Blog Entry #3

1. Why do you think evaluation of CALL courseware, websites, materials etc important?

Personally, if I were about to purchase something, I might consider several aspects that somehow need to be evaluated based on my needs and is it relevant enough for me to use it over and over again? This same goes to CALL courseware, websites, materials and others which I think these three privileges may vary from one another and it keeps on changing from time to time. Looking at the education field itself, both teachers and students can benefit a lot through evaluation as for the teachers, they might know that somehow certain courseware, websites as well as materials are based on situation-specific argument. Perhaps, it might work to use the courseware as their teaching aids only for this year and who knows, it might be otherwise for next year. Furthermore, the types of students, their learning needs and how are they going to utilize it may also differ from one student to another and this should be taken into consideration as well.

As for the students, they might want something that can somehow benefit them as they choose certain websites that can give extra input generally and at the same time play important roles as tools for them to learn the language specifically. Perhaps, they can always adapt with coursewares that can give positive impact as well as practical enough for them to use it in future time.




2. How do you think Hot Potatoes JCloze may help your students learn English?

I would personally agree that Hot Potatoes JCloze can really help students to be independent learners as this will engage their participation to become more creative with the answers because they will be given clues in order to answer the questions. Thus, the learning will become much more towards the autonomous learning by focusing specifically to the language used. The features involved in this Hot Potatoes will definitely encourage the students to be involved in the learning process as hands-on activity will be involuntarily involved in the learning process rather than the traditional way of learning. As a matter of fact, Hot Potatoes also serves as drills and promote students' understanding in the context of language learning. Moreover, Hot Potatoes JCloze enables students to receive immediate feedback and on top of that, after the questions have been answered, there are percentage that will somehow allow the students to be aware of their capability of the subject matter.

In a sense of the physical aspect, for sure Hot Potatoes will be less time consuming as this will promote the teachers to prepare tons of exercises for the students without extra "burden" to photocopy these exercises. Furthermore, the colours and the pictures will then attract students' interest to do the exercises without so much tense. Overall, Hot Potatoes JCloze will definitely give vast impact to the students' needs for language learning purposes.

:: An Activity that can be created through Ms. Word::

Assalamualaikum and Good Day everyone!!!
Here's the result of what I have learnt in creating ESL exercises using Ms. Word... :)

1.


2.

Here comes the First "CALL"......

:: Greetings to ALL!! ::

Phew!, finally I have a blog on my own since this is my first attempt in writing it and Alhamdulillah the "CALL" is there for me and hopefully i'm not just writing it for academic purposes but who knows, I might be writing it for my personal use in years to come...So, former bloggers out there, BEWARE!!! ha ha ha

"CONFIDENCE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS",

::Although sometimes you are not SO sure with what you are going to say::

~Marina~

The name given to me is simple and sweet, Marina binti Nazrin and I bet you can see "MARINA" everywhere even on the label of a sardine can...How i'm so proud of my name!! despite its meaning in Islam. I'm coming from the "Capital City" of Kedah Darul Aman (Geography is the main concerned here everyone). Ha Ha Ha

I would rather assume myself as an average person when it comes to using computer. Well, to be frank enough, i'm not saying that i'm an expert in this field but i'm also not saying that i'm totally illiterate especially when it involves skills in using computers. Perhaps, I know certain features in most Microsoft Offices like Word, PowerPoint and others because these are the things that I have mingled with for the past 7 semesters in completing my assignments as well as for my own benefits.

In terms of software and hardware knowledge that I have, I would say that there are few of them that I have tried before like Microsoft Offices and that include Word, PowerPoint and others. Well, I still remembered my class back then with Dr. Chan Yuen Fook where he taught us Principle of Testing and Evaluation and Microsoft Excel was widely used for the data analysis. For the hardware knowledge, i'm quite familiar with parts of most hardwares such as the head of the printer, it's absorber and such.


Generally, I have not yet come across learning via the computer and to be specific through online learning but I have encountered learning through computers when I was taking a PowerPoint course just to enhance my ability in using the software and during my first semester, I was lucky to learn on how to create a website and that satisfied me a lot up to today.


When it comes to incorporating technology in the classroom setting, one of the best thoughts that I have always created in my mind is " Is it really work to the students?". Well, I should say that it really works!!!!. For some schools, they do not have the facilities and some schools they do have it and Alhamdulillah, when I was doing my practicum, I managed to create activities using technology.

• For me, it doesn't have to be a "bombastic" activity when it comes to creating it because at the end, the learning outcome is not achievable and you, yourself may not be happy with it. I used to create activities for my vocational class which does not being equipped with a projector. What I did was, I let them listen to a song and try to fill in the blanks in order to get a complete lyric of the song and of course the song chosen should be appropriate with the theme of the lesson on that particular day yet suitable with their age as well.

• For my other class that is equipped with a projector, I often showed them clips from the net and encouraged them to give their opinions from what they have seen in the video. The expression that they gave at that moment were the most precious things that I have not ever imagined before and I can see that they really appreciate the efforts that I have put on so much.

I definitely encourage future teachers to fully utilize the use of technology in language teaching although there might be several drawbacks that may come due to the dysfunctional use of the computer itself. Well, it doesn't mean that we should surrender using technology instantly because here comes the use of "PLAN B". For me, incorporating technology in the language teaching is all about "trial and error" and that has actually made us all more than an expert in this field. Another thing that is crucial is that most educators should adapt technology based on the "schema" of the learners themselves so that the learning process can be ended up to be joyously done.

I would say I expect much for this course as I would try to enhance my capability in knowing more about the functions as well as features of certain software and hardware for my further reference and at the same time I can create lots and lots of activities in my class that can give a vast impact to my students in future time. Who knows, Miss Marina is going to "rock on" the class with technology!!!! InsyaAllah....