sOme 1 GeTTin enGaGed?

Beforehand...

First of all, special thanks to everyone who have been keeping an eye exclusively to Lapalace. Although this might mean that I would feel greater pressure in producing my future writings, by being consciously aware that there are people out there interested in what I put in writing would keep me inspired to write and write and write...
Earlier on, before I scribbled anything on this week's blog, I had experimented with blogspot on whether it was possible to upload video and animated graphics on Lapalace. I found out that one would need the CSS codes of the videos and graphics and paste these codes in the template. Confused? Well, for now I have not successfully done it yet. I'm looking forward to share it here. So look out for up coming posts y'all!

Going inside my head...
It was another Wednesday, and there I was mingling with familiar faces. However, today my head felt so heavy because of the late night assignment completing the night before. As a post-result of the previous class, I wonder what the Prof. would bring to class today. New toy?Spongebob soft toys rather than toy fish? Nope. She brought along Mdm. Lim and Mdm. Foo to class this time. Realize the Prof. never fail to bring in surprises and something new into class each week? And the way she did it seem to be so effortless! I'm way too impressed. Anyway, let's wonder back to the main discussion.

As I was yawning away before the class started, Mdm. Lim came up to me and asked whether I was Siaw Hui. Hey, how did she know my name? I thought she was giving me a free lunch later in the cafe for having the "Best Yawn in B.Ed(TESL) Class" (my apologies: I Didn't mean to be so drowsy.) To my dismay, it was not about free food. Yet, it was about something more rewarding than a free lunch that I may find very useful in everyday work in the near future. It was about WIKI.

Taking In Something New...

A Wiki? Immediately I was thinking about Wikipedia. Almost everyone would be familiar to Wikipedia (it's the most frequently visited site when I'm doing my assignments. Nope. I DID NOT COPY from there :P). Mdm. Lim was kind and generous enough to explain to me and Mr. Sam about the fuctions of a Wiki and where we can create our very own wiki. It was very unexpected that it was actually very simple and free. You could just go www.seedwiki.com to generate a wiki that belongs to you. Sounds very much like constructing a website or a blog? One thing unique about Wiki is that anyone could edit the posts being uploaded by different authors.

I was still in confused state because this was my very first time being exposed to Wiki. However, I tried to think of the possibilities of Wiki to be used in my daily life. As Mdm. Lim mentioned, I could start my discussion page with my group members and anytime I could upload my files or messages. Thus, there will be no such a need to wait up to hours for my group members to get online so that they could send to my e-mail the required files or to have discussion through MSN messenger.

So, how about in education? In the future undertaking, my work in teaching should be the centre of my life and therefore I wonder what Wiki could be applied in education. I did a reading on the files that the Prof. had uploaded on yahoo!groups and found that Wikis had been used successfully in education (Collaborative Software Lab, 2000; Guzdial, 1999). www.profetic.org:16080/dossiers/dossier_imprimer.php3?id_rubrique=110 There are many cases that Wiki had been integrated in classroom teaching and teachers had yield positive results, for example, by doing classroom projects and as a Q&A site so that teachers and students could access on the Wiki itself. Another great thing about Wiki is that there are lesson plans that have merged the usage of Wiki which could be retrieved online for others to refer to and adapt into teaching.

As I listened intently to Mdm. Lim, the Prof. started her lecturer for the day. By now, I was wide awake because I realised that I had gained something new and useful and could not wait to try out the wiki. The class started as the Prof. began with pictures of students being engaged. Therefore, this is the premise for the title of this week's post - someone getting engaged? Not in terms of the pre-marriage thing that most young and madly in-love couples do. Instead, it was students engagement in the lesson in class that the Prof. was talking about. Seriously speaking, there were students who went through the whole primary school education and still could not read nor write. In my perspective, perhaps students' engagement was the problem. Students came in to class, stared at the board for few hours as the teacher scribbles things only she could comprehend and then went back home. Have teachers ever wondered the stares of students to the front of the class really meant that the learning processes were taking place? So, what the teachers should do to ensure students are really engaged to the lesson? Grab a student and shake him real hard while screaming: "C'mon! Engagement! Engagement!"

Perhaps one of the way had been cleverly demonstrated by the Prof. on this week's lecture. She showed us some classroom pictures during the start of the class and we were trying to figure out what was her message through these pictures (Nevertheless, I was also identifying Mr. Sam's pictures that the Prof. have included on the slides). The class was engaged to her lecture, we did stare on the Smartboard but there were mental processes going on in our heads!

Another thing that I managed to take in during the lecture while I was exploring the Wiki was this poem:

If you seeIT,
Then you'll knowIT
And you'll poeIT.

OR RATHER,
If you poeIT,
Then you'll seeIT,
And you'll knowIT.

Anyway around, the poem means that teachers should take into account the students' needs, level of proficiency etc. in order to use the appropriate pedagogy of ICT teaching. Therefore, ICT in education will not only be the icing on the cake but rather a powerful resource that all children could enjoy and be engaged to. In relation to this, I could predict that there would be an assignment coming our way regarding how to use ICT in teaching while supporting the learning principles. As I predicted (well, actually the Prof. had been mentioning about the assignment since last week and no I do not have six sense), we had a new assignment now. The good thing is, I can have some fun using the newly acquired skills on functioning a Wiki on www.pkey3101.seedwiki.com while doing my assigned work.

Happy Working y'all!

References:

Fountain, Renee. (n.d.) Wiki Pedagogy. Retrieved August 24, 2006 from www.profetic.org:16080/dossiers/dossier_imprimer.php3?id_rubrique=330