Internet and WWW (Week 7)

Hi everyone. It’s me again. I’m so excited to share with you all about what I have learnt today in my class. Well, from the title itself you all would have a hint that the topic is not something new for us. Yet, it is very useful and interesting when it comes to educational wise. All we know about internet is just to google something when we doesn’t know anything and use social media to voice out our opinion. But, how many of us know that we can learn through internet especially Math? Well, let me share what I have learnt for today in detail.

Basically, internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (often called TCP/IP, although not all protocols use TCP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It connects millions of interconnected individual networks and computers. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support email.

Detailed explanation was given to us about the Networks and Internet where Computer networks enable people to communicate with each other through stand-alone computers, while Internet enables people to communicate across the globe. Networking and Internet help users to search and communicate information, and to make it possible for teachers and learners to interact with each other globally to discover new ideas. Networks and Internet can be used as management tools to perform management tasks within a school or across a school district.

In addition, the primary purpose of a computer network is to share resources. Other than that, our lecturer also explained to us about what is:

a) A server - more powerful computer that connects individual workstations to each other and also to the sharable peripherals such as printers.

b) A hub - equipment that connects the workstations, and it is connected to the server.

c) A protocol - common standardized communication format.

d) Bandwidth - network transmission media can be classified into Small Bandwidth that can transmit small files, Medium Bandwidth that can transmit medium files (documents, spreadsheets, simple graphics), Large Bandwidth that can transmit large files (graphics, documents), and Very Large Bandwidth that can transmit very large files. However, very large files can also be transmitted through Small Bandwidth by converting them to packets.

e) Packets - small files or sub-files of a larger file which are broken down by the sending server, so that they can be sent through Small Bandwidth.

f) Privacy and security - To protect privacy, the sharing of files should be limited, while the work of individual students should not be posted for public domain. For security purposes, networks will limit access only to those who are identified as intended users of the files.

There are more than one uses of internet in teaching and learning process, such as:

a) Internet services can be used in various ways in teaching and learning.

          - Browser can be used to get information related to a particular lesson

          - E-mail can be used to send messages to students and also for students to ask                     questions and send assignments to their teachers.

          - Conferencing and videoconferencing can be used to discuss on certain topic,                   when teachers and learners are located far apart, may be in different countries.

b) Mailing list can be used by teachers to create mailing lists of groups of students for teachers to send information/announcement to their students quickly.

Furthermore, our lecturer explained to us about the advantages of internet in teaching and learning process:

a) Learn at Your Own Pace

b) Use a Variety of Teaching and Learning Styles

c) Keep a Flexible Schedule

That’s all I’ve learnt from today’s class. Hope you get something from this post which can help your teaching and learning process to be interesting through internet. Thank you for your time. Please do leave a feedback before you can move on to another post. See you again in another post. Have a great day ahead.  

Academic Software for Mathematics Learning (Week 6)

Hi everyone. It’s me again. It has been a week since I updated my blog. Thousands of apologize for that. Well, let’s start with the topic of the week that I have learnt in my Technology and Math Education class. The topic that I have learnt in week 6 is about the Academic Software for Mathematics Learning. The main purpose or objective of learning this topic is to educate the students and teachers about the application of academic software in teaching and learning process. Before I go further in detail about this topic, let me explain what academic software is. Academic software is a software that enriches teaching and learning process that meets the need of students. Academic software also known as educational software. Educational software is computer software, the primary purpose of which is teaching or self-learning.

I also learnt that educational software includes:

a) Authoring systems

b) Desktop publishing

c) Graphics

d) Reference

e) Tutorial

f) Drill-and-practice

g) Educational games

h) Simulations

i) Special needs

j) Integrated learning systems

Our lecturer also taught us that there are 2 examples of educational software:

a) Courseware - courseware is a term that combines the words 'course' with 'software'. It means to describe additional educational material intended as tools for teachers or as tutorials for students, usually packaged for use with a computer.

b) Edutainment - the term edutainment describes an intentional merger of computer games and educational software into a single product.

I also have learnt that there are lot of importance on using educational software such as:

a) Enable your students to become more effective independent learners

b) Enable students to gather information that otherwise would have been impossible, time-consuming or costly

c) Students can also experiment with the changing aspects of a model like increasing or lowering interest rates in order to see how this affects the economy.

Other than that, I have also learnt the main advantages of educational software in teaching and learning process:

a) Children control their own learning experience, the pace at which they learn and how challenged they are.

b) Computers help children to use all of their senses to extract information.

c) Children learn through creating and utilizing hands-on knowledge.

d) Computers help children develop a positive attitude towards technology.

e) Computers are beneficial in developing children’s fundamental skills (i.e. letters, numbers, colors, shapes, rhythm, cause and effect, problem solving, procedural thinking, creativity).

f) Computers are really beneficial to children who have speech, audio or motor limitations because they act as a patient tutor allowing the child to learn at his own pace

g) Computers can teach self-confidence and self-esteem.

h) Computers can teach social skills.

In between of the topic, our lecturer also added some new information about the periodic table of educational technology tools.

And before the class ends, I have learnt that even educational software have its own disadvantages in teaching and learning process. Some of the disadvantages are:

a) Software needs to be carefully chosen

b) Some software doesn’t make it obvious that it has no educational value

c) Scheduling can become problematic as not much facilities can be served for the students at the same time

d) Difficult to get a student’s attention whenever they are on the computer

e) Muscular-skeletal injuries and vision problems can arise

As for my assignment, the process is going well so far. I have created the first post as required where I have talked about myself, my goals and philosophy. Followed by the weekly reflection for week 6. I hope that this reflections will help me as well as my friends to understand this subject much better and in detail.

That’s all from me for this week. Have a good day until I update my weekly reflection next week.

About Me

Hello everyone. Welcome to my mini world which is the blog, of course. Well, my name is Durasheeny Shanmugam. I was born on the 18th July 1994 which makes me to turn 23 this year. Officially, I am a citizen of Penang which means I was born and raised in Penang for almost 23 years by my beloved parents. I am a very passionate person, especially in arts because that is what I will do whenever and wherever I am in this world. Specifically, I love to do drawing whether it’s on a piece of paper or on a person’s body. It also known as Henna, the Indians traditional art. I love myself to be surrounded with food and music. These are the two things that can never be separated from me because they make me feel better when I am sad, happy or stress. Everyone around me knows me very well as I am an open- minded person. I accept criticism as the way it is.

So far I have done my STPM and now pursuing Bachelors of Education in UNITAR (Penang regional center). All this while I thought teaching is just about standing in front of a class and teach. But no doubt after pursuing this course I found that there are lots of work that need to be accomplished by a teacher behind the scene. Well, it is not as easy as I thought it would be. As my semesters goes on for this course, I started to learn more things about teaching such as the skills that a teacher need in herself in order to be more effective and make the classroom an effective place for the students to learn. At the same time, i thought learning and teaching Maths in education is a hardest thing to do in a teacher's life. But after taking Technology and Maths Education in this semester, I have realized that technology has made Maths to be easily taught and learnt.

In the first place, I chose teaching because it was my parents dream that they wanted to see me as a teacher. To be honest, it wasn’t my cup of tea. But then as time goes on, I really got inspired by some of my former teachers who taught me Maths in my secondary school where they made teaching as a fun thing to do with the students’ involvement. After that, my lecturers who taught me for the past five semesters had given me an opportunity to see what teaching life looks like. Thanks to them. There are ups and downs in their lives yet they still managed to give the best education to the students who are depending on them. They have really given a great impact and inspiration in my life to become a teacher.

                                            

The goals that I would like to achieve in the future is to complete my degree life successfully and become a teacher in a school obviously. This is mainly to gain my self-confident and also to gain more experiences in teaching that I would probably need in order to continue my Masters in Education. As I know, age is not a matter to get education. It is just the initiative and opportunity that we can grab at the moment. Not everyone can be a good teacher and not everyone can be a good learner. It is all depend on ourselves in which category do we want to fall. I am eagerly waiting for the moment where I can open my very own tuition center as well as a private school where all the children can get free education and strives for excellence among them. Of course, I need the help of the NGOs. I would also love to adopt few kids from poor family and help them out in terms of education and physiological needs. I also really want to share whatever I have learnt before and after being a teacher to my students. Adding another goal which is to teach and create an awareness for the students where they need to know that Technology and Maths in education are very important for this 21st Century as we are living now in the modern gadget world. No matter old or young, adult or kid, we all using gadgets to learn things but how many of us know that we can also learn Maths through technology? That's the reason why i chose this subject as a minor paper and to achieve the goal as i said. 

As a teacher, one must have a philosophy which she thinks that gives a meaning to her teaching and learning process especially for the subject Mathematics. As for me, I would most probably choose experimental-ism. The reason why I chose this because I certainly believe that each and every classroom we might enter will be a place to do some experiment. It can be the abilities of the students, the way the students learn things and the pedagogy skills that we going to use is effective or not. As a person who always do experiment, I couldn’t just stand in one place and teach Mathematics as well as for the students. I will certainly make the classroom a fun place to learn Mathematics through technology that we have around us and let the students to open their hearts and voice out their opinions about me, the subject as well as the activities that I might conduct in their class. Feedback can really help myself to improve myself and the skills that I am going to use in the future. As an experimentalist, I will be more precise in student-centered learning process rather than me being the strict rule who controls the entire classroom for the entire period. It will be more fun to teach and learn Mathematics using technology and the students will be more excited to learn more about it because technology is not something which is new to them. 

I really hope that you had a great time reading my post. Please do leave a comment if you really think that this blog is being helpful for you or the mistakes I have done. Thank you so much and have a marvelous day ahead.