30th July 2008

The development of technology assists the teachers in creating a very useful website for the purpose of getting abreast with the modern technology in order to disseminate knowledge to not only the teachers and the future teachers but also to the society especially to the parents. From my point of view, the websites, for instance EduwebTV, CikguNet,Etems and MOE will assist the parents to know more about teaching profession and give the opportunities to the teacher themselves to share their experiences in current teaching. The way of sharing ideas via the internet has brought people to the new world of teaching and learning for most of the time the activities carried out and the results, including the future activities and plans of activities will be posted in order to let other people getting updated and understand the purpose of certain activities. If they feel anxious with certain activities, they will get chances to get things clear by joining the forum and chat with those who are accountable to the particular activities. other than that, the forum will further help both parties to discuss of the strengths and weaknesses of certain activities so that the activities that are going to be carried out will be satisfactory to everyone that it will contribute to the betterment of the students.

23rd July 2008

Today, we were introduced with the ASSURE Model and ADDIE Model. Both of the models are beneficial in designing material in teaching and learning process. ASSURE that is the abbreviation for Analyze learners, State objectives, Select instructional methods, media, and materials, Utilize media and materials, Require learner participation and Evaluate and revise and ADDIE stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation provide us guidelines in creating the materials that we are going to exploit in the classroom that suit the needs, interests, and level of proficiency. It is crucial for the teachers to develop the most appropriate learning environment for the students so that they can ensure active participation of all pupils and knowledge dissemination. Nevertheless, getting to know the learners’ characteristics is rather important for it is the base of designing effective materials. It is very much related to assessment process whereby, teacher can observe the performance of the learners by carrying out on-the-run assessment in order to know the target audience notably their prior knowledge, skills, and attitudes. I think that the assessment process is the best way for the teachers to know the students overall characteristics as well as their competencies in certain areas so that the result will indicates what materials that are suitable to be used in particular classroom. Since there are ranges of materials and media available, such as images, smartboard, audio and videos, teachers have lots of choices to select and bring it to class and then teach. But the most prominent things are preparation, creativity and effort!!