confident and assertive person ie. facial expression, eye contact, posture, and stride.
5)Overcoming fears from being bystanders into caring allies

Characterizing by Value:
1) Choose to be caring allies to targets of bullying. Among things that a caring ally is able to do are:
a) be friends to a target of bullying.
b) walk with him (reduce chances of bullying)
c) interrupting a bullying situation
-walking up to the target and making an excuse to get him/her away from the bully
d) Tell a trusted adult about a bullying incident

2)Filling in bullying report

The two presenters also shared that over the years, students have demonstrated a decreasing sense of empathy towards others. Therefore we need to teach the hearts and not only to the heads. This is where the affective domain is so important. Sometimes we neglect this domain when we teach the syllabus instead of the student persons.



Affective Questions -> Affective Questions
by Sieng Chong Ling - Monday, 20 September 2010, 11:19 PM
In our process in teaching our students, it is also important that we equip or inculcate in students important values. This is to ensure that they will become a positive and balanced individuals. This means that they must not only be knowledgeable academically. They should also be developed emotionally who have the ability to reflect and appreciate their learning.



The Affective Taxonomy



The Affective Taxonomy has five levels. These levels are:
 Level 1 - Receiving / Attending - willingness to become aware
 Level 2 - Responding - appreciating or internalizing
 Level 3 - Valuing - accepting, preferring, becoming committed to
 Level 4 - Conceptualizing / Organizing - incorporating into a value system
 Level 5 - Characterizing by value - orientation toward / identification with.


Examples of affective questions:

Level 2 - Can you tell me why do you agree with the points raised in the essay?


Level 3 - Would you react the same way if you face the similar situation? What would you do?


Level 5 - Do you think it is better to lie to keep the peace or to tell the truth? Why?


Week 6
by Sieng Chong Ling - Saturday, 7 August 2010, 10:03 PM
Anyone on this site
It has been a great course. I thoroughly enjoyed this course. This course has opened my eyes to many things. I have learned much about technology through this course. It has been a great discovery. I am glad that through the discussions in the forums, we have learned a lot from each other. It was wonderful to see how we shared our knowledge. Thanks for all your insights and supportive comments. And yes, all the wonderful links too.

The contents of this course have been excellent in guiding us to discover various areas of educational technology. This course has helped me to learn how other teachers are using technology in their class. I also found out the common problems that we are facing such limited funding for technology, resistance of some teachers in using technology and etc. How much longer before schools start seriously using technology in teaching and learning process? Only time will tell, I guess.

We still have much work to do in trying to get more teachers to use technology. Until then on our part, we have to keep on learning and using technology to teach our students. We have to remember that to start a fire, it only takes a spark.

Adios, I will miss our interactions in this course. All the best to all!
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[ Modified: Saturday, 7 August 2010, 10:05 PM ]

Week 5 - Technology and the 10,000-Hour Rule
by Sieng Chong Ling - Sunday, 1 August 2010, 06:56 PM
Anyone on this site
This week we learned about the evolution of technology. What might be the latest gadgets or today’s technological tools will be artifacts in the future. This goes to show that technology is dynamic and ever changing with times. This is the most interesting and exciting part about technology. It is hard to imagine what the inventions of the future would be like. Time and again, we are awed by creative inventions of men. This phenomenon also tells us that there are multitude possibilities in the world of educational technology. This week I learned about Siftables, a collection of cookie-sized mini computers that shows its potential for educational purposes. It would be interesting to see how David Merril and his team are going to further develop this amazing product. I am interested to see how this gadget would bring forth a new pedagogical approach of teachers’ in the classrooms and how effective this gadget in bettering the learning of students.

While technological tools can help students to learn better, another important factor is the teachers’ success in using them in classrooms. I want to share with you what Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the book, ‘Outliers’ said about attaining competence. He said that the key to success in any field is simply a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of 10,000 hours. Gladwell called it the “10,000-Hour Rule”. He gave some examples of some successful people who became so good in what they did:

1.The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule.

2. Bill Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a high school computer in 1968 at the age of 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming it.

So, this brings to the question, have we spent 10,000 hours in learning and using technology yet? We have to ask ourselves this question and see whether we have achieved the level of competence required in our field. Having said that, we should always strive to improve ourselves to learn and keep up with the ever evolving technology. Today’s knowledge is not good enough for tomorrow. So keep on learning, guys.
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[ Modified: Sunday, 1 August 2010, 06:57 PM ]

Week 4
by Sieng Chong Ling - Sunday, 25 July 2010, 05:37 PM
Anyone on this site
Week 4 saw discussions on the use of Internet for learning through online communities, blogs and wikis and restrictions of its usage when it comes to social networking sites, chat rooms, YouTube and et cetera. From discussions, it looks like generally teachers are disappointed over those restrictions as those sites can be very useful in helping students to learn. YouTube, for example is a good website where students can obtain all kinds of informative factual videos which they can use. It is a real pity when you block sites that can be so useful for the education of students today. I think schools and relevant authorities need to move forward in enabling teachers and teachers to fully maximize technology use in education. Decision makers need to be open to the use of technology. Everybody needs to keep up with technology. If we want to keep up with our students, we need to keep up with technology as well. We need to know and use technology in education. This is the part where relevant authorities need to give their support. Teachers need to be invited to sit on the boards to give their views on the use of technology in classrooms. Often times, teachers’ views are not sought when authorities make decisions on matters pertaining to education. On why this phenomenon happens, I do not know. Many teachers, I think also feel the same.

One thing that I feel that will encourage the implementation of use of technology in education is to change the assessment process. Right now, there is no need to use technology simply because the assessment of students’ academic achievement is largely through paper and pencil examinations. I believe that assessment play a big part on how teachers would teach. If the assessment does not require students’ use of technology in their learning, then teachers will tend not to use technology in education. Therefore, technology use in education by students should be a requirement in the assessment process. Only then, the use of technology will be taken seriously by schools and teachers. And hopefully, technology will be then used widely in the teaching and learning process by teachers in schools.

Technology helps students to develop learning skills that enable them to think critically, analyze information, communicate, collaborate, organize their ideas and promote problem-solving skills. The importance of technology use and knowledge cannot be underestimated and is essential for the success of our students as pointed below.

Representative of the ICT literacy skills are the following six arenas critical to students' success in the workplace (Kay and Honey, 2005):

• Communicate Effectively:
Students must have a range of skills to express themselves not only through paper and pencil, but also audio, video, animation, design software as well as a host of new environments (e-mail, Web sites, message boards, blogs, streaming media, etc.).
• Analyze and Interpret Data:
Students must have the ability to crunch, compare, and choose among the glut of data now available Web-based and other electronic formats.
• Understand Computational Modeling:
Students must possess an understanding of the power, limitations, and underlying assumptions of various data representation systems, such as computational models and simulations, which are increasingly driving a wide-range of disciplines.
• Manage and Prioritize Tasks:
Students must be able to manage the multi-tasking, selection, and prioritizing across technology applications that allow them to move fluidly among teams, assignments and communities of practice.
• Engage in Problem Solving:
Students must have an understanding of how to apply what they know and can do to new situations.
• Ensure Security and Safety:
Students must know and use strategies to acknowledge, identify, and negotiate 21st century risks.
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[ Modified: Sunday, 25 July 2010, 05:41 PM ]

Week 3
by Sieng Chong Ling - Sunday, 18 July 2010, 11:40 PM
Anyone on this site
I am really happy with this course which has been an eye opener for me. I have learned even more things this week as I surfed the Net to find things that are related to Week 3 assignments. I came across a very interesting video entitled, “Little Kids…Big Potential”. This video shows how an amazing Grade One pupils in an elementary school in Saskatchewan, Canada. The pupils under their teacher, Miss Kathy Cassidy use various technological tools in their learning. They learn how to blog, navigate their class webpage, use wikis, make video, use Skype and Nintendo DS to share, collaborate and learn in their classroom. You can watch this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvPZtTej0jQ&feature=player_embedded.

I was and am still really astonished and also heartened to see those kids utilizing those tools. It is absolutely amazing to see how those kids learn in their school. Miss Kathy Cassidy is truly a wonderful and creative teacher. For her fantastic work, Miss Cassidy bagged the Microsoft-MindShare Learning Award. Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog is located at http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337&show=all. The success of her class should be commended and emulated. Kudos to Miss Cassidy and her class! I am glad to have found their inspiring video on the Net and learn something from watching the video.
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[ Modified: Sunday, 18 July 2010, 11:45 PM ]

Week 2
by Sieng Chong Ling - Saturday, 10 July 2010, 07:45 PM
Anyone on this site
Today marks the end of another week of an exciting course. The first activity was on sharing our application of learning theories in teaching vocabulary. It took me a while to share as it had been quite a while since I taught English. The last time I taught English was in 2001. So that it was like eight years ago. Since then I have been teaching Science and ICT Literacy. Anyway I managed to recall the strategies that I used to use to teach my students. My first posting was to a rural school in Terengganu, Malaysia back in 1992. The students there were from economic disadvantaged backgrounds and were children of either farmers or fishermen. Needless to say they were also disadvantaged academically as well. However, the teachers there were dedicated and determined to see that the students got their education. It was a great challenge for me as well as English was a foreign language to them. I used a lot of songs to get them interested in learning. I wanted them to have fun and to have no fear for the subject. Of course I also used other methods to get them to read and to be at ease with the language. Ladybird books were excellent in helping them to read. Flash cards were also used to drill them to be able to read. It took time to teach them reading. All my students were taught to read Dolch basic words list ( http://www.english-zone.com/reading/dolch.html ) to help them to read. Of course there were matching activities and lots of writing exercises. They were also exposed to rhymes, jazz chants and drama. I believe I did make a difference in that school in teaching and making them not to fear English. Those were my fond memories as a teacher in that school.

I also enjoyed doing the timeline activity. I learned about the history of e-books which was very interesting. Initially I faced some problems doing the timeline as I did not quite understand how to go about it. However, I managed to produce my timeline. I am glad that I am now able to make timelines. Now that I know how to do it I am able to teach other people in the future. It is interesting also to see my course mates’ timelines. This is what great about online classes because one gets learn from each other all the time.

Another interesting activity this week was on learning about various technology’s leaders and innovators. I did a write up on Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. His biography on his life and how he set up his company was amazing. He saw the great potential of the Internet and had the foresight to venture into e-commerce and build his company in the then unknown territory. What a visionary and how it paid off. Today Amazon.com has become one of the largest online retail websites in the world.

I look forward to learning even more things next week. I hope everyone will continue to share their experience. We can really learn a lot from each other. Thanks for all of your links. Keep well and keep learning. See you guys next week!
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[ Modified: Saturday, 10 July 2010, 08:09 PM ]

First Week
by Sieng Chong Ling - Saturday, 3 July 2010, 02:45 PM
Anyone on this site
Hmm.....What is the first week for me?
Well, this the first time I am learning online using the Moodle system. I must say that learning via Moodle is a new experience for me. This online class is pretty interactive and I am loving it. The Scavenger Hunt activity is a good way to learn about the evolution of technology. I enjoyed searching for the answers and images. Along the way, I learned quite a bit.

I am glad that I am in the midst of like-minded people who love technology. In school, I always feel I am alone on this technology thing. In my school, there are not many kindred spirits. Here, I feel at home with my kind. There is much to learn from this course and from one another. I am excited to see how this course unfolds. Hopefully at the end of this course, I will gain deeper insights on educational technology and make me a better teacher. I look forward to learn new things in the coming weeks.