The Four Skills

Today, I will be handling the “Four Skills” assignment. I have worked on the assignment almost ¾, suddenly I realize that something is going wrong. I have forgotten that the topic for my group is people whereby I was working on topic food. It is my own carelessness and me, myself, really upset about that since I have to do the work twice.. I have to stay up for the rest of the night until sahur. That was the thing that I have to pay due to my own inattention.

Basically, my materials are pictures and video. Pictures downloaded from the internet were being put into video track and a video was developed. I used this video to teach writing. This video is about occupation. The material is able to provide a useful input for the pupils before they start their writing. It means that the pupils are gaining some ideas of how to write descriptions by using appropriate punctuations, nouns, verbs, and sentence structures. At the same time, the pictures and written descriptions in the video work as stimulus for the pupils to activate their schemata of prior knowledge about writing descriptions. Since the video presents the pictures together with the descriptions, I believe that pupils can easily gain understanding. Thus, the role of classroom assessment will be more reliable and useful.

Creating My Own E-BooK

I have bumped into a website that provide a collections of online storybooks for young learners. I have come across a story in the website and found it very intersting. So, i decide to adopt and adapt the story for my e-book project as well as to suit the learning outcomes and curriculum specification that I have chosen. As a continuity, I have downloaded some other pictures and sounds to fit in the story. I started to work on the project until finish line.

Thus,I have completed my e-book. Developing an E-Book is something that can be called interesting. I have developed an e-book for Year 3 pupils under the theme of world of story, entitled "The Adventure Of Fish and Frog". I choose a frog and a fish as the main characters in the story as it is believed that the characters are familiar to young learners. I also included antagonist characters in a small part of the story, in which a large bird stole their lunch. The story is about a short journey of Frog and Fish as they are going to smell a giant flower on the west side, how their lunch had been stolen, and how they helped each other. As usual, there are always moral values. In this story, I presented the young learner with the values of understanding, similarities, differences, patience, helpful and caring. This is very important as examples to them to develop young learners behaviors and attitudes as they are going through the growing process.

Dance Overtiredness To Kampung

Last week was a very exhausting moment. We have to complete the enjoyable task in which turned into the most complicated task..! Our group is the earliest group who handed in the task (thanks to Adila and other group members.). We uploaded in on ADEC but some of the videos are in bad condition even though it was in .avi format. I was asked to change the format even though the format was already in .avi. What does it means?

The night before the date due, since everyone unable to upload the video on ADEC, a representative announced that the video can be burned into a DVD. I did not feel the stress until a group member who was unable to control her emotions vomited her dissatisfaction about all this chaos into me. She may felt relieved after crying and throwing all her frustration in front of me but did she ever considered what I would feel after listening to all this? Did she thought that I would also feel relieve like her? Only god knows…

I was the only group member who was in KL at the moment and I have to do this all alone. Luckily, I have all the materials since a group member had given me the materials before she went back to her hometown. Another group member was helping me online even though she was at kampung (thanks to faizah). In the middle of the night I went to a friend’s house to get the DVD-R and went to 7-E to buy another DVD-R as a back up. I work all night until morning to compile all the materials and tutorials in the DVD. In the early morning, I gave the REQUIRED DVD to a friend (thanks to zima) before going back on the Saturday morning and slept silently along the journey to kampung...

Audio Editting...

Finally, i choose "Because of you by Kelly Clarkson" to be edited. Overall, I use Easy AudioCutter to edit the songs. A housemate gave me another software called "virtual DJ" but it is quite complicated for me to fully use the software. But then, I use a function from "virtual DJ" to change the key in the song.

As a new unprofessional audio editor which also means a greenhorn, i included the word "Cinderella" after the phrase "because of you" to replace the next stanza. The word "cindrerella" was cut from a song entitled "Cinderella" by Radja, a band from Indonesia. In a small tiny addition, I put an opening and closing for the songs. I kept on doing this again and again to make sure that everything sounds as good as I am able to produce. After finish, I listened to the edited version, thought it was synchronize enough, and upload it on the net. Hehe.. I dont know if i have put myself into mistake.

Anyway, I always remind myself not to aspect much for the marks; it is a God job. But I am glad and satisfied since I am able to complete the task and totally have learn something new throughout the week.


"Because Of You"
I will not make the same mistakes that you did
I will not let myself
Cause my heart so much misery
I will not break the way you did,
You fell so hard
I've learned the hard way
To never let it get that far
*
Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid
I lose my way
And it's not too long before you point it out
I cannot cry
Because I know that's weakness in your eyes
I'm forced to fake
A smile, a laugh everyday of my life
My heart can't possibly break
When it wasn't even whole to start with
*
I watched you die
I heard you cry every night in your sleep
I was so young
You should have known better than to lean on me
You never thought of anyone else
You just saw your pain
And now I cry in the middle of the night
For the same damn thing
Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
Because of you
I try my hardest just to forget everything
Because of you
I don't know how to let anyone else in
Because of you
I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty
Because of you
I am afraid
Because of you (2x)

There goes pHoTo Editing, Here comes AuDio EdiTing

Fuh..It is just a luck that i am able to submit the photo on time. Still, I am not satisfied with the product. I complete the task in a rush, without enough equipment. It is own false because of the confusion with the date line. Anyway.. i should do better next time. For audio editing, I have never do this kind of editing. But as a first step to show that i am ready to take the risk I have downloaded the "EasyAudioCutter". Hehehe~
In two days time, lets see what will the result be..!

pHoTo EditiNg aNd E-BoOk

I really want to do photo editing and create E-Book.. And this week lectures touch on that. I have some clear idea but still unable to to things on that since i still don't have the Photoshop. It's ok and be calm. But.. keep reminding that we have to hand in the task by Sunday. oh gosh.. I will think about this later.

In the mean time, my group had discuss about the e-book production. Huda, Mira, Kasthuri, Izuddin and me agreed to come out with a narration based on the topic Glorious Food. Roughly, we have come out with a storyboad that show a the plot of our narration. Some elements such as flashback is also included. Promising, it is a common story yet different.. Haha..

In term of types of application that we want to use in order to develop the e-book, the initial choices are only powerpoint presentation, window movie maker and power director. Using Flash should be very interesting and make the e-book alive and interactive. I have read about it in the Wikipedia..

"Adobe Flash (previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash) is a set of multimedia software developed and distributed by Adobe Systems and earlier by Macromedia. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.

Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics and supports bi-directional streaming of audio and video. It contains a scripting language called ActionScript. It is available in most common web browsers and some mobile phones and other electronic devices (using Flash Lite). Several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash, including the Adobe Flash Player. The Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program is used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform, such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash.

In the end, I just wondering if we should take into consideration if the learning outcomes and the Curriculum specification before we develop the e-book. I will go and try to find out on the forum soon..

Children are PURE..

Sometimes, i miss the time when i was in kindergarten and primary school. Everything was so easy and cozy.. Everyone was so fine and well. Nothing much to think and solve. All i need others will prepare it for me. if i could turn back the time. I makes me think back of the old days because of the last lecture.
In a bucket, the lecture was about young learners and how they gain experience and learning. The way they act and respond are really innocent, naive and "pure". As a teacher to be, I have to really consider and understand how young learner grasp meaning. They learn best though their five senses, direct experiences and concrete materials. Thus, abstract concept should be avoided in the early stages of development. This is supported by Piaget Theory. However, it doesn't meant that their imagination are to be blocked. Their imagination is actually developed through interaction with concrete materials. Young learners are making sense of their own world by their own imagination. Materials such as cartoons, art crafts, drawings, and fairy tales are good assistance for young learners in learning language.
I understand that sometimes, young learners have better idea of their own learning. Teachers to be flexible to listen and figure out what are they young learners trying to express. I believe that it is better if young learner are given chances to give their own opinion on what they should be working on. At this point, teacher must always to make sure that the learning are nonthreatening and fun. This will encourage them to practice the language during interaction with others and acquire more vocabulary.
In short, we should keep sense of playfulness and fun during the lesson, thus, activity with too much drill and rote memorization should be avoided. More important, group setting is always effective to encourage interaction among children and enhance their creativity of the language use. Plus, this will instill the children with the curiosity of language.