Technology Play an Important Role!

My decision to enroll in the master program with Unitar in June 2018 is one of the important turning points in my life. Technology in Education is one of the subjects for my first semester. During the course work and assignments, we are asked to explore tools or applications available online as many as we can. I discovered there are many interesting technology tools available which are really exciting and fun to explore and practice.

During my exploration, I gain new knowledge especially on amazing technology tools that I have not been exposed before. Patled, Kahoot, Blendspace, Quizziz, Toontastic, Pixton,Lunapic Filmora, Tandoo, Screen O Matic, Cam studio and many more. These tools can really benefits us as teachers.

I definitely will continue exploring and use the technology in my daily teaching. I intend to not only using it for students, but I will also introduce and share it to my children, friends and to parents at my center. 

Technology can be an effective tool in classroom with teacher who are knowledgeable about technology and it implementation can assist the teachers to meet their educational goal.

I am really happy and appreciate the opportunity studying this subject. Because of this subject, I had created and developed my own blog (https://imsharina.blogspot.com/). To become a blogger has never crossed my mind before. By having a blog, I am able to share my knowledge and experience to others. I also created and have my own Padlet account now. 

My gratitude is dedicated to Dr.Farhah, my Technology Lecturer,  for your guidance and knowledge that you shared with us. This subject has opened my eyes and mind on the importance of technology. We as teachers cannot lag behind the technology. Teachers are responsible to shape the future generation where technology is essential to them. 

Technology will never replace teacher, but teacher with technology will maximize the potential of producing amazing future leaders.

Create your Comic by Pixton!

I have no idea how to create a storyboard in comic format. But with Pixton, you can become an awesome artist! I discovered this application while searching for online creativity tool. The most encouraging part is my elder son like to sketch very much. All this while he has been sketching his storyboards in his books and loose papers! In this post, I will explore Pixton and I intend to share the application with my son and friends!

An example of my son's storyboard

Pixton is a web application for drawing comic and developing animation. It is one of the most popular and easy to use comic creator.  The application is fun and joy to use. Even without any drawing skill, you would be able to produce an amazing comic!

Pixton is not a free application but the price tag is reasonable. For beginners, there is a trial version with a basic package offered.

Teachers can use Pixton comic maker in classroom. Click this link, it provided step by step guidance for creating your first comic.Crate you Comic now by Pixton 
Pixton_Guide.pdf

Instead of using normal pictures/image/photo, the ideas of using comic in classroom is superb. Teachers can create avatar for students and put it into social stories. I believe students will love it very much.

In my opinion, this is one of the best idea or approach teachers can take to discover and nurture children's talent. Making cartoons or comic allows children to expand their imagination without limitation, build their creative thinking, develop ideas to complement their stories. At the same time, they can hone their skills in spelling and writing. Multiple skills combination in making a comic helps in children development in a very attractive and fun way. Teachers may also think of ideas of having comic storyboard as lesson plan!

Here is a simple comic created by my son for you to enjoy!

My 1st Comic creation_My Nightmare

Besides Pixton, there is another application that I explored called storyboardthat.com. It is really nice too. Click here for more info Storyboard creator
Here is another link for further information of pixton Pixton Comic

I definitely will spend more time to explore creative tools available online! I am sure you will do the same.

MOOC The Open Learning Course

MOOC stand for Massive Open Online Course. MOOC is one of the online applications mentioned in my Technology class. Hearing about the concept has really sparked my interest to explore further its benefits for learners.

Many universities in our country have already developed and offered some of the common subjects through MOOC. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and several other public and private institutions of higher learning owns MOOC sites aimed at unlimited participant. The subjects can be accessed via the Internet. MOOC provides interactive user forums that help build a community of student, and teaching assistant. MOOC development for distant education began to emerge in Malaysia in 2012s.

I would like to select Putramooc as an example here. Putramooc offers many online coursees and some of them is offered at no cost at all. You may choose any course that attracts your interest. If I like to enhance my knowledge in Malaysia food I can join the Malaysia Food Heritage. The MOOC sites provide course modules, learning format, course instructor, lectures and a private forum whose members are fellow learners like you. 

Kindly click this link for further detail University Putra MOOC putramooc

To join the course, the prospective students can sign up or log in to the MOOC page.

I believe MOOC approach is noble as it opens up opportunities for anyone without any boundaries. This opportunity/facilities will allow learners to study at any place at any time they find convenient. The courses are led by senior faculty members and guided by qualified instructors. The full use technologies make the course to be as interactive as possible and offers alternative to increase knowledge in modern and hectic world.

I have prior experience taking online course before that I'd like to share. I personally found MOOC approach to be very convenient. The only catch is you have to have high discipline and motivation to successfully complete the course. There's no pressure on you and it is easy to opt out for any reason. To my friends working in the early childhood education field, I would suggest them to take a free online course for Early Childhood Education offered by Open2Study.  Kindly click the open2study.com for more info and more free online course.

Toontastic is Awesome!

I came cross this online application when I search tool for movie maker. This 3D creative application is best  for story telling, it is so awesome! Toontastic is available at Google Play. It is absolutely free application and safe download.

This digital tool can empower children to create, learn and share their ideas through play. Toontastic  provides basic guidance for children on constructing their own animated stories.

It is very easy to start your own movie using this application. But How?

What children need to do, is to decide what kind of story they want create. There are three options available for selection which is Short story, Classic Story or Science story.

The Short story contains 3 parts which is Beginning, Middle and End, whereby Classic and Science story have 5 parts. For beginners, I start with short story!

After selecting your story, you need to choose a suitable settings related to your story.

After you set up the animation settings, comes the interesting part. Children need to their select actors either from available cast listed or they can create their own. 

After complete the above steps, it is time for you to start your scene. Teacher may help student with the scripts. You can move the character and use different voice tone during recording process.

This is the time when children can select mood or suitable background music to make their movie more attractive. The mood shall match with the scene.

 Repeat the above steps until you finish your story then it is time for you to watch/share your 3D movie. I love to watch this simple 3D amination movie as it is shows the talent of the children with very creative way!

Teacher please try this application and you will find it is very exciting!

Watch this movie,I did with my two son..

Click this link to get info Learn Toontasctic!

Blendspace is an Amazing Teaching Tools!

Hi everyone!

Using Blendspace as teaching tool, is what I am going to share with you today.

Can you imagine, how you are able to create you digital lesson in five minute? 

By using Blendspace, yes! you can.It sound really easy and fun for your classroom,right?

                       

I discovered Blendspace in our Technology class conducted by Dr.Farhah. I have never heard or had any experiene in using this application before. However, this tool seems to be very easy and interesting to use.

                                                        

Blendspace is a free online application. It can be accessed via website, Chrome app, or iPad app. Using drag-and-drop interface, teacher can organize videos, text, links,articles, images, and quizzes into cubes. After that the items can be organized to create lessons and published for students to complete them independently. It is very fun and easy!

You only need to follow 4 simple steps to create your lesson plan by Blendspace : 

1. Go to bendspace.com

2. Sign up as teacher or student

3. Create a lesson

4. Discover & Search for lesson

  

Besides creating lesson plan or lesson theme for classroom,teacher may also benefit Blendspace for their project, presentation and many more.

Blendspace allows content to be pulled from YouTube, Google, Flickr, and other online sources, as well as your own computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive. There's also a bookmarking tool that lets you add websites to your Blendspace collection. I really like the idea of comment sidebar provided in Blendspace. It is useful for teacher or student to put some important remarks or question. 

This tool is a really teacher's time-saver for preparing their lesson plans and minimizing the effort at the same time.

Students can then move through the content in linear fashion, responding to prompts in a sidebar comment area or taking quizzes along the way. 

They can also create their own lessons that can be private or shared, or remix a lesson.

With a free teacher account, you can create unlimited classes of up to 35 students. Free school accounts allow for unlimited classes with an unlimited number of students. To join a class, students use a join code that you provide. 

As a teacher for early age children, I found BLENDSPACE is very useful interactive tool to teach my young learner. It is so user friendly for my fellow teachers to create their lesson plan.

Please review my first Blendspace lesson plan about the life cycle of butterfly! 

My First Lesson Plan by Blendspace

#For new beginner or if you did not have any idea how to create your Blendspace Digital Lesson,please dont worry. Click and follow the following link Get Started your Blendspace.
There are many information about blendspace in internet that can assist you too.

Quizziz Online Assessment Tool

There are a lots of assessment tools available online nowadays. Check this link for Free Educational Technology Tool For Teacher.

Prepare an assessment for student sometime can give you headache, time consuming and requires lot of efforts. Thank you for technology that offer online assessment, it make our job as teachers more efficient, fun and easy.

From many online assessment, as a teacher for young age children and mother for primary school student, I found  Quizziz is the most suitable tool for me to explore.

Quizziz Tutorial

I created my Quizziz account and start play  fun educational quizziz and games with my sons. They love it very much and they  manage to play themselves. Quizziz is not only meant for teachers, but can also be used by students and parents at home. It is free! You have an option to either create an account or continue even without registration. If you dont have game code, you still can play live games! It is so cool!

Above is the quizziz admin page. Quizziz allow user to create their own quiz,add images or search any exsisting quizesor join a game.

I would like to share my experience creating a simple quiz using this application .User can chose to

create their own question or you may search for existing question. If you  decided to search existing question, follow the simple guide provide and dont forget to click the add button!.

It is fun and exciting exploring this friendly tool. You can save or minimize your time creating your classroom assessment!

If you chose to create new question click "Create new question"

at this page you can start creating you question, you need to provide a question, an answers option and please remember to provide /tick an answer for your question. Then save your question.

This page will appear after you complete created your question. You may add your question by following the above step. This application allows you to mix questions you created with selections from the existing question bank.

This page will appear when you have done creating your question! You can use it for your student now!

Teacher or user can use this application to review,asses and engage at clasroom, at student own pace or at home. User also can put feedback to the work done.

I highly recommended teacher to try this awesome application!