INTERNET

         Internet....hmmmm one word that change many people's lifestyle. I am not excluded in this matter. Internet entered into my life at the age of 12... But that time my access to internet is limited. My father put password for it. So basically i cant use internet without my fathers permission as he is the only one who got the password. That time i didn't need internet my primary and secondary school require internet.

             But as i enter university, internet accessibility didn't become a problem because University of Malaya provide free wifi service for students. So from there i become familiar with internet. Basically  internet make my life easier. Although people say that library makes a person knowledgeable but for me internet makes me a smarter person.

                   University student who are undergraduate who stays at university colleagues seldom have time to go to the library. Internet is a best media for me to get the required knowledge but mostly to do my assignments.  Rather than that internet become a medium of communication where i use e-mail to send information and share information between my friends.

                    But as i think i become smarter with internet now i realize that internet makes me become lazy. As i have every information at the tip of my hand with the help of internet, i seldom go out and communicate with my classmates. Not only that, i trust whatever in internet  is true. But as time pass by i realize that not everything in the internet is trust able because  some information didn't have validity and reliability. So now i become more mature thinker where i check the validity of the information and i use book as a reference for my assignments.

IS POWER POINT REALLY POWERFUL???

Power Point a word that become familiar in my life at the age of 10. My father went to a course to learn how to use Power Point. So after the course he will come home and practice it. So i will sitting beside my father and look at what he is doing and i learn my power point basic skills from there. I learn how o create a slide and incorporate sounds in the slides. But after that i didn't practice it regularly as i have concentrate in my studies.

Power point's rebirth in my life at University. Most of the assignments demand students to use power point for their presentation as a part of their assignments . So for me its not a big deal to do a normal regular power point presentation. The layout has been programmed and after that we just have to use our creativity (or not) to make the presentation to be appeal for everyone.

But my perspective on power point changed when i joined Instructional Technology class(my minor subject). I have been thought how to make a good power point presentations. Some of the tips i have learn is not to use a picture as background as it can overpower the texts, so it is advisable to use a plain layout.

But apart from that i have learn how to create a coursework for children with learning disabilities. For me i have choose a student who is a slow learner.  So as for learner the coursework that have been build should have some characteristics such as it should be attractive (colors or animations), and the content should be repeated as they have difficulties in understanding the subjects. So accordingly i have created a course ware which can educate the student.

But the point now is  the power point really can be utilized in classrooms for normal students. As at university i dont have any other extra works as teachers in schools have beside teaching. So i just can use my time to create a new coursework for students. But as for me it is not possible to use power point in classrooms. The main problem in goverment school is that not each and every classroom equipped with computer and projectors. They only have computer lab and it will be used for ICT learning. So its not possible that teachers from the other subjects to use power point for the T&L process. If private school i am not very sure about the infrastructure of the  classroom.

So is power point really powerful??? Maybe time has the answer and for me i am still searching the answer because i am not really convinced to come up with an answer.

ELECTRONIC + BOOK = E-BOOK

 Hobby is something common between human beings, from the classic hobby collecting stamps to be a blogger there are something that people would like to do during their free time. As for me since small until now my all time favorite is reading story books.

As my parents are teachers, its not something unusual that my house equipped with a lot of storybooks. I know how to read in 3 languages which is English, Malay and Tamil. As a trilingual reader during my school time it is quit easy to get story books because i will borrow it from library or my parents will buy it for me.

At the age of 20, borrowing books from library is not an option for me anymore and the cost of a novel is more than RM 20 which is for me is a waste of money because nobody likes to read the same novel over and over. So when i enter university, i have a full access to use internet. That is how i found e-book.

E-book is an electronic version of a book. There are a lot of website which are providing e-book to be downloaded by users. There are two types of excess to the e-book , one is free excess and another one is  pay for the excess. Its not a very wise idea in my opinion to pay for something which you can get it for free. Usually you can use a keyword "e-book free download" to search in the search engines and tadaa... you have the listings of free e-books websites online. Just click any websites and search for the genre that you want and download the e-book of your choice.

Normally the e-books will be in pdf (portable document format) or in a compressed file. For the pdf file you just can use Adobe Reader to read the book. If it is a compressed file you have to use software such as Winrar or Winzip to decompress the file and read it using adobe reader.

There are a lot of gadget can be used to read  e-book such as computer, laptop, tablets, ipad and also smartphones. My favorite gadget would be smartphone because it is more convenient and portable because it is small in size. For me is a dream come true to read storybooks without any cost of money,

But i limit myself to read only storybook and not educational books because reading storybooks didn't need much concentration and i don't need to store the important points into my memory. But its vice verse when reading educational e books. So i prefer the old printed book method the read educational book .

HAND PHONE ....MY WAY OF LIFE

HANDPHONE .... One single technology based product that owned by almost everyone in Malaysia or i can say in world. As for me nowdays i cant imagine myself without my handphone with me. It almost like my best friend who i wake up and sleep with everyday.

Before the existence of hand phone in my life,  i always use normal land line  (TELEKOM) telephone (Until Form 5 - 2005) to contact my friends regarding school assignments or of i absent from school that day. But this happens only once in a moon because living in a family with educational background (my both parents are teachers) the telephone is considered as distraction for me as student.

                                  TELEPHONE

But the first hand phone that get was Nokia 3310. I was shocked when my father gave me the hand phone because i thought i wont own hand phone in my entire life. But finally i got one, but with a condition that i wont take it to school and i should not take it to my room with me at night. The main purpose i am
provided with this hand phone is that after my tuition it will be easy for my parents be communicate and fetch me.The function of that hand phone is to call, message and play games.

my first hand phone model

Later on 2007, i have entered university to pursue my degree. Later that time i am provided with handphone with camera and mp3 facility. So most of the time i use it to listen to songs and to send messages SMS with my friends and family. It has been a like my secretary because i will set my tasks and it will remind me with the task. Later i bought a handphone with wifi facility which i can use to view my social networks such as Facebook, twitter and yahoo chat. From there i started to use my handphone for updating my status in FB and twitter.

On 2012 i bought an android smartphone from samsung. From there my eye is opened to a new world of ICT which is i can do almost everything using my handphone and now i am not even using my laptop because it has been simplified in a  form of a smartphone. Browsing youtube and reading ebooks has never become a problem. Even i can prepare myself  for my business presentation using my handphone. How cool is that? Even more i can contact my friends and family free of charge using apps such as watsapp and viber.
Simply i can create a formula for this COMMUNICATION + ENTERTAINMENT + SECRETARY + E-LEARNING    = SMART PHONE.

But sometimes i feel that my privacy has been disturbed because everybody can reach me using this apps from strangers to people close to me. For eg during my masters class i wont pick up my phone and reply messages from my friends. But when they come to my shop the begin to ask me why i didnt pick up my handphone and when is answered i got class the seems didnt understand what i say and the reply "so what, u can get out from the class and answer my call?"Sometimes i feel irritated because people thinks that i have to give priority to them . Its like someone controlling.

Whatsoever nowdays i turn of my handphone when i need some space for relaxation.

YOUTUBE IN TEACHING ... MY EXPERIANCE

I would like to share my experiance in using youtube video in my teaching. The reason behind  this choice is that the topic that i need to teach was amphibian. So for students at the age of 6 wouldn't understand about a concept without picturisation or showing the product.

The subtopic that i choose to teach the students is Life Cycle of a Frog. For the first day i bring some flashcards to show to the students how the frog evolve from egg to a frog. After teach them the students seems to be didnt understand the concept of it because the frog egg, or TADPOLE OR FROGLET are not something that they see every day in their life.

After that i decided to use video to make them understand the concept. So for the videos i searched it in the youtube. Because the school didnt have a wifi facility and only have video recorder and tv i decided to download it. I use youtube downloader to download the video and because it is in flv format i have to transfer it to mpeg format in order to burn it in the CD.

The next day i show the video to the students and the students were watching it with their full concentration because the classroom was so quiet and if i drop a pin it can be heard. After the video, i try to give the students worksheet to assess the students whether they understand the life cycle of a frog or not. Most of the students able to arrange the life cycle of a frog in a correct order. it is a great relief for me as my objective of the teaching is achieved and the students understand the content.

Video Links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDabzEJoa_A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pOsKcs78C4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pOsKcs78C4