This is the last week of our PMEY 3104 Integration of Technology in Primary Science Teaching. This week we submitted and presented our final assignment which is the instructional material.
Among the points presented by my group are:
a) LEARNING PROBLEM
b) THE ADDIE MODEL ANALYSIS(FLOW CHART)c) WHY USE BLOG IN TEACHING?
d) STORYBOARD 1
e) STORYBOARD 2
f) REFERENCES
Why we choose Blog?
- Practicality: blogs can be developed easily by opening a blog account and start blogging with students. It can be updated and accessed easily by everyone.
- Students would be able to improve their writing skills and techniques of giving and receiving comments positively.
- Parents can also monitor on their children progress
- Can be an online class forum that enable students to discuss between themselves and the teacher.
- Blog encourages students to write and also to read on a topic they wish to comment on.
- Encourages continual search, filter and posting of ideas and information - higher order thinking skills.
- Using blog as one the educational sources, education can be done anywhere and at anytime.
- Makes education to become less formal. It is because it allows elements of fun to come together along the learning process.
Our blog
Video and podcast by our member, Chrispin !
This is our beautiful blog which highlights on the ways to prevent animals from the extinction. The green layout is prominent and significant whereby it symbolises the colour of nature too.We were also required to reflect on the platform based on several questions:
1) Opinion about the use of the platform in science class
Personally, as a future teacher I think that integrating blog in the teaching of science is an effective way to convey and impart the science knowledge to the students easily. As a result, the students can assess easily to the blog yet they can update themselves with the knowledge and information that had been posted in the blog.In this project, I realised that when creating and developing a blog for Science teaching, we need to consider some aspects based on the Addie Model so that it will be an effective one. In other words, I found that blog can be very useful in the sense that it can support multi teaching platform such as chat room and video podcast. Moreover,a blog enables teachers to transmit and impart knowledge outside the traditional classroom.In this era of globalisation, it is vital to integrate technology in the classroom and blog is one good example.As a result, the blog serves as a ' Second Classroom' whereby the pupils can get many information and knowledge through the blog in and out of the school. For example, they can even assess the blog at the home. Consequently,this shows that there is no boundary at all in acquiring the knowledge because technology is everywhere and can helps the students' life easier too.
However, personally I am worried whether the blog can be used or not in rural areas. There are so many questions popped up in my mind:
a) How am I going to use a blog as a platform for the students to learn about Science subject?If I used, do the students know how to assess the blog?
b)Is there a rationale to use blog in rural area?
c)To what extent, the students can understand the input from the blog?
Therefore, it makes me to be very critical and analytical when thinking these kind of questions.However, I do think that we should come up with Plan B as well in our teaching strategies and in the lesson.For example, instead of using blog, we can asks the students to write a reflection based on what they have learnt throughout a Science lesson. As a result, I believe that it will helps them to think critical and analytical when writing the reflection.As a result, it will be a process of reinforcing their Science knowledge based on what they have learnt previously in the Science lesson.
Other than that, I hope the government will lend a hand and provide many technology facilities especially in the rural areas so that we can use the blog effectively in our Science lesson.Moreover, I also think that government should make an obligation whereby all the teachers must attend technology course so that they can integrate the knowledge of technology effectively in all lesson.
Therefore, I believe that by using a blog and using the plan B which is asking them to do reflections is like a sword with double-edged. Both steps will be very effective and beneficial for the students to acquire the Science knowledge easily.Therefore, as a future teacher I plan to use blog and reflections as a platform to be used in Science class.
2) Before and after the introduction to Addie model (does it help in developing the instructional material?)
Before the introduction of the Addie model, it is quite hard to develop our own blog which focuses on the topic of endanger animal. To be very honest, we were almost lost and initially we designed the blog based on our own opinions and choices. We really did not think to what extent it can bring an impactful learning process to the students.However, after knowing The Addie model, it really helps and serves as a guide for us to create the instructional materials effectively.Consequently,we are able to track our process and identify if we are on the right track. Other than that, we can also refer back to this model in case we need to redesign our blog. We also realised that we need to consider some aspects when designing the instructional material such as identifying the learning problems, learning objectives, design layout and the actual product. In brief, the Addie model is an eye opening for me and definitely it will help to come up with an excellent instructional material.
