A-U-D-I-O

I remembered during my time in ‘maktab’ where I learned about teaching songs and poetry to elementary school children. Honestly, I love that subject. Everything involves songs and audio things are in my ‘soul’ as I love music. I didn’t expect that I will be learning the same thing, here in MU. But this time, it is not about learning how to teach, but more on how to choose appropriate songs to be used in classroom especially for children. During Pn Foziah’s class, I have been exposed to this skill, which is audio editing. Of course it involves technology as the objective of this subject is to enable future teachers like me to use technology in classroom teaching.

Generally, things that I have learned during her lecture were how to transform and improve audio files. I didn’t really get what purpose we did all of that but I believe, it must have anything related to our profession. So, I don’t have complaints regarding that. As usual, she gave the lecture and let us explore by ourselves. No specific software was emphasized but I decided to use Sony SoundForge Audio Sotfware as my engine to start the work. Even though it is difficult for me to use that software in the beginning, but later I found that it is really capturing and interesting tool to use. It took me 3 days to know some of the features. But after that, I managed to complete the task set for us. Thank God my brain is still functioning to learn the new stuff. Hehe..

Cant Hold it but Can see it..

Reading a book is something enjoying for me. But reading a book online is far most interesting. Just imagine, we read a book abstractly without holding it, and it could be anywhere and anytime. Lives are getting easier and easier as time goes by. Even for developing ourselves, it does not take much of our time. This is what we call ‘e-book’ or electronic book. But what actually e-book is? And how does it look alike?

Well, for me, e-book is no different with a book except its form. A normal book is a book that we have to bring with us to read but using e-book, one doesn’t have to do like that. Just click your fingers on the net and it ‘pops’ out on the screen. Such easy to use. Hm… There are lots of types of e-book that we can find nowadays. One of it is made from power point presentation. It is so ‘visual’ whereby readers are enjoying it through interesting pictures alongside with texts. This makes people not to get bored easily. But one thing for sure which is, to produce a e-book is NOT as easy as we read it.

Previously, during the ‘Resources’ hour, most of my time was to produce a storyline for the e-book. At first, I think that the story could be anything simple but it was not as ‘simple’ as that. Pn Foziah emphasized that a good story has to have a good, motivating storyline. So I planned a story to teach about healthy life. It was ‘head-aching time’ where she had rejected my ideas for two times before got it corrected. Pheww… luckily he last one was approved. Now I just have to focus on making it. So, just wait for my e-book guys….

New skills adapted...

One of the ICT skills that I learned during the previous class is picture editing. It was so ‘cool’. Two kinds of software were introduced to me, Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photo FX. Both are for picture editing but I found that the second one is easier. Since it was my first time editing pictures, I was a bit ‘slow’ because most of the time I was exploring the software. Even though Pn Foziah told us to create at least one edited picture but I didn’t do at all (sorry ma’am). I want to get used to the software first before producing any pictures.

Impressive would be the first word coming out from my mouth. I never imagine I could do like what professional do (I think…). I learned how to crop pictures, setting its colour and many more. With that, I was able to produce a fake picture. But I know that I have to be aware. Playing with pictures is fun but yet it could be irritating. Irritating- in a sense of hurting other people’s feelings. So I just used scenery kind of pictures and change it a little bit.

With this knowledge, I hope it will help me later, I mean for my assignments and most importantly when I become a teacher in the future. To be honest, I don’t have a clear idea about the use of this skill in my profession but I believe that there must be something related between this wonderful skills with my course. So, I want to ‘dive’ deeper and deeper into this picture editing software and produces lots of pictures to be shared with others.

Limited but thats not all...

The most difficult time for me is when there is no internet connection. Huhu. Nothing much I can do. Since I am a student, the main source of ’stealing’ ideas is through surfing. Moreover if the class is ICT class. That is what I experienced during my previous “Teaching Resources” class. ‘Stuck’ and ‘blur’-that was what I describe myself on that day. Never mind. I still got other things to do.
Spending 3 hours without any connection might be devastating, if, one has nothing to do. But, when you are in a group, discussing and completing work, the time can be like less than 1 hour (working + chatting. hehe…). On that day, my group was assigned to discuss about teaching language lesson in the target language. As an English teacher, it is crucial for me to use English when teaching. But, do I really use the target language? Or specifically, what kind of target language is meant by? Hmm. But after make some reading, I realized something important. Purposeful and contextual- that is what I have to focus on.
To be able to teach and encourage young learners to use English is quiet difficult. But for me myself, to distinguish between real-world language use and educational language use is more difficult. At certain time, I don’t know whether I’m using correct English in context or not. Since most of the time, I use the language for academic purposes, and moreover it is not my mother tongue, I tend to use high level of proficiency while speaking. Hmm… I think I have to consider that point from now on. I want to be a good teacher in the future. So, it is important for me to teach my pupils purposely.

Step 1...Step 2....Step 3....

For me, to learn something is difficult. But to express something is more difficult. Huhu… That is what I learned during the previous class. Tutorial. What is tutorial? Formerly I don’t really know what tutorial is really about (I thought it’s like a class. Hehe…). Other than that, tutorial is like a ‘lesson plan’. If it is like a ‘lesson plan’ that I usually do, it would be easier to create one. But this time, it is regarding technology (again and again). Everything has to be done electronically.
During the class, Pn Foziah asked me to search for Michael Jackson’s last song and download it. At first, I didn’t really get what for she asked me to search for the song. So I ‘Google’ and found it on the net. It took me some time before I get found it. Moreover, I didn’t know which song she meant. Hurm… To find it is easier but I didn’t know how to download it. Luckily I have many ‘techno’ friends. They introduced me with ‘4shared.com’ which is a link to download mp3 files (I didn’t know there is such thing). I thought, to download songs or videos, one needs to use specific software but this one easier. Before this, I only use ‘YouTube Downloader’ if I want to download something. It is a new knowledge for me (I’m still newbie…Hehe….).
1. Go to google.
2. Print screens every step.
3. Paste it on power point slides.
“Oh my God. Am I going to do all these things?” So, this is what she meant by tutorial. At first, I’m a bit lousy because I didn’t really remember all the steps that I have gone through in downloading the song. Then I had to start it over again. Huhu. I got so many things to do in a short time. Not only print screens it, I also had to describe each step to make it comprehensible. Even though I’m not good is describing things, I took it as a practice for me to develop this skill. Thanks to the course which allows me to do that. Hehe..
Apart from that, there were also presentations before the class ended. As usual, this can’t be avoided. Fortunately, all of my group members are very cooperative. Imagination and fantasy. That was the topic given to us. Even though we were not really discussing about it, but we managed to present well enough (I think, hehe…). But never mind. There are still a lot of presentations after this. And I hope we could cooperate to do it…again…

Newbie... Huhu...

Talking about ICT skills is like swimming in an ocean. Yes. That’s how I describe ICT skills. For me, ICT skills consist of a very wide aspects related to the use of technology. Even though it is not into my field, but a teacher (future) like me must have this knowledge and skills. It will be a ‘weapon’ for me to be used in my classroom later.
What I know about ICT skills is the use of electronic devices such as computer and internet. But I just knew that sounds, videos and so many other things related to this ‘fake human’ creation are also into ICT skills. Hmm… sounds interesting to me. Maybe with this new input, I would explore it deeply to practice what I have learned.
During the second lecture, my lecturer talked about these skills starting from the beginning of the lesson. At first, I didn’t expect that my coming assignment will be using all of these skills. I thought that it was just for extra knowledge for me. Later when she gave out samples of assignments done by my seniors, my heart said, “Oh My God… So many things to do.” The task requires me to apply ALL of the skills from the simplest thing to complicated one. Huhu…
PHOTOSHOPS, WINDOW MOVIE MAKER, ULEAD… I never heard about this softwarebefore. What I know is… watching videos, not making videos. Hehe. But now I have to do all these things. I hope with the guidance from Pn Foziah and my colleagues, I will be able to produce at least an appropriate product. I still have lots work to do and to study if I want to succeed this time. May God helps me…(^.^)

Awakening!!

Technology...Technology... And technology. This is what i will be doing for the whole semester including this subject. The word "Resources" is kind a huge word for me. As i expected, the use of ICT cannot be avoided especially in education. Some people feel jerk and shouting "...Oh NO!!! Not again.." But not to me. i always have a good thought about why learning has to be integrated with ICT skills. Apart from doing a lot of work, i mean, when using this technology in learning, we are actually SHARPENING our 'buried skills'. for me, i do have the knowledge but dont have the opportunity to implement it (maybe i dont know when to use it). So, this subject has lightened up my eyes at last...:)