Saturday, August 15, 2009

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

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

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

Monday, May 11, 2009

Publication updates

Just got some news to share regarding my research and publications.
  1. One research paper is accepted for publication by UCSI Academic Journal.
  2. One research paper is to be 'fine-tuned' and being looked forward to be published in next year's UCSI Academic Journal.
  3. 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

Friday, April 17, 2009

Upcoming conferences to look forward to!

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/

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

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Final post on CENL2008

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

"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