Sha's Blog on Teaching and Learning

Connectivist Learning and Teaching

2010-05-30T10:13:00.001-07:00

I love this slide! It really hits me straight on the brain. I thought I'm doing the "right connectivism" with my students, but in fact, it depends a lot on their sides too! So much to change in the current culture, for sure...

Connectivist Learning and Teaching

View more presentations from Stephen Downes.

2010-05-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

Social Network Presentation

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2010-05-30T05:02:00.001-07:00

Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

Me, from the eyes of others...

2010-04-28T01:26:00.001-07:00

Just to share with my blog readers, on an article written about me, in the UCSIU e-News.

http://www.ucsi.edu.my/enews/issue34/working.asp

Have a good semester ahead, to all my colleagues! ;D
- Sha on Teach and Learn

Latest News: UCSI University's Symposium for Student - Centred Learning Kicks Off

2010-04-20T09:03:00.001-07:00

Latest News: UCSI University's Symposium for Student - Centred Learning Kicks Off

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Digital Literacy for education: the 2.0 World

2010-02-27T19:13:00.000-08:00

Digital literacy - what's in it for teachers and students? Check out this slideshow to understand where we stand...

Digital Literacy in a 2.0 World

View more presentations from Kyle Jones.

Still implementing, no matter how much it may tire me,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
28 Feb 2010

PKM: What's in it for me?

2010-02-21T02:59:00.000-08:00

Only when I went through this slide that I got to understand the meaning of "drinking from the firehose"! I guess that's what I'm facing now - it's no longer called "information overload", it's called "drinking from the firehose"! Cool! B-) Thanks, Doug!

Sharing this slide by Doug Cornelius:

Personal Knowledge Management

View more presentations from Doug Cornelius.

Excited over firehose blast of information and knowledge..,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
21 Feb 2010

The Information Value Chain and its Network

2010-01-02T20:51:00.001-08:00

The Information Value Chain and its Network

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Ismail, S. (2009) "Class Management with Social Network as Platform for Collaborative Online Tools", in Proceedings of ICRIIS'09, Johor: pp.145-148

2009-12-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

The following is the second paper I presented at the ICRIIS'09, which I would like to share with my readers. This paper was presented on the second day of the event, 9th December 2009, and it won me the Best Paper Award for the conference.

Uploaded by,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
28 Dec 2009

Ismail, S. (2009) "Social Networking Trend in Private University", in Proceedings of ICRIIS'09, 8-9 Dec 2009: Johor, pp.124-128.

2009-12-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

The following is one of my two presentations at the ICRIIS'09, which I would like to share with my readers. This paper was presented on the first day of the event, 8th December 2009.

Uploaded by,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
28 Dec 2009

How do you connect to people online?

2009-11-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to share a video that compiles everybody's feedback on "How do you connect to people online". Quite a nice compilation. Thank you, Geoge Siemens, for sharing this...

How do you connect to people online? from D'Arcy Norman on Vimeo.

Shared by,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
26 Nov 2009

Methods and Tools for Developing Personal Knowledge Management Skills in the Connectivist Era

2009-11-18T01:44:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Methods and Tools for Developing Personal Knowledge Management Skills in the Connectivist Era

View more documents from elisabetta cigognini.

KM and Web 2.0 - A User's Perspective

2009-11-18T01:33:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

20080409 Bkmf Km2.0

View more presentations from Ray Sims.

Ismail, S. 2009. International Students' Acceptance on using Social Networking Site to Support Learning Activities, INEC2009: Putrajaya

2009-11-18T00:12:00.000-08:00

The following is my presentation at the ICI9 on 12th August 2009, which I would like to share with my readers.

Uploaded by,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
18 Nov 2009

Collaborative Knowledge Management E Learning The Wiki Way

2009-10-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Collaborative Knowledge Management E Learning The Wiki Way

View more presentations from Serebrum Corporation.

Publication Updates for 2009

2009-09-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the summary of papers published and presented (and will be presented) in the year 2009, from my side...

Ismail, S. 2009. An Evaluation of Students’ Identity-Sharing Behaviour in Social Network Communities as Preparation for Knowledge Sharing, UCSI Academic Journal, Vol 2, No 1: Kuala Lumpur
Ismail, S. 2009. Students Acceptance in Using Blog as Learning Tool in an International Private University, ICI9: Kuala Lumpur
Ismail, S. 2009. Social Networking Trend in Private University, ICRIIS'09: Johor Bahru
Ismail, S. 2009. Weblog as Learning Tool: A Tale of Three Classes, INEC 2009: Putrajaya (Tentative)
Ismail, S. 2009. “I am Reachable after Class”: A Case of 150 Socially-Networked Students, INEC 2009: Putrajaya (Tentative)

Proper reference will be updated later, after all these publications are confirmed in black and white.

There are 2 more conferences in 2010, which I was invited to submit my papers to for presentation. The details as follows:

ICT2010, Singapore: http://www.unisim.edu.sg/uni/pub/ICT2010/index.html
(If it goes well for ICRIIS'09, I will go for this ICT2010)
TIC2010, Kuala Lumpur: http://web3.tarc.edu.my/v1/tic/index.htm

Wish me luck for the upcoming events...

Knowledge enthusiast going full-steam ahead, but yet to further pursue for doctorate,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
12 Sep 2009

Ismail, S. 2009. Students Acceptance in Using Blog as Learning Tool in an International Private University, ICI9: Kuala Lumpur

2009-08-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

The following is my presentation at the ICI9 on 12th August 2009, which I would like to share with my readers.

Uploaded by,

- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning

16 Aug 2009

Paper presented at ICI9 on 12 Aug 2009

2009-08-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

Schedule of presentations at ICI9:
http://ici9.oum.edu.my/index.php?op=view&m=2&page=32

It all went well, despite my lack of preparation in terms of practicing for the presentation. My mind couldn't quite recall what I wrote in the submitted full paper even hours before the presentation.

I tried to scribble some notes during the last minutes, but eventually I used the panel's verbal guidelines as my 'short notes'. I hardly had a voice that morning, so I merely 'mumbled' if I could say so, and talked non-stop about my research paper, as softly as I could over the microphone.

Yes, I was nervous, even with the video camera focusing on me, which supposed to be my worst fear. Yet, I guess I was so unprepared to even feel the worse of the nervousness. It was mild.

Talking, and jumping the slides, and talking, and emphasizing the data and analysis... and the panel gave a signal of my last 3 minutes. OK, straight to the conclusion... yada yada yada...

I thought that would be it - 15 minutes presentation, and no one would be asking much because I hardly talk much (as what I thought). My assumption was wrong - hands shooting up one after another, impatient to bombard me with questions.

About 3 to 4 people were given chance to ask me questions, and the rest had to grab my attention after the presentation. Phew! I never knew it would be such a hot cake that I was selling! I received quite a number of compliments on my presentation, which was considered as 'very good' and 'very interesting'.

This was my first conference paper presented, and this was also my first experience of rapid knowledge exchange and networking. I exchanged business cards with other participants from other universities and colleges, and I also received invitations for presenting paper at conferences organised by them. They still want to hear my thoughts at other conferences, for sure, both in Malaysia and Singapore.

Thank you so much, everybody, for such opportunity. Thank you so much for showing me the way up the ladder of my career path. For I've never seen such light before, which made me surfed through forward with blinded eyes, knowing that such opportunity would bring me further and showing me the path ahead...

Utterly grateful,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
16 Aug 2009

Publication updates

2009-05-11T00:41:00.000-07:00

Just got some news to share regarding my research and publications.

One research paper is accepted for publication by UCSI Academic Journal.
One research paper is to be 'fine-tuned' and being looked forward to be published in next year's UCSI Academic Journal.
One abstract is accepted for conference by ICI9 - full paper to be submitted by 15 July 2009.

Hhmm... Quite a lot of excitement for one semester! I really hope I can find the time to get these sorted out.

My plan to submit for INEC2009 is a bit too tentative, due to hectic schedule I have this May 2009 semester. Sigh! See how...

One after another hectic tasks in line,
- Shazz @ Teaching and Learning
11 May 2009

Upcoming conferences to look forward to!

2009-04-17T23:56:00.001-07:00

I'm all excited over these upcoming conferences. Trying hard to figure if my researches can be submitted to the conferences, since they are all under the realm of 'education' and mine is more of emerging technologies and knowledge management.

Still related, though... if I can twist the idea a bit here and there hehehe...! (Talk about gung ho! Huu huu...) Mind's boggling with ideas that flowing like water out of nowhere every day. So, see how... see if I could manage the time to write 'em out!

Check out these conferences. I will add more if I know more.

12-13 Aug 2009: http://ici9.oum.edu.my/
13-15 Oct 2009: http://www.ptpm.usm.my/seaair2009/
12-13 Nov 2009: http://www.ucsi.edu.my/inec/index.asp

Oh, you can send me some links to other conferences too! I appreciate that! Thanks!

Conferences... here I come!
- Sha on Teaching and Learning
18 Apr 2009

No more classroom.shahrinaz.com/moodle/

2009-04-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

To all friends and colleagues who may be visiting or using the above mentioned link (http://www.classroom.shahrinaz.com/moodle/), please take note that it's no longer available.

I've just discontinued the webhosting service last few days, without really thinking twice. I forgot that Raj was experimenting on the moodles in that site.

Anyway, I will keep you updated if I set up another new webhosting service that can be used by all. Keep in touch!

Enthusiastic on research now, more than anything...,
- Sha on Teaching and Learning
18 Apr 2009

Final post on CENL2008

2008-12-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

First of all, thanks for the name "Gung Ho" and "The Fast One". Hehehe... I only get that kind of names when I'm in UCSI University. I think I brought that culture from my previous company - something I learnt from my big boss then. (Somebody needs to explain to George, Peter and the rest the meaning of 'gung ho'. Hope I spelt it right.)

About the CENL2008 course
I'm so happy that I could accomplish every task given. Not all are perfect, but with the skills I have and the way I work, I could've done more. Nevertheless, the course has made me feel 'belong' to the education world. I could understand well on how students nowadays learn (by being a learner myself) and I could imagine how they would want us to teach/guide them. The concept of "being near but yet it's far" should be there (I mean, us being reachable to the learners even though we are far apart, via emails, IMs, SNCs, Twitter, etc.)

Personally...
Personally, being a person in the middle of technical-side and user-side (for the past 9 years) actually made me a little bit unsatisfied when I can't get myself to hack on the applications/technology that we've learnt in CENL2008. I guess it is my habit to crack/hack whatever in front of me, so that I could understand better how the whole thing works and what's the possibilities we could further achieve from it. (I guess that's where the "gung ho" part comes from. Sigh!)

That's why I took an extra effort to figure out how to install and set up my own moodle and wiki (programmatically) onto my personal web hosting server (shahrinaz.com). All were half-cooked, sorry. The excitement dwindles down after some time hacking through the brickwalls... huu huu...

I'm yet to try out the PHP scripting in Facebook Application to make some learning environment in it. It's still in blue draft in my head, no time to sit on it. Hehehe...

Final Paragraph now... I promise!
All in all... It's been a wonderful adventure, and it helps me kick-start on having ideas and ideas pouring into my head (I think I need an external portable harddisk for my head soon! Haha!!) on how to 'reach' the learners' expectations via technology around us today. I learn a lot from CENL2008, and I think from now on, I would know how to learn on my own using the same methods taught here. Thank you so much, George and Peter.

Knowlede we give others
will be replicated again and again
that it reach beyond the numbers we could've imagined;
Knowledge we share with others
will be appreciated continuously
that it would grow into bigger and bigger ideas;
Knowledge we taught otherswould make them grow
with more confidence in facing life ahead;
Knowledge itself is a wondrous journey,
not a destination.

The knowledge-sharing enthusiast,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
10 Dec 2008

Emerging trends - my review

2008-12-09T22:06:00.000-08:00

"In this respect, the fundamental pattern oflearning and innovation using social tools – find -> remix-> share – seems ideally suited to the way most youngpeople like to discover and make sense of the worldaround them, which is reason enough for an optimisticview of their likely impact." - Lee Bryant, Becta 2007 http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies07_chapter1.pdf

I've been searching around the Net, and I found a list of interesting articles about emerging trends in the use of technology for learning, reported by Becta. (EDUCAUSE also wrote an article in this Becta's publication!)

Among the articles on emerging trends reported by Becta are:

Emerging Trends in Social Software for Education
Learning Networks in Practice
The Challenge of New Digital Literacies and the 'Hidden Curriculum'
How to Teach with Technology: Keeping Both Teachers and Students
Comfortable in an Era of Exponential Change
Games in Education
Ubiquitous Computing

* You can download the PDFs of these articles and more at http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&rid=13768.

My interest lies on the last two titles - "games" and "ubiquitous". It may be easier to think of a way to teach a younger students (i.e. primary school, high school) using games and ubiquitous - games as a way to teach the concept or relate to theory via metaphor; ubiquitous as a more practical way for their history and geography research papers (we have that in our high school here). But what about educating (or providing a condusive environment for learning to) the undergraduates?

I also came across new terminology that is worth a research. A lot more to read on these:

augmented reality
mapping mashups
interactive tables
interactive papers
collective intelligence
... and many more...

So what will the future trend going to be? More virtualised, more metophoric in concept, more creative, more socialised, more collaboration of all 5 senses (or 6? Hehe...), more 3-dimensional... Probably that's what the new generation of learners would crave for, something that serves their 5 senses. It would make them remember more on what they've learnt.
(Hold on a minute, did I include sense of 'smell' in that 5? Ops! Sorry about that. Should be only 4 then...)

In other words, back to square one - IT infrastructure. If we have at least broadband and RFID, it will be a start to go virtual almost everywhere anytime. We can even implement the 'interactive table' WITHOUT the 'table', or without computers even. That's what I think the future would be. Probably I watched too much of futuristic movies (who doesn't?) and the ideas may be way ahead of our 'near future' capabilities, but hey... it's a start. Starting with 'wireless', retrieving and sending files from anywhere at anytime in any format, etc...

PS: I read a lot about students spending much time in "Second Life" (an online virtual reality game) and how they learn a lot from 'there'. I tried to download and install yesterday, so I will spend time trying that out, too! ... If I have some nick of time for it. Hhmm...

Whatever 'sense' I have left (including non-sense?), that's what I use to learn and teach,
- Sha at Teaching and Learning
10 Dec 2008

George's Visit to UCSI University on 09 Dec 2008

2008-12-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

I missed George's forum on Connectivism yesterday, due to the exam proctoring duty I had that I could not get swapped with anyone at the last moment. Sigh!

Anyway, I ran all the way from the next block to meet George for our little CENL2008 group gathering, after the exam. Took me some time to catch my breath before I could think clearly and respond to any of the things they were discussing. Haha!

Here are the photos captured during our little gathering. (Peter, wish you were here too! At least George got to hear my sweet voice finally hahaha!!)

Christine, thinking hard to understand what George is trying to say in response to her question. Or is she acting like she's digesting George's idea? Hehehe... Just joking, Christine! :-*

George's best pose... well, actually it's the best pic I could capture with my mobile phone. My hands were too shakey after the running... Phew!

The group photo of CENL2008 from UCSI University, with George Siemens... well, only half of us, I think. Dr Irene, in case you can't see, the "gung ho" one (a.k.a. Ms-Sha) is on the far left. I could hardly see the face with this notebook screen. I think better not let Jim take the photo, next time, eh? Huu huu...

Anyway, thanks all for the pics. You too, Jim!

Having fun between the hectic schedule,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
10 Dec 2008

What I learnt in NVivo Training Today!

2008-12-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

This is the tag cloud result of the word frequency query, from the NVivo training today! Wow wee!! :-D

Excited for no reason over new technology learnt,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
05 Dec 2008

Sha on PLE (Personal Learning Environment)

2008-11-27T19:25:00.001-08:00

Collaboration of all kinds of learning - formal learning, informal learning, personal interest learning - something that we've been doing whether we realise it or not; because in our daily lives, we learn something new along the way. Especially in teaching, we learn how to deal with students who are from different batches and generations each semester. And as academicians, we can't run away from reading and updating ourselves with the news related to our studies, new theories and new ideas, innovations, etc., and that is also another set of 'personal learning' on our side.

Different styles of Learning... I learn new software/application by trying out. If Can't figure out how to use it on my own, I would refer to the tutorial or help file that comes along with the software/application. If I know what I want to do but not knowing how to do it and the help doesn't give much help, then I would search online, view the online tutorial, especially videos, because I learn best by observing how others do, and I get ideas on how to innovate from the method I observe once I've tried on my own.

As for learning 'theories' or dry subjects, reading is inevitable. But if I could listen (to audio) or view (videos) of presentations, lectures, etc., I learn better. Once I get the rough idea what the whole topic is about, my preference would be to discuss on the topic/subject and share ideas. Personally for me, only when I debate out I learn more, understand better and remember better. I prefer others clarify my understanding if the subject is still a blur to me.

Attwell (2006) "Learners are no longer necessarily locked in to a particular course in order to gain a qualification but are able to present their learning to prove they possess such competencies or are able to achieve those outcomes." I was so afraid of trying new things, or even inserting new skills/knowledge in my portfolio, without having certificates of the qualification after going through personal learning. Now, I know that all I need to do is "perform" or "present" (depending on the type of skill/knowledge) in order to be recognised, and to hear somebody greeted me saying, "Hi! Would you like to join our team as..." and I get the projects here and there. At least now, I'm more confident in what I know and what I've learnt, and more braver to commit and try out. Of course, I would learn more when I'm in the field, and that's the most valuable thing that I wouldn't miss.

One of the reason why I encourage students to have personal website is to prove a few things:

It proves that they are computer literate and know a bit of technicality in publishing a website.
Personal website should display their work and make it an online resume plus online portfolio, to show their future employer their worth and effort. Their work (e.g. for Computing) could be any application or animation they did for course assignments, they can tidy up the work according to comments made by lecturers and publish it online - preferably created in demo video on how the application works and how it looks like.
Only with visual (even if it's only a blog on some research done) that people can understand and relate to, in order to be assured that this person has some 'value-added' criteria to consider.
... and I do that too - have my own website and e-portfolio.

Talking about "Ubiquitous computing", I recently attended a seminar conducted by TM (Telekom Malaysia) on High Speed BroadBand services in Malaysia, and specifically (the track I attended) on RFID. A speaker mentioned how Malaysia is looking into having the whole nation 'ubiquitous' as how it is implemented in a city in Japan, and in a new library in Hong Kong. It's like... you can get any kind of information at any corner of your location within the vicinity. For example, if you're standing at a crossroad in Japan, you can get information via your mobile on how to get to a destination, you get to know the history of the town or road, you even get to know the tourist hot spot or popular 'worth-a-visit' nearby the place you're standing.

Imagine if our campus is 'ubiquitous' as such, probably upon entering the lecture hall, the students would be able to get the course brief details plus recommended readings/videos/audios for case studies to be discussed available to be downloaded on the spot... to name a few. One thing for sure, students won't have any excuse not able to find the classroom because the whole campus will be 'ubiquitous' including the location map and how to get to classrooms.

At the end of the day, it's about "availability" and "infrastructure" - back to square one. Without this 'environment' to support 'personal learning', it would be a long way to achieve our vision in lifelong learning.

As I was going through the article by Attwell (2006), I had an idea regarding research on "examining the use of different social software applications for learning". Lately, I've been using 'Notes' in Facebook to broadcast my thoughts and information I get (via email, etc). I think we can make use of that as one of the tools for learning (provided all our students are in our Friends list, of course). Other features in Facebook inclusive Application (using PHP to add on for learning capability, etc.), and Group (which already include discussion board, latest news updates, links to recommended readings, etc.).

Oh, I have to list my PLE, is it? Quite a long list, though. But I'll minus the common ones like MS Office, email and all, ok?

SNC - Facebook (more on PLE), Friendster (less on PLE)
Blogger - multiple blogs with different topics
Google 'suite' (i.e. mail, alert, calendar, iGoogle, etc.)
Solidcasts/Podcast - audio files hosting
Audacity - audio recording
Meebo - all IM in one site
Delicious - tagging
Camtasia - screen capture video to create demos
Webservers - upload HTML pages and websites
Search engines - most of the time Google
Online tutor guide on books - Pearson, Wiley (one of my students even did the online quiz on this site and I received the email of his marks!)
Moyea - FLV downloader, to download Flash video files
Adobe suite - photo editing and other design works
Flash - preparing sample works for assignments on Multimedia course (I have to try out the tutorials/exercises before I teach/assign the students , right?)
Moodle - I just installed on my personal website http://www.classroom.shahrinaz.com/moodle/, haven't properly set it up or test it yet

I probably have more, can't think anymore...

Reference:
Attwell (2006) Personal Learning Environments. The Wales-Wide Web website. Retrieved on 26 November 2008 from http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/6521819364

Probably more.., and more..,
- Sha on Teaching and Learning
27 Nov 2008

Aggregating: Google Alert and iGoogle

2008-11-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

Before I missed myself from office yesterday, I could manage to squeeze some time to set up Google Alert, and I got myself enjoying setting up iGoogle as well.

iGoogle
I logged in to Google, and it straight away showed me my iGoogle home page. I totally forgot that I'd set it up last Saturday! The interface is similar to Pageflakes, but the speed is much more better, of course. It could be because of the cache, cookies or whatever you call it.

By default, it showed the Home tab with news extracted from and for local (Malaysia), including weather, Google news, and even my gmail inbox. That's cool! I adjusted the settings further to include news from local online newspapers.

In addition to that, I added a new tab called "Technology", and included news on Technology, Crossword puzzle, Things to Ponder (I love daily quotes!), and things I thought I would need for future use such as Code Search (for programming) and Free Downloads.

Lastly, on iGoogle, I beautify the interface with a theme header background picture of an autumn tree...

Google Alert
I went to Google Alert page and set up according to 3 search keywords/tags: CENL2008, education tool, and knowledge management. So from yesterday onwards, I received emails to my gmail inbox with the list of news links from these three tags.

Now my readings are aggregated in one place, and I don't have to 'run around' much and waste my time waiting for the downloads anymore. Just log in to Google! Voila!

Enjoying aggregation...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
19 Nov 2008

Aggregating my feeds

2008-11-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

Aggregation... The minute I read the material and view the CommonCraft video, I thought, "Wow! This is marvellous! At last, I get to gather all my readings in one place! And it will definitely save my time opening and downloading all the sites at one shot every morning!"

The LTC Wikipedia suggested a few aggregator sites, which I tried to view to see the differences. But I started off with Google Reader, since I already have the account there.

Not quite sure what to 'feed' my 'reader', so I started off with my collection of blogs. I have 7 blogs, but not all are "feedable". I could manage to aggregate 5 of them into my reader, one is not updated at all (I think I better delete that one off), and one more is set to private (RSS off) if I'm not mistaken because it's quite personal. I categorised them under a folder called "Sha905's Blogs".

Then I remembered I used to have favourite sites on IT, which mostly I've forgotten the links and the bookmarks were in previous PCs. Hhmm... But I remember 2 of them quite well because I used to view those sites every morning, back when I was still in IT department.

So I went to cnet.com and zdnet.com... CNet doesn't allow site feed, only article feed (sorry if my jargon is still in a "confusionist" language) - so I can't really 'feed' the site content, plus it has too many articles and I'm not going to waste my time reading and picking them up right now (for 'article feed').

Next, ZDNet. Marvellous! It's a news site, so it allows me to 'feed' the contents into my aggregator. Good! I categorised ZDNet under a folder called "Technology".

I also tried to 'feed' other sites I used to visit under the realm of Knowledge Management, but to no avail as well. This is because the contents are all in static HTML pages.

Even though I've read the materials before trying out the aggregation assignment, only when I did the hands-on that I realised... we can only 'aggregate feeds' from news sites or blog sites. The logic is there, because the content is organised in such a way that it's flexible to be 'fed' to sites (whattaheck am I talking about... food? :-S), not in the 'static HTML' way. Hhmm.. how to put it... Ah, never mind, forget it. I understand for myself, but I don't have time to explain it hehehe...!

So now, I have a Google Reader site. I will try out Blogline and Pageflakes somewhen later within the week, if time permits. I think Pageflakes site has potential in 'aggregating' my contents for subjects, so I'm thinking of creating Pageflakes sites for different subjects/topics.

Will keep updating...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
15 Nov 2008

Social networking, right before my eyes...

2008-11-12T18:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I posted a small 'blog' on my Facebook "Notes". It's a personal story of what has happened in the morning. I just wonder who (among my friends) would be reading it, be attentive about it and respond to it.

By afternoon, I received quite a number of comments from my friends, including James and Karen. Here's the "wonder of Facebook" that I could see right before my eyes...

James is my ex-colleague under Project Management in DLS from approximately year 2003 to 2005. Whereas Karen is my ex-colleague under IT in DLS from approximately year 2002 to 2003. In other words, Karen and James never met each other and never knew each other's existence within the same company.

As James and Karen were consoling me through comments over my "Notes", they could read each other's comments and they even commented/responded on/to each other's comment. The next thing I knew, James said "Hey Karen! We could be friends!"

Today, I noticed that both James and Karen are planning to meet for an appointment. Knowing that Karen is into some part-time business of networking, and James is the kind of person who likes to listen, learn and 'advice' (and even have interest to join a new venture), I know that this 'connection' is possible.

I guess by now, James and Karen have each other their friends list...

Facebook - the book of faces,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
13 Nov 2008

Twittering my 'news'

2008-11-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

After a long wait (which was merely 1 day), our CENL2008 moderators uploaded the new tasks for this week. This week is about micro-blogging.

I glanced through the assignment and saw the word "twitter". Oh no! I'm not quite sure why, but I was a bit sceptical about 'twitter'. Probably because I didn't understand what it's all about. "OK... since I'm not sure at all what this is about, let me just read through the materials..."

I had no idea of what was micro-blogging. Once I read through the material, I realised that it sounds more like a "status update" that you post up in your social network profile or "wall"! This is great!

Lately, I'm 'addicted' to status updates in my Facebook! Every morning, or afternoon, or evening, I HAVE TO update my status and answer "What are you doing?" on my social network site. Now, I can do that using Twitter!

I did multi-tasking - reading the material, watching the CommonCraft video, signing up for a Twitter account, inviting my friends into my Twitter account, updating the profile and customising my Twitter account, trying out all the features in Twitter... and now I'm blogging my experience.

This is the list of things I found out about micro-blogging using Twitter:

We can use this to promote and advertise goods/services/ourselves, getting business, networking, and voice out opinions. [Refer to more points in http://www.901am.com/2007/the-top-5-ways-smart-people-use-twitter.html]
We can embed the Twitter Updates onto our website, blogs, or even social network sites! (Yes! :-D) But you can only do on ONE site, not all (Alaaa... :-( ) - So I did that here, in this blog. [Refer to the first widget "Sha's Twitter Updates" that appeared on the left side of this blog.]
Twitter can be 'followed' by our audience, and we can trace them... and vice versa. (I just added my friends less than an hour ago, and one of them is already in my list! And he's automatically listed as a twitterer I "follow".)
I think some day I would use this Twitter to promote myself and provide links to updates of my blogs or portfolio (at times I'm looking for new small jobs/info).

Mission accomplished!

Still following me?
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
04 Nov 2008

Hopping through the online educational videos

2008-11-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

I felt that I've done too little for the past 2 weeks' assignments (on podcast and webcast/video). So I went back to the CENL2008 moodle site to check out the list of URLs recommended by the moderators.

All this time I had difficulties in going through the URLs due to network connection inconsistency. Today I hoped it should be better since I chose to be outside the campus LAN firewall.

Here I am, hopping from one site to another, from Ted Talks and MIT OpenCourseware, to Connexions and Open Yale. I opened every site at a same time under different tabs in a web browser. So the following reviews are according to the sequence of which 'came out' first.

Open Yale has a certain type of video file that I could not view after I downloaded it. The file type is *.rm. Real media file? I don't know. No time to hassle through just to check on the player and download it and try it out and... all whole bunch of cycle in getting the things run is not really what I want to waste my time for right now.

Go on to the next...

Connexions... Hhmm... It seems to be in a 'hanging' mode since the past 30 minutes? I just picked a topic from the homepage to view the video. The topic is something regarding "Understanding the Basic in Music", and the hang... urgh! It didn't even show the next page after the button was clicked! Never mind, I think I'll close it now.

Done it. Next...

Ted Talks provides a wide range of videos on interviews regarding certain issues. Not quite what I would find very much related to any of my courses. I tried to search a video under Architecture, thinking "Ground Zero" is something of a "horizontal development" (something I learnt from an Architecture lecturer), but it was actually telling out how an architect came up with a project of a platform construction to ease visitors to view the scene of 9-11 in New York. (Thus, "Ground Zero" is actually the name of that historical place.)

OK, this is not what I wanted. Next...

Last but not least, the one that provides more options for audience - you can have transcript (HTML), audio/podcast (MP3) or videos (2 options: Flash or Quicktime). I tried downloading Quicktime file, it required me to download the application etc, and I was not patient enough for all that. I knew I can view Flash file (I'm a Flash lecturer/tutor, thus I should be having the player updated?) so I chose the Flash version next, ignoring all the prompts the site poked me with, and voila! I got to view the video!

But... (There's always a but, isn't it? ;-) )

The video itself warned me that the materials will not be shown in the video due to copyrights issues. OK... I can live with that. But...

The buffer! Urgh! I hate buffers!! I've been 'listening' to the presentation since the past 30 minutes, and it only covered about 5 minutes plus of the video now... So slow!! And imagine how much staggering information I've been listening to.

Oh, by the way, the video I'm listening to is under the topic of "Introduction to Psychology", a session called "What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought". I chose this topic because of my current student's final year project that relates to this (something to do with educating toddlers using multimedia, so he has to understand how toddlers/babies 'learn').

The recording was very clear and crisp, and the voice and language were easily understood and followed through (only the staggering part is pissing off...). I'm quite amazed with how the video could capture the movement of the speaker, by following his position within the lecture hall. Do they use a cameraman? Hhmm...

Check this out: http://oyc.yale.edu/yale/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/sessions/lecture05.html

The tips and tricks in searching for the right video? Hhmmm...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
01 Nov 2008

ECMyBroadband Conference - Podcast

2008-10-30T00:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I attended the ECMyBroadband (conference and exhibition) at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. The Track I chose to attend was on the topic of RFID Applications.

The environment in the hall for the conference I attended was very silent, thus I decided to podcast the presentation. I know I was supposed to capture video on the presentation for this week's assignment, but podcasting was the best thing I could do at that time.

There were 6 speakers presenting on the topic of RFID, some were using the wireless mic (produced loud and clear audio quality) and some were using the podium mic (lack of audio quality).

Among a few recordings I did, I uploaded 1 to my podcast hosting site, the one that made used of the wireless mic, but I guess my location at that time was not so appropriate. The audio turned out to be "echo-ey".

Podcast-webcast,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
30 Oct 2008

Video search - Day 2

2008-10-29T03:07:00.000-07:00

Day 2: 29 October 2008

Morning - I wasn't in my office.

Afternoon - After a while I was at my cubicle, Eva peeped over my place to ask, "You already did the podcast one ar?" My "Err... ya ah?!" sounded so draggy. Did I just jumped through the course too quickly or something?

Anyway, I was not really 'into' continuing my yesterday's exploration yet, until the working hour almost ended. Min Yong was following step-by-step on the podcasting assignment, but his mind was thinking 2 assignments at one go - podcasting AND webcasting. My advice was sought after on and off during those hours.

One thing about me... Only if I keep on explaining to others on how things could be or should be done (e.g. in the case of podcasting and webcasting) and what is expected from us in the assignment, only then I realised what I actually did or thought wrong, and what I supposed to be doing... [Are you still with me?]

After 'consulting' Min Yong and answering his questions on ideas of what to do for the assignment, I realised that all we need to do is 'tag' the site (URL) that contains the educational video we have searched! So easy!! [... and all those waste-of-time thinking of so many ways that don't work... Sigh...]

Instead of switching off my notebook, I quickly retrieved my online Flash tutorial video sites, logged in to delicious, and tagged 3 of the sites. Before I called it a day, I replied to George's email on this week's introduction, to inform him that I've tagged 3 sites with videos I used for my lab classes.

End of Week 7 Assignment... Amen! Phew!!

And I continued blogging the whole experience at K3K coffee shop in Subang, while waiting for my jamming practice tonight,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
29 Oct 2008

Video search - Day 1

2008-10-29T02:42:00.000-07:00

Day 1: 28 October 2008

When we were instructed to search for "an online video that you could use in an existing class", I thought it was going to be easy! At least we don't have to capture our own video demonstrating or presenting some topic, unless we're "ambitious".

As I was checking the URLs of recommended sites, slowly the thought of "Oh, it's not gonna be that easy" seeped through my mind. Even after a whole day trying to access the site, it was to no avail. Sigh...

I went through the reading materials, and the familiar words of "Camtasia" and "screen capture" kept on popping up. I used Camtasia before... a lot! I used it back when I was a consultant/trainer in a QS firm, but I never tried capturing my voice alongwith the screen-video capture. (For a stingy, IT firm under the umbrella of construction industry, hardware such as microphone is a wish you never get, even if you justify wisely on the reason to get it.)

So I thought I could just dig up my portable harddisk (a.k.a. my "life") to get some soft copies of the demo videos I used to do back then. Again, it's to no avail. Sigh...

Then I remembered that I saved the URLs of online Flash tutorial videos somewhere in my notebook, those that I used for my Multimedia Programming lab classes. I have an FLV Downloader software that I could use to download the videos (at this point of time, I forgot that I didn't really have to download any videos, just tag it!). Quite unsure why, but none of the "grabs" worked. Sigh...

OK, back to Camtasia case. "Looks like I have to record a video on screen; maybe I can create a video to introduce the Flash interface!" I quickly went back to the Wiki on webcasting, scrolled down to get to the hyperlink of Camtasia, downloaded it, installed it, and straight away using it... this time, with audio (of my own voice!). Looks like 'previous life' experience helped a lot, in adapting to new software instantly.

By the time I got the video captured, played it once, I thought, "Err... Do I need a webcast hosting site now? Register for new account again? Aaahhh..." All the sites like YouTube, Blip, etc. started popping up in my head, something that I wish to avoid mainly due to the bad network infrastructure. Sigh...

I called it a day and continued my 'exploration' today.

Motivation starts reducing by this week,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
29 Oct 2008

Podcasting appointment

2008-10-20T05:40:00.001-07:00

I just got an appointment for podcasting confirmed with a colleague. I had to email her to request for podcasting her lecture, whereas she sits next to me in the faculty. It's kind of hard to catch one's attention these days... or is it just me and my nose stuck to the notebook screen, hhmm...

As mentioned earlier, both my subjects were taught in 'short sem' for this Sep-Dec 2008 semester. In other words, I've finished my final lecture of the sem last 2 weeks itself. That's the reason why I had to find a lecturer who is still teaching for the 'long sem'.

The kind-hearted (and new) lecturer invited me to join her class on next Monday 2-4pm. She would be using microphone to conduct her lecture - one criteria I had to filter before I select the right lecture, because not all lecturers use microphone, including me! This is to ensure that the audio recorded is clear and acceptable by the hardware (and software), and that the 'noise' would be less.

This prospect podcast will cover a topic under Management studies, most probably more to Economics. I have not checked with the lecturer on the actual subject, but I know she's major in Economics, under the School of Management.

Keep yourself updated with my new podcast... soon!

12 downloads of the previous podcast until today!
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
20 Oct 2008

Next topic is on Webcasting! But...

2008-10-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

I was so earger to finish off podcasting topic, that I didn't notice the next topic would be on webcasting.

I was just mentioning to my students that I should've captured their presentations on webcam and let them see how they present (and of course, review and learn from their mistakes). As an addition, today is the last day of all presentations that were scheduled for my subjects this semester. No more chance for me to capture videos for the webcasting assignment! :-(

Anyway, just to share with you all a photo of one of the teams presented today (with me). Yes, they capture photos with lecturers after final presentation of a subject, here in UCSI. I'm not quite sure why, since they are going to see me again next semester, and another semester, and another...

Relieved with students' final assessment, but not relieved knowing I missed something in my own assignment,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
17 Oct 2008

5 downloads within hours!

2008-10-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

After the hassle I made online this morning - informing my band Yahoo group about the uploaded MP3 file, updating my IM status with the link of the MP3 file for my friends' "entertainment", and updating CENL2008 peers on this link (take note, I haven't registered to iTunes, yet!) - I noticed that I already have 5 downloads within hours after uploading. Wow!! Impressive!

Below is part of the screen shot to prove my statement above. Notice that I have 2 podcasts, with 1 episode under each podcast. Shazz DCmates episode 1 already has 5 downloads, meaning 5 viewers/listeners have downloaded my MP3 file today alone.

I will surely create more episodes for these two podcasts... (Finally, got the hang of the jargons!)

I think I'll give my 'excitement' a little break for now,

- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
17 Oct 2008

Podcasting - Day 2 (Part II)

2008-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

I've finally understood the instructions on SolidCasts regarding the podcast link. It seems that what I did was just that!

To summarise the methods of the link and feed, check out the following links and see which one best suited for you... In other words, test for me and tell me if they work! ;-)

1. Link Only: RSS

2. Image:

3. iTunes (I did not register to iTunes, so you may not be able to link from here):

4. Direct Link (I would recommend right-click > Save Target As to local harddisk, especially for slow internet connection): https://sha905.solidcasts.com/xml/download/1559/audio/3803/dcm_jam161008_jogetsudirman.mp3

5. Direct Link using Image (I would recommend the same method as previous):

Good thing I know HTML!
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
17 Oct 2008

Podcasting - Day 2

2008-10-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

Before I logged off last night, I noticed that the SolidCasts gave instructions on how to link/feed the uploaded podcast to blogs and websites. Since time did not permit, I postponed that exploration to today.

Last night's recording of my band's jamming session was a success. I was merely testing how long the Audacity allowed me to record (because some devices/software have limits of recording time/length). It seems that I could record forever...! OK, I guess forever is 'too much' to wish for.

Anyway, this morning I could manage to run through the recorded audio, and I edited the file in Audacity, to copy out the best part of the session and re-save it as another name (also an AUP file).

I insisted on getting the "export to MP3" right, this time round, so I properly read through the error message prompted when I tried to export the file. It said that I needed an encoding file for Audacity to successfully convert the file to MP3. It is called lame_enc.dll.

I searched online for the DLL file, and I got it! Quickly downloaded it, and called that file when I was prompted again in Audacity... and it works! I got myself an MP3 version of the audio file, and uploaded it to my SolidCasts site as a new episode under a newly created podcast called "Shazz DCmates".

Next... to carefully read and understand how to link/feed my podcast. I tried 2 out of 4 recommended options: i) copy the postfeed link to my blog; ii) copy the whole episode link to my blog. You can see the results in my blog on DCmates band at http://shazz-dcmates.blogspot.com/.

I will try the other two options next time. Now, back to work!

Slowly learning the technology, and from experience I know it will take days to understand...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
17 Oct 2008

Podcasting - Day 1 (Part II)

2008-10-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

Time check, 4:57PM. 3 more minutes to go off!! And only now I got to the registration page of the SolidCasts (the podcast hosting service)!! Gggrrrr...

I quickly filled in the registration form, alongwith some other fields to be filled in to create a "podcast". (Whattaheck is a podcast anyway? After all the readings, I'm still blur...).

I uploaded my little sweet voice WAV file to the podcast, and... that's it! What's next??

"Argh! Forget it! Continue later at Subang." I switched off my notebook and headed for Subang, quickly looking for a coffee shop with WiFi, to continue my work. (I'm in Subang for a jamming session at 8pm, so while waiting...)

6:00PM-6:50PM - Reviewed my Research Methods in Computing student's draft, using the tracking feature in Microsoft Word. Email sent to him straight away.

6:50PM-7:20PM - Logging in to CENL2008 Moodle, Blogger and SolidCasts. Edited the podcast information, suddenly had an idea on uploading a 300x300 pixels of image to represent my podcast, and added this blog URL for the "website" field.

"What's next? I thought we supposed to call/link the podcast from our website or something like that? Otherwise, how would the 'students' get to the podcast?" (Thinking out loud the practical side of this podcasting thing.) Better check with the CENL2008 course outline again...

The course outline stated: "Create a podcast! It can be on any subject. You'll need a computer and a microphone and Audacity a free audio recording tool. Upload your audio recording to a podcasting hosting service. Detail your experiences on your blog."

That's it?? Oh! That means I've done it! Post some podcast on the hosting site, and that's it! Hah! (An evil laugh rang in my ear...)

With this, I end my blogging for today. Tomorrow, I will continue to do a proper podcast and try to link/feed from/to this blog. (Still trying to understand how to use the terminology.) But whatever it is, tonight I'm going to record the jamming session with Audacity, wahahaha!!!

I think the caffeine is too much in my brain with all the excitement,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
16 Oct 2008

Podcasting - Day 1

2008-10-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

Here I am... Excited beyond reasons to start downloading the software and registering an account for podcast management site, moments after I blog on my thoughts after reading the first material on podcasting (refer previous write-up).

I quickly read through, or skim through, the details of podcasting hosting service in http://www.learninginhand.com/blog/2007/09/podcast-hosting-services-compared.html, a reading recommended by our moderator. It mentioned 2 recommendations: if you're going to pay, register for LibSyn; if you're going to use for free, SolidCasts.com offers 100MB for life.

Of course I would opt for free hosting service, thus I clicked on the link to SolidCasts.com..., chose the free package..., clicked on sign up... and voila! The site has a problem with its certificate of trust (is that the right term?). In other words, I can't register a free account here. Since I don't have much time to dig around on this, I better put it aside for a while...

At the same time (multitasking of course), I browsed through the Audacity SourceForge site to download the audio recording software. My PC was downloading the software when I found the 'miracle' in that SolidCasts site. After what I encountered with the podcast hosting site, I was a bit doubtful on this Audacity... Download finished, run the installation (I saw some security logo that you normally see when there's an error to run installation on the dialog screen, but I ignored it, pretending not to notice), and the installation was successful! Hah! Thank God! OK, next...

Launched the Audacity, it asked for preferred language - default of English chosen. Tried using the software "Ah! Normal case." Clicked on Record button (with the red circle symbol), brought my face nearer to the little mic hole near my notebook hinge as possible, said a few words, "Hello... This is Sha", and clicked on the Stop button (with the square symbol). Played the recorded audio, "Hah! It works! At least, something works!"

I tried saving the file... Instead of saving as project file (*.aup), I chose to 'export as MP3', but it gave an error asking for a DLL file. "OK, maybe I should save as AUP first" - did that, and re-save as MP3, still the DLL problem! "OK, let's try export as WAV," it works!! HAHAHAHA!! A wicked laugh exploded from my desk. Ops!

Here's the little sample. You might not hear my voice clearly for two reasons - i) I'm mic-shy; ii) My voice was low during recording because I didn't want others around to hear (HAHA!!). Otherwise, Eva in the glassed room in front of me would be cursing me for finishing Week 6 course in Week 5!! HAHAHAHA!!

Here's the sample of my first little recording on audacity (I have to upload it to my geocities site first, until I figure out the podcast hosting site registration thing): http://www.geocities.com/pbq8544/hi-this-is-sha.wav (The best way to listen to this file is by right-clicking the URL and choose Save Target As to download to your local computer.)

Will blog on the podcast hosting next,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
16 Oct 2008

Podcast to encourage absenteeism?

2008-10-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

Review on
7 Things You Should Know About Podcast
Source: Educause Learning Initiative (June, 2005) 7 Things You Should Know About Podcast. Retrieved from: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7003.pdf

I was reading through the newly uploaded material on "7 Things You Should Know About Podcast", and I remembered something...

Earlier this semester (in the beginning of September 2008), I was briefing my Research Methods in Computing students on how to get an idea for a research title and the information system that will be developed for the research. This is for their first assignment on writing a research proposal. Since it's a computing major, they are supposed to think of a product-based research.

A student had an idea and said, "What about a system where a soft copy of a video or audio file on the day's lecture be uploaded immediately after the lecture ends, so that the students who were absent could still catch up with the lecture presented?"

I was a bit sarcastic, even though I was merely 8 months experienced in teaching then. I jumped up and responded, "Oh! So that you can be absent from classes more often is it?"

In the back of my head, I was thinking that the students would eventually find that they do not have to be in a classroom or lecture hall at all if such facilities are available. Even though attendance to classes is compulsory, we still have problems with students who find excuses not to attend classes and blame the lecturers and administration for odd reasons.

Now, after reading the first case scenario presented in the article mentioned above, I thought, "Hey! That's exactly the thing that the students wish for! The technology is here already?" I know that podcast can do wonderful things in bridging to the students who are not able to be around for lectures etc., but just think a moment...

If I were a student, a naughty one let's say, I would attend a few minutes of the lecture just to 'show my face' and get my attendance signed, and then I would go off - disappear from class (either with a reason or not)... Just wait for some time, and I get a copy of the exact lecture I missed from the Net, and I can listen to it whenever and wherever I want to... or never at all!

If it's only one person who thinks this way, I think it's still OK. But what if the whole class thinks the same way?! Eventually, what's the point of lecturing so much and so detailed if no one listens in the first place - there will be nothing to record!

I don't know about you guys, but to me, if the attendance is less than half, I call it off... and I don't care if the whole semester I have to call it off! Because there's no point teaching when there's no one listening in front of me. I won't be knowing (by reading the audience body language, etc.) whether the 'listeners' understand my lectures or not, or wants to hear more examples of the theories I present or not, or... (the list goes on).

To me, my lecture depends a lot on the respond I get on the spot. To me, podcast has a high capability to encourage absenteeism in higher education institutions. To me, we need a control of this if we want to implement the recording of lectures in podcast, such as delaying the upload of the podcast to more than a day or two, and controling the process of signing students' attendance somehow...

Podcast = absenteeism, think about it.

Getting harsher day by day in terms of discipline among students,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
16 Oct 2008

Browsing through others' blogs...

2008-10-15T01:20:00.000-07:00

I've been checking out others' blogs, those who are under the same programme as mine currently (the CENL2008 online course). Quite interesting that everyone could contribute something to each other. I'm quite surprised that I could manage to post comments for each participant's blogs!

Today, the Admins updated the list of new blogs posted by our members, including themselves. As I was skimming through George's (http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/) and Peter's (http://ltc.umanitoba.ca:83/blogs/atouchoffrost) blogs, I noticed something by comparing the two blog contents.

Different bloggers have different styles in blogging. Some would blog very "academically" or formally, while some other would be blogging spontaneously or casually. I thought I'm a casual blogger until I noticed the different styles I have for different blogs! My personal blogs are quite casual, whereas my portfolio blog is quite formal. Hhmm...
If we blog short and juicy (like other participants' blogs), it's easier for others to comment. If we blog lengthy with too much of 'babbling' (like what I did in this blog), we'll end up having no comments posted or even no readers at all! Not everyone has time to read through every line, right? Lesson learnt!
Fonts! I know I'm an interface designer and fonts are important to me, but... as mentioned in my class and even here, if the fonts are small and compact (showing there's so much texts in the article), it would cause the readers to feel a bit demotivated to read. Especially if the paragraphs are 'thick' and lengthy. But that doesn't mean a fat, bold fonts are good, neither... because fat and bold fonts 'sounds' rather 'strong' and 'rude'. Unless the blogger wants to emphasize certain statements or words, then I guess it's OK. Oh yes, unless it's a header or title, it would be appropriate too.

Let me cut my 'mind-boggling blog' here, so that it won't bore you (haha!). I will keep on blogging in this site as how I see fit, so it won't be just for the purpose of the CENL2008.

All the best to all bloggers! May all of us get good responds from the world of readers!

Mind boggling with a headache, ends up in a casual-toned blog,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
15 Oct 2008

Something to Kick-Start

2008-10-11T03:14:00.000-07:00

Review on
Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Guide for Evaluating Online Courses
Source: Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B.R., Craner, J. & Duffy, T.M. (2007), Originally published in The Technology Source (http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/) as: Ann Luck "Developing Courses for Online Delivery: One Strategy." The Technology Source, January/February 2001.

First and foremost, thanks to Alice Phua for tagging this site as CENL2008 for us to review.

The 7 principles of effective teaching were originally written for traditional face-to-face teaching environment, but they are crafted in a way to suit the online teaching in this article. The following lists the 7 principles for our case – online teaching and learning, with the details of my review.

Principle 1: Good Practice Encourages Student-Faculty Contact
Instructors should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.

I find this principle as very necessary. From my experience, the students are very attentive towards initial instructions given in the beginning of the course. They would argue with me by pointing to the instructions given in the course outline, even after I mentioned in the class of the new instruction to replace that former information.

Yet, they always find it confusing when it comes to technical support questions and course-related questions. They thought that the course instructor could be the “single reference point” for every issue they would have during the course.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. E-announcement

Principle 2: Good Practice Encourages Cooperation among Students
Well-designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students.

I find the listed recommendations as very important and probably not being taken into account by most instructors:

- Discussion groups should remain small.
> Small participation will make it easier to control and manage, and the learners have no choice but to ‘speak out’ and give responds because the instructors can identify who would be the silent ones.
> Small participation also ensures easiness in contributing and responding to each other’s review/topic because it’s less confusing (less ‘noise’).
> The topic of discussion is also easier to understand and follow.

- Discussions should be focused on a task and the task should always result in a product.
> There are often discussions that are out of track, especially with regards to theory. It is the responsibility of the instructor to pull the learners back into track, and focus on the topics of discussion.
> A good example is our usage of a wiki as a platform of discussion and in producing the final product - teaching/learning strategies using social bookmarking, blogs and wikis.

- Tasks should engage learners in the content, and learners should receive feedback on their discussions.
> Tasks or assignment should revolve around the content and theory of the subject of the course. The learners might need to be reminded to respond and answer by relating to the theory taught in the course (with the real-life situation, if applicable).
> It is annoying and frustrating if we do not know whether the message we sent has been received by the person we send to…, what more if the message sent is an assigned task that will determine our marks for the course undertaken. This is the main reason why the learners should receive feedback on their discussions (at least a message of “points noted” or “good point”). The learners would feel at ease knowing that their thoughts have been read through.

- Evaluation should be based on the quality of postings (and not the length or number).
> This is very common to us during marking the assignments – we tend to give more points just for the effort made by the learners to write a lengthy posting. Yet, the gist or the main point may not reach the level or the quality that is required. I believe, in most cases, learners tend to repeat the same words or phrases over and over again in that long posting (sometimes, they just can’t help it when they don’t have much idea to write!).

- Instructors should post expectations for discussions.
> Similar to the earlier item, expectations should be addressed when the task is first assigned to the learners. This would be the main guideline for them to respond and get to know how the discussion would be evaluated, and it would be the least clue they could get on how the marks are allocated during the evaluation.
> It also gives an idea for the learners in understanding the topics taught during the course, and what is important and relevant for their real-life application.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. Chat room
3. Web conference, or synchronous online meeting
4. Blog

Principle 3: Good Practice Encourages Active Learning
Students should present course projects.

Only during presentation that we can evaluate whether the learners understand their coursework, and whether they really did the projects themselves! The best part of the presentation that I find very much valuable is during the Q&A session – it really can test the learners’ honesty in working on the projects.

In my courses, especially for a 100% coursework (no tests/exams), I made it compulsory to have a group presentation with each group member presenting their part. During the Q&A session, I ask each of them according to their contribution of work during the project development. If only one person keeps on answering every question I ask, it shows that he’s the “one-leg-kicking” member, or “one-man-show” member of the group. That’s when I waive the marks of others accordingly.

Even though the presentation is in group, I always ensure that the final report is submitted individually. This is again to ensure that the individuals (the group members) understand the projects well, especially in the Conclusion part, where conclusions and discussions are always unique among different minds.

Instruments in mind:
1. Podcast
2. Synchronous online meeting, or web conferencing
3. ‘Articulate’ (online) presentation

Principle 4: Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgment feedback.

As mentioned in the earlier item, a feedback is important to maintain the two-way-communication flow and to put the learners are ease, knowing that their thoughts and responds are heard or read (and their efforts are acknowledged). [With this, I would like to thank our moderator for giving some respond to my overall blog posts via forum – probably because he couldn’t be commenting all my ‘overdone’ effort Hehehe…!].

Instruments in mind:
1. E-mail
2. Forum
3. E-group message, or announcement, notice board

Principle 5: Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
Online courses need deadlines.

No matter how less time the students would have to concentrate on their online course (due to full-time jobs, etc.) we should not encourage procrastination on their side. When they registered for the course, they have made a commitment and promise to themselves to go through the hassle and difficulties in juggling time between daily routines (personal and work) and study.

In fact, we (as instructors) can encourage them and motivate them by following up with them to get them to realise that we are constantly monitoring them, and that we are deeply concern if they could not follow our teachings online.

Bear in mind, I’m not talking about sending hasty reminders and alarming emails to rush them on completing their assignments! That would be cruel! (Hahaha…!) We don’t want our students to jump around and curse us, don’t we? Having the assignment notified in the beginning of the semester makes them grumpy enough, what more if we rush the dead cells to wake up and face the ‘not-so-pleasing music’.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. Chat room
3. Social network (“Wall”, comment, message)
4. E-mail
5. Group e-calendar

Principle 6: Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
Challenging tasks, sample cases, and praise for quality work communicate high expectations.

The more challenging the tasks, the more marks can be allocated, the more the learners find them important and difficult that they have to start early without any procrastination.

Having a sample case is always a better option in presenting our expectations. Even we, adult learners, depend on samples and examples to understand how to work on an assignment – at least for me – what more youngsters, especially first year students who just joined a course. It would also takes time for them to understand a lecturer’s style and taste in assignment presentation and submission, and that normally can be achieved during the next semester or year, when they are facing the same lecturer.

Instruments in mind:
1. Blog - Can be used as e-portfolio too, see my sample at http://sha-portfolio.blogspot.com.
2. Website - I did one for my IT students at http://www.geocities.com/pbq8544/, I link to their assignment sites and evaluate from there.
3. E-group - I maintain one Yahoo Group for my multimedia programming students at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mmp2008/, which include database of the multimedia projects by students.
4. Pod-cast
5. Social bookmarking

Principle 7: Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.

It’s is something like going through a part-time Master program after minimum of 2 years working experience… When we have our own experience in working life, we would have various ideas and thoughts (which come from our observations at work) that we could relate with the course taught in class. Different learners in the class may observe different angle… or probably no angle at all! Well, at least that’s what I went through in my Master program.

Learners can come from various background and diverse views, thus it is interesting to see how learners could relate these with the course outline. It is very valuable when they could appreciate the course taught when they relate it to their topic of interest. I assure you, they would definitely appreciate the course better if we allow them this.

It also gives them a chance to explore more on their topic of interests, and make them see their topic in a different angle. They would also appreciate their topic along the way…

Instruments in mind:
1. Blog
2. Website
3. Wiki – e.g.: the one we are having on CENL2008
4. Forum
5. ‘Articulate’ (online) presentation
6. Podcast

Slowly losing the 'free time' for this course,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
11 Oct 2008

Testimonials vs Wall

2008-10-08T03:36:00.000-07:00

Review on
Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship
Source: boyd, d.m. & Ellison, N.B. (2007) Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://www.jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Definition of Social Network Sites:
Web-based services that allow individuals to:

construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system
articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection
view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system

It’s not just about allowing individuals to meet strangers, but more of enabling users to “articulate and make visible their social networks”. Primarily, the users’ reason to join a social network site is to communicate with “people who are already a part of their extended social network”.

“The term ‘Friends’ can be misleading, because the connection does not necessarily mean friendship in the everyday vernacular scene, and the reasons people connect are varied” (boyd, 2006a).
I find this to be true, especially when I’m asked to ‘accept’ a ‘friend request’ from someone (who could be within my extended network or not). Initially, when I was getting used to a social network site, I was having doubt to click on the ‘accept’ button, because I didn’t ‘consider’ certain people as ‘my friend’. After some time, I noticed that there’s not much difference whether I accept or not the friend request, thus I started to accept all request with a purpose of extending my network. In other words, my purpose of joining (and maintaining) the social network sites changes through time – from ‘joining the site because all my friends are in the site’, to ‘joining the site to get to know more (new) people’.

“SNSs vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology…”
The various features provided by different social network sites make it difficult for the users to choose which site they should maintain and be loyal to. I received a feedback from a student that she has accounts in various sites and she finds it difficult to maintain, and this makes her frustrated to even log in to the site anymore. I started having the same feeling when I first got used to Friendster, and it got worse when I registered for Facebook (which made my network expanded drastically from 0 to 100 within few days!) when all my ‘friends’ started shooting in greetings and applications. I like Friendster because of the blog feature, but I found that Facebook could ‘mirror-blog’ my existing blog (from Blogger) but the readers wouldn’t be the same audience… When I upload photos in Friendster, I have to upload the same photos in Facebook because the group of friends are different and they want to view my photos, but at the same time the same members from Friendster would be complaining saying that they’ve been seeing the same photos of mine… so many dilemmas.

Impression Management and Friendship Performance:
“Marwick (2005) found that users on three different SNSs had complex strategies for negotiating the rigidity of a prescribed ‘authentic’ profile, while boyd (in press) examined the phenomenon of ‘Fakesters’ and argued that profiles could never be ‘real’.”
I find this to be true, where we can’t be sure if the profile is a ‘real’ identity. Unless we know the person, we would not bother if the person uses a different nickname or different profile details. If the person is a stranger, it would give a huge doubt for us to accept the person as part of our network. After a while, we can make out whether the name is authentic or not, and probably we would get used to it that it wouldn’t be a bother anymore.

Some people may accept a person as how he portrays himself, and learn to know him after he’s accepted as part of the network. Yet, most of us would possibly prefer to know the true person first before accepting him into the network. Normally, if the ‘unidentified’ person is a member within our extended network, and the friend we share with this person is known to be very particular of letting others be within his/her network, then it would be easier to judge the ‘authenticity’ of the person before we accept him. If this case happens, I usually ask the friend whom we share about the ‘unidentified’ person before accepting him into my network.

“… the use of Friendster Testimonials as self-presentational devices (boyd & Heer, 2006) and the extent to which the attractiveness of one’s Friends (as indicated by Facebook’s ‘Wall’ feature) impacts impression formation (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim & Westerman, in press).”

Talking about Testimonials and Wall, I treat these two interesting features as part of my ‘portfolio’ and ‘recommendation quotes’ that my friends and referees could post for me. Probably Wall is more of a ‘public message’, due to the word “wall” (whatever posted on the wall can be seen by everybody) that Facebook uses. As for Testimonials, when I first read the term, I thought Friendster provides the feature to allow members to promote each other in terms of testifying the authenticity of their friends, and their skills. At least that’s what I did initially for my friends’ Testimonials.

References:

boyd, d. (2006a). Friends, Friendsters, and MySpace Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, 11 (12). Retrieved July 21, 2007 from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/

boyd, d. (in press). None of this is real. In J. Karaganis (Ed.), Structures of Participation. New York: Social Science Research Council.

boyd, d., & Heer, J. (2006). Profiles as conversation: Networked identity performance on Friendster. Proceedings of Thirty-Ninth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Press.

Marwick, A. (2005, October). "I'm a lot more interesting than a Friendster profile:" Identity presentation, authenticity, and power in social networking services. Paper presented at Internet Research 6.0, Chicago, IL.

Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Kim, S. Y., & Westerman, D. (in press). The role of friends' appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on Facebook: Are we known by the company we keep? Human Communication Research.

Having my own purpose and preference over SNSs,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
08 Oct 2008

What's the Point?

2008-10-06T01:48:00.000-07:00

Review on
Educational Blogging
Source: Downes, S. (2004) Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5) pp 14–26.

Seipp (2002) commented on how blog was mainly for personal online diary with boyfriend problems and tech news, but all those changed after September 11, where the media refers to a web journal with comments on the news "often by criticizing the media and usually in rudely clever tones". It seems that an event that affects the world could enthrall the global citizens to manipulate the use of social media, especially in sharing feelings, ideas, knowledge, news, and other materials that matter most to individuals. It's a way of exploding one's long-lost excitement or frustration, and the latest technology available is the medium to channel that 'energy'.

In the hands of teachers and learners, 5 major uses for blogs can be listed according to Farrell (2003):

Teachers use blogs to replace the standard class Web page.
(Often accompanying the first) instructors begin to link to Internet items that relate to their course.
Blogs are used to organize in-class discussions.
Some instructors are using blogs to organize class seminars and to provide summaries of readings.
Students may be asked to write their own blogs as part of their course grade.

Motivating factors for blogging, according to Siemens (2002), are:

weblogs break down barriers
weblogs allow ideas to be based on merit, rather than origin, and ideas that are of quality filter across the Internet
weblogs allow readers to hear the day-to-day thoughts of individuals, hear opinions of people they would never otherwise hear.

Long (2004) asked good questions with his opinion that he's not convinced that using the blogging software is the same as blogging. "Does posting writing prompts for students constitute blogging? Are students blogging when they use blogging software to write to those prompts?" I had the same questions earlier. In my opinion, unless the students really 'write' out of their interest and for certain intent, and stick to the routine of publishing their write-up, only then it can be considered blogging. I know some of my students who really blogs, and they tried various blog-sites before they stick to one that fulfil their purpose. Of course, no one really taught them how to blog because it's not part of their course (they're non-IT student).

Richardson (2004) has the same thought as mine too in response to this matter: "No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of one, the teacher." It's the teacher who asks the students to write in order to get assignment marks, and of course the way the students 'write' would be tailored for the one audience in mind - their teacher. So how can we be sure that they understand the meaning of blogging, if they themselves are not 'writing' out of their own will and for larger audience? If I were the students (before being a blogger myself), I would feel very reluctant and cautious to 'write' for my teacher as well, and thus the write-up would be neatly written to ensure good grade from the teacher - other audience won't be in the picture at all. "When given their own resources to draw on, bloggers, especially young bloggers, can become frustrated and may eventually report having 'committed the ultimate blogging sin of losing interest in myself'".

"... as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation. And for a conversation to be successful, it must be given a purpose and it must remain, for the most part, unconstrained" (Downes, 2004). Even when we read a blog, we would notice that the writer uses a 'conversation language', as if having a monologue, pouring out the whole thought he would be having at that instance. I know I do that! And in order to write with the first instance of thought, one should not be constrained too much... only then it is called 'blogging'.

Blogging, however, offers students a chance to:

reflect on what they are writing and thinking as they write and think it,
carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and
engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that then leads to further writing and thinking

... but in getting there...? It might take some time for the 'young bloggers' or students to really get to the point where they develop "all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills and information literacy among other things" (Richardson, 2004).

I like the idea of 'listening' before venturing forth with an opinion. We, as educators, should assign the students to "go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means" (Smith, 2004). I guess that's what Siemens is trying to do in our CENL2008 course, by 'taming' us with social bookmarking, forum, and now blogging the topic we tagged! Thank you, George! [Now, I can say, "I see! I see!" ;-)]

Basically, blogging is about "writing down what you think when you read others. If you keep at it, others will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you’ll enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection" (Richardson, 2004). This process would eventually contribute to the body of knowledge, or giving a spark of idea to a researcher in proposing new theory, or other wonderful things that a 'new realm of human connection' can give.

"Blogging is about, first, reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community" (Downes, 2004). This is quite true, because until you read somebody's writing (on the topic of your interest) that you would feel intrigued (to question) or provoked (to criticize) until it occurs to you that you have a lot of ideas and... Why don't I just blog!?

So… am I blogging now??

References:

Farrell, H. (2003) The Street Finds Its Own Use for Things, Crooked Timber, http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000516.html.

Long, R. (2004) Back from San Antonio, 2River, http://www.2river.org/blog/archives/000077.html.

Richardson, W. (2004) Blogging and RSS—The ‘What’s It?’ and ‘How To’ of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators, Information Today, http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml.

Richardson, W. (2004) Reading and Blogging, Weblogg-Ed, http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2004/03/31

Seipp, C. (2002) Online Uprising, American Journalism Review, http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=2555.

Siemens, G. (2002) The Art of Blogging—Part 1, elearnspace, http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm.

Smith, K. (2004) CCCC Waves and Ripples, Weblogs in Higher Education, http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog_comments.php?id=P2636_0_13_0.

Making sense of the point my blogging,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
06 Oct 2008

Bunnyman on the loose!

2008-10-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

Review on
Social Media and Education - avoiding the rabbit holes
Source: http://14sandwiches.com/2008/09/12/social-media-and-education-avoiding-the-rabbit-holes/

"Social media tools can be incredibly useful in schools... to help teach students safety online" (Martin, 2008) - this is one of the most important thing to teach students in the first place, due to a number of information a stranger could gather from one's profile, that could lead to identity theft, etc. This issue (on identity-sharing behaviour among students and concern on identity theft) is covered in detail by Stutzman (2006).

From Martin's experience reflected in this article, it shows that there is a fine line between work and personal life, once we 'expose' ourselves in social media. I was a bit aware too on this part, before I could finally decide to accept my students' invitations to social online networks. Yet, I have nothing much to hide.

Social media can be a friend or a foe, so if it's going to build trust among my students on me and what knowledge I have to share with them, then why not? "Just be sure that any skeletons you have are hidden in a suitable closet," as Martin (2008) advised.

Bunnyman with skeleton in the closet,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
06 Oct 2008

Wiser Machine?

2008-10-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

Review on
Is Google making us Stupid?
Source: Carr, N. (2008) Is Google making us Stupid? Atlantic Monthly (Jul/Aug)

This review is for discussion based on these questions:
“How has the ability of students to access whatever, whenever, wherever through information and communication technologies changed the way they interact and process that information? What are the new skills and abilities needed to cope with this stream of information? What changes have you seen in your own students - if any?”

Making sense of what we find online:
"We stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock" (Carr,2008) - Just like reading and selecting literature reviews for research, we rely (and trust) the search engine so much to do the work, that we sometimes tend to ignore the real reading and digestion of the information.

Carr (2008) talked about skimming instead of reading... It might be OK for us to skim through (the content we find online), because we've learnt the basics and know what to skip and what to focus/concentrate on. But for students, (especially those working on literature review for research), it's like "teetering on the edge of precipice" for me to see how they select contents without really reading! And if they don't really read through what they copy from the Net, they won't know how to argue/justify if they are asked after that.

Net's influence affecting other media:
I agree with Carr (2008) about people's minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media that the traditional media have to adapt to the audience's new expectations. I saw this from the designer's perspective, where the design of the DTP media (e.g. newsletters) has to have a 'capsule summaries' and 'info-snippets' in the first page itself, even though the newsletter is only 4 pages long. :-S As for readers/audience, they tend to skim through these summaries and selectively read the details. If this is also a habit of our students (for the case of text books, lecture notes, etc. in any form of media), I can't guarantee that they could learn much in their campus years.

During our time, we had to cover a lot of pages just to get to the real point we want. I still do that today for new subjects that I need to teach, and it helps me in elaborating the points in detail. I don't have good memory, but when I read more, I understand better and somehow I could remember things.

"In the past the man has been first, in the future the system must be first" (Taylor, n.d.):
Such a bold statement from Taylor. Is that why men are replaceable, because system is at "perfect efficiency"? Meaning, knowledgeable men are not a competitive asset of an organisation anymore? Does that mean knowledge now is totally in the system, including tacit knowledge? Then, academicians are replaceable and we are not needed eventually? (I use the word 'eventually' because we are still needed as a guide and motivator for online-learning, today.)

Countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine:
Carr (2008) has a good way to relate to Plato’s and Squarciafico’s words, regarding humans being “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom”, where technology is leading to “intellectual laziness” making men “less studious” and weakening their minds. The “worry” will never end, because there’s always new literacy being introduced and emerged every millennium, year, day or even second.

Carr (2008) also mentioned “evolving under pressure of information overload and the technology of the instantly available”. The word he uses is “evolving”, but I don’t think that “instantly available” would diminish the information overload; it might be worse!

There is a nice (dark) prophecy by Kubrick, mentioned in this article: “As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence”. This quote is worth to ponder on…

The reason why we need to continuously learn and relearn...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
05 Oct 2008

Learning from Digital Natives

2008-10-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

Review on
Learning from Digital Natives: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning
Source: Trinder, K.R. et al (2008) Learning from Digital Natives: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning. The Higher Education Academy: Glasgow.

In my search for better understanding on new technology as knowledge sharing enabler, I was introduced to this literature by Trinder, et al (2008). It is the beginning to my further search on methods in using new technology for teaching and learning, and in my research interest – knowledge sharing.

O’Reilly (2004) has introduced the concept of Web 2.0 as a new generation of web-based tools for knowledge sharing. Yet, instead of an enabler, it is more considered as a value-added tool, as mentioned by Coates (2005). Whatever the terms, this new ‘phenomena’ is due to ‘decentralisation’ of certain aspects (i.e. knowledge creation, technology ownership, publication, control, etc.), which Surowiecki (2004) considered as “architecture of participation that harnesses the wisdom of crowds”.

I don’t quite agree with the statement, “students are developing new forms of evaluation skills and strategies (searching, restructuring, validating) which enable them to critique and make decisions about a variety of sources and content”. I believe that the students are yet to learn to understand, digest, assert and evaluate the ‘information overloaded’ contents they get from the Internet. Until today, I’m still worried for my students when they show off their ‘copy-and-paste’ skills and yet claim that they ‘paraphrase’ everything they get/search from the Internet. In fact, it is so clear to me that the whole ‘chunk’ of content is not something they understand and paraphrase, and it shows when they could not explain well what they present to me in their report. Thus, the statement is debatable, at least to me.

The use of these new tools is “changing the way they gather, use and create knowledge” (Conole et al, 2006), but it’s not to a better way. It still depends on the individuals, on how much experience (or guide) they get in learning the way to gather, use and create knowledge, before they can be ‘trusted’ in understanding the right thing. This happens very much across languages and cultures.

In my opinion, students believe too much on technology. That is why they use online tools “regardless of the course structures or teacher preferences” (Kurhila, 2006). In my most recent experience, I instructed my students to use the textbook (just to ensure that they read the chapters properly and that everybody would have the same ground to discuss), but instead they went to great distance to search for the online version of the book and get answers from there! How can I ensure that they learn something when they could spend the vital hours given to them by getting the answer directly from the publisher? They prefer to use their mind to search and copy-paste using online tools instead of study hard to understand the subject.

In referring to the statement, “Outside formal educational environments individuals act as active participants navigating their way independently through complex multimodal digital environments”, I think the right question to ask is “Why are they active ‘outside’?” Is it trust (that they have from online tools)? Is it being introvert and anonymous that makes them comfortable to be active? Or is it because of having virtual identities (that they can use to hide their true self, in fear of being accused for saying something wrong)?

In answering these questions, Collis & Moonen (forthcoming) summarises four effective ways that the technology provides:
1. To be heard
2. To connect
3. To find and share
4. To build identity

In fact, the real issues in hand would be on the teachers’ side – our skills in teaching using new pedagogies supported by technology. The old way of teaching (as how we were taught) is no longer effective or enough for the learners’ generation. So, how to use the technology for education? The key question is: “What is the actual value of these technologies (blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.) and the processes they afford for formal learning and should institutions be investing in them?”

I see a similarity between the computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems and e-Advantage system that we have on UCSI virtual learning environment (VLE). The only difference would be that our e-Advantage is not well-accepted, and this has brought to a huge curiosity to the first-year students who join our campus every semester.

I always believe that we can learn better by teaching others. It helps in empowering our memory on certain subjects because we repeat the topics to others during the explanation. My opinion is supported by Sefton-Green (2004), who stated that “young people are taking on roles of teacher and learner in peer-based online groups”.

This follows by the statement that I agree very much by Eraut (2000) and Sternberg et al (2000): “A great deal of learning is non-formal, in that it results during the course of daily life events and activities related to work, family and leisure”. We, humans, learn better when we could relate the topics we learn with the things we observe around us in our daily lives. For example, during my postgraduate studies, I could relate the subject of Organisational Behaviour with the discrete group of software development team we had in my then-current firm, where the behaviours of different individuals are due to many ‘unseen’ reasons. I could even understand my family members better when I gain the knowledge in such subjects.

In understanding the differences between formal and informal learning, I summarise the details in a comparison table as follows [I can't manage to draw a table in this blog, so I have to list the details down according to same sequence for each concept]:
Formal learning
Provided by an educational/training institution
Lead to certification/award
Structured
Involving presence of a designated teaching/trainer
Intentional

Informal learning
Not provided by a formal educational/training institution
Typically does not lead to certification
May be structured or non-structured
Results from daily, social life activities related to education, work, socialising with others or pursuit of leisure activities and hobbies
May be intentional or non-intentional (incidental)

Another good question that is essential is “What educational processes are fostered by social and personal technologies?” A set of research results is derived from answering this question:

development and enhancement of users’ social capital and psychological well-being
knowledge construction processes
emergence of new types of literacy practices of “participation” (dichotomy of consumption and production) and “remix” (the notion of copying-and-pasting inherent to this dichotomy)
development of metacognitive skills, including increased motivation
knowledge transfer between various contexts

Even though there are many researches done to understand the learning process underpinned by social software, there is little focus on educational aspect; mainly are focused on sociological and information sciences perspective. Thus, we have to start a research on the educational area, with relation to pedagogical and other aspects.

The key commonly used e-tools could be divided into 3 main categories as follows:

1. Hardware

Mobile phones (e.g. vocabulary texting for learning of language, personal broadcasting, delivery of learning content and discussion activities)
Personal media players (e.g. flash memory for storage, PC connectivity via USB port or Bluetooth for downloading, podcasting)
Computers, PDAs, laptops and tablet PCs (e.g. GPS-enabled PDAs, built-in GPRS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for connection, gather data, photos, information)
Game consoles (e.g. complete multimedia functionality with e-book reader, variety of options for formal learning or informal ‘play’)
- Other hardware (e.g. interactive whiteboards, voting systems)

2. Software

Multiplayer gaming environment (e.g. for virtual team, collaboration, role-playing activities of person-object, object-object and person-person)
Blogs (e.g. share reviews and work/assignment, regular writing practice –what I aim for most students)
Wikis (e.g. online encyclopaedia, build trust and respect – what I want my students to learn, due to their various backgrounds)
Social bookmarking (e.g. sharing links and information in peer-based learning)

3. Network access and connectivity
Three aspects under network and connectivity:
Ability to access

I’ve been pointing out on this since day one: IT infrastructure, the backbone, the connection services – should be reliable, stable, and supporting our effort in e-learning

Quality of access

A good point made on this statement “Where students have access, and of what type, should be given consideration when planning the use of e-tools to support learning”. Just look at us going through the online course without a good, stable, quality of access; out of approximately 30 members, only 2 could go online for the web-conference, and even that two are without a good and stable quality of network and built-in device

Ownership and control

From public to private, complex and interlinked, use the e-tools in a public or institutionally controlled environment

There are a few case studies that brought to my attention:
1. Mudlarking in Deptford (Sutch & Sprake, 2005)

It is an interesting project, suitable for Malaysia junior high-school Geography and History projects
It help the students understand their close environment and teach them to appreciate their environment
The ability (to record their own experiences) motivated the students, got them excited and gave them ideas to challenge their creativity
In return, the students not only learn about the subject and surrounding, but also the technology – it’s like killing 2 birds with one stone when they learn to appreciate the tools as well as the subjects
But how to measure the improvement of learning on the students part? Report writing? Or do we need 2 sets of learning methods (one group using e-tools, and another group using the traditional methods) and measure the differences or improvements from before and after they accomplish their mission?

2. Context awareness to enhance visitor engagement in gallery space (Proctor & Burton, 2003, reported in Lonsdale & Beale, 2005)

Obviously it’s a one-way communication between human and machine
It doesn’t reflect any learning taking place due to limited responses between the two subjects – human and machine
The only ‘communication’ allowed between the two subjects is the Q&As that may not be 100 percent used by the human (most people tend to ignore the feature)

3. Second Life: Role play (Antonacci & Modaress, 2005)

Person-person activity
The best is still real-life experience learning, unless learners are dispersed geographically

4. Second Life: Tectonic flow (Antonacci & Modaress, 2005)

Object-object activity
Scripting, as per my understanding, is by using formulae and algorithms in producing the simulation
This reminds me of my first 2 years in CAGD degree course, where I had to compile mathematical formulae in algorithm using C program, in producing an animated 3-D graph; it helped in my understanding and appreciation of mathematics
Something that real-life cannot provide due to the subjects characteristics
Maybe there’s no communication or feedback between teacher and learner, since the learner is engaged in a simulated experimental activity
On the other hand, the tutor’s simulation can be a sample for students’ assignment; when the learners see the final product, they would have an idea on what is expected from them

5. An Essay Evolves: Use of Blog and Wiki to tack students’ progress in essay writing (Reynolds, 2007)

I like this case study for the fact that it managed to translate tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge – something that is found vital yet almost impossible in knowledge management concept
I can use this for to track my students’ thesis writing, perhaps

Overall, there are 2 limitations that are not covered, due to the focus that is more on student satisfaction:
1. How the use of technologies impact learning outcomes
2. How barriers can be identified, analysed and addressed

References:

Antonacci, D. & Modaress, N. (2005). Second Life: The educational possibilities of a Massively Multiplayer Virtual World (MMVW). Paper presented at the EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference, Austin, Texas. Retrieved on 10 January 2007, from www2.kumc.edu/tlt/SLEDUCAUSESW2005/SLPresentationOutline.htm

Coates, T. (2005, January 5). An addendum to a definition of Social Software. Plastigbag.org [blog], Retrieved 13 July 2007, from www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/01/an_addendum_to_a_definition_of_social_software

Collis, B. & Moonen, J. (forthcoming). Web 2.0 tools and processes in higher education: Quality perspectives. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (special issue on supporting sustainable e-Learning).

Conole, G., de Laat, M., Dillon, T. & Darby, J. (2006). LXP: Student experience of technologies. Final report. JISC, UK. Retrieved on 29 August 2007, from www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_learneroutcomes.aspx

Eraut, M. (2005). Informal learning in the workplace, Retrieved 10 November 2006, from : www.tlrp.org/dspace/retrieve/226/Informal+Learning+in+the+workplace1.doc

Kurhila, J. (2006). “Unauthorized” use of social software to support formal higher education. In T. Reeves & S. Yamashita (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006 (pp.2602-2607). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved August 30 2007, from:
www.editlib.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Reader.ViewAbstract&paper_id=24098

Lonsdale, P. & Beale, R. (2005). Using context awareness to enhance visitor engagement in a gallery space. In Editor Proceedings of HCI 2005 Conference, Edinburgh, UK, pp. Retrieved 01 May 2007, from www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rxb/Online%20papers/HCI2005-crc.pdf

O’Reilly, T. (2004). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software Retrieved on 27 August 2007 from www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Reynolds, L. (2007). An Essay Evolves Retrieved on March 5 2007, from http://evolvingessay.pbwiki.com/

Sefton-Green, J. (2004). Literature Review in Informal Learning with Technology outside School [online], NESTA Futurelab report No. 7. Retrieved 10 November 2006, from: www.futurelab.org.uk/research/reviews/07_01.htm

Sternberg, R. J., Forsyth, G. B., Hedlund, J., Horvath, J. A., Wagner, R.K, Williams, W. M. (2000). Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. Abacus: London, UK.

Sutch, D. & Sprake, J. (2005). Mudlarking in Deptford. Project report. Retrieved on August 10, 2007, from www.futurelab.org.uk/showcase/mudlarking

Forever in learning mode,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
05 Oct 2008

Connecting the Digital Dots

2008-10-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Review on
Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century
Source: Jones-Kavalier, B.R. & Flannigan, S.L. (2006) Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century. Educause Quarterly (2)

This review is for discussion based on these questions:
“How has the ability of students to access whatever, whenever, wherever through information and communication technologies changed the way they interact and process that information? What are the new skills and abilities needed to cope with this stream of information? What changes have you seen in your own students - if any?”

From the source, I could categorise my view in two aspects, as follows.

IT Infrastructure:
I agree with Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan (2006) on educational organisations developing "comprehensive technology plans... to enhance students' digital and visual literacy". It is quite true, but then again, even if they provide, it's not ample or strong enough, especially when technology has to be upgraded very frequently. Yesterday we had blogs, today we have pod-casts, tomorrow we'll have moodles, what's next? Changes in technology itself is hard for us to keep up, and students are much more updated on the technology that one of my students brought it up in the class asking, "Why are we still using the old technology, the new release was last year!" We have to remember that every time new technology is introduced, it requires new hardware, software, network bandwith capacity, etc.

Making sense of what we find online:
Gilster (1997), as cited by Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan (2006) mentioned that "the most critical of [digital literacy] is the ability to make educated judgments about what we find online". As I pointed out before, having the skill of using the digital media is not just it, it's only a start. The real challenge is to make sense of the information we (and students) get online, and "dealing with complexity" of the information overload. Students need the knowledge of how to trim down and filter the information they find, to get to the focused result expected. Until today, I still don't trust my students in their 'research' because of the way they present the reports that are hardly filtered. They found one article, which roughly has what they want, and they copy a whole chunk of it. They don't even know how to add their own words within the 'chunk' they get - and that shows that they don't really understand what they 'copied'. (And after that they argued saying that they've worked hard all night doing the research and they've paraphrased the content, etc... which is not true.)

Digitally Signed,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
05 Oct 2008

Welcome to Sha's Blog on Teaching and Learning

2008-10-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

This is my 7th blog created in blogger.com. Most of my blogs are on personal matters, to keep my family and friends in touch with my kid's stories, to advertise my expertise via my portfolio blog, and to share ideas and knowledge on matters of interest.

This blog of mine on teaching and learning is created as part of my short-term study with University of Manitoba, on The New Literacy. Thus, this blog will be mainly for reviewing research papers and sharing ideas/knowledge on technology in education.

Keep yourself updated on my blog, for further reviews as my course continues. Do feel free to leave your comments on my blog. I appreciate the two-way communication we will surely have. ;-)

See you onboard!
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
02 Oct 2008