Review of Activity

Review of Activity - Animated Gifs

The teacher has designed a web-based lesson for student to learn the basic animation concept and to create their own animation gif.

One of the learning outcome is that student can state the six properties of animations after the lesson. Those properties have present in the flash movie in text based with a computer vocal cord. I think this can’t help student to understand the effectiveness of those properties like “frame rate” ,“tweening” and “looping” by just in text form.
Is should better to explain by real animation sample clips to demonstrate the “frame rate” effect the movie‘s smoothness. Since the teacher already use “flash” as the tool, but she mainly use “Flash” like a “PowerPoint “ which have sound added only. I suggest it would be better to add graphic and animation in the flash to explain the properties.

At this lesson state, here only apply the Cognitivism learning Theory since students only remember the points that declared in the tutorial and then answers the MC questions to check they are correct or not to store for long-term memory.

The slide of the flash tutorial at lesson part accidently stops, although the sound still goes on to explain the theory, student can’t follow the tutorial well by this web-based lesson.
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For the activities part, it uses both Cognitivism and Constructivism for student learning.

Cognitivism
The Demonstration Video organize and storage the process of making an animation gifs. Teacher procedures the knowledge and use image (video) to form the mental image.

Constructivism
Since they have to make their own animation gifs, so the knowledge is constructed through assimilate the video and evolved to make their own creative gifs.


Another problem is that the whole tutorial hasn’t taught about how to create a story and how to cut the story into frame which is an important part in animation.
If the main learning outcome is only to make an animation gifs, it should be better to provide the drawn images to student, so they can just follow the Demonstration Video and concentrate to learn how to use the software to combine the images into gifs.

But now the teacher provided the activity worksheet, which the students should draw the frame by frame story themselves, but the concept of how to create a story is never involved in this tutorials. I think this is a mismatch between the learning object, the activity worksheet, and the stated learning outcome.

Mind map - Learning theory

e-learning

My experience is maining in teaching software application for Architectural or Engineering Consultant even Government Department.

The software I teach is developed by Autodesk. They have many resources in training and support for end-user.

Below is the blog I previously post my experience and some trips and trick on using the application.
http://www.revit.com.hk/index.php?option=com_jb2&view=category&CategoryID=11

Surely, there is update features of each version and world wide resources from different bloggers showing their own experience in tackling problem in real case.

Here is another case I browsed before and felt that it is useful and I even use this method to teach my student.
http://autodesk-revit.blogspot.com/2007/09/shared-coordinates-true-north-project.html

E-learning

I’m a Mathematics teacher in a local primary school. I usually use different resources from the Internet, such as videos, animations, and flash games to support my teaching. I found that these e-resources can motivate students’ learning interests and can illustrate some difficult concepts easily.

I also found students enjoy lessons with interactive e-resources. They learn subject contents by their own experiences instead of just listening to teachers.

E-learning

The below 2 cases are my sharing on how e-learning supports learning:
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Computer-Based Testing (CBT)
I took the PMP (Project Management Professional) examination in May this year. Before the examination , I took the classroom course (about 38 hours, last 4 months). However, I still got no confidence in passing the examination after the course. My friends who passed the examination advised me to search the simulated practice tests available in internet. Those tests design were CBT (Computer-Based Testing) which were similar to that in PMP examination. There were many resources available. I only selected some tests which I thought were reliable. After I completed the tests, it was marked automatically and evaluated immediately. Some of the tests even could provide a summary about your performance.
e.g.
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Result: Pass

Domain Your result
Planning below average
Executing average
: :

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My comment about the CBT learning :

1. There are a lot of resources available in internet and we need to select and judge carefully.
2. For those CBT I took to prepare for the PMP exam, the questions provided in internet helped me to reinforce the concepts. It cost much less than the fee (some were even free of charge) I needed to pay for the classroom course. It saved my time and was flexible as I could do it at home at my convenience.
3. The self evaluation helped me to plan my study. After the test, I knew which area I was weak and needed to put more effort in the related topic. I determined myself how much tests I needed to take according to the test result.
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Learning Putonghua at home with a Mainland China teacher.

My sister is a teacher. She needs to take the Putonghua examination required by the Education Authority. My daughter is a University student. She is studying in UK. She wants to learn Putonghua as she knows that it can help her in the future career. Both of them are busy. My sister is difficult to take the classroom course. My daughter is difficult to find a Putonghua teacher in UK. They are taking a Putonghua course provided by an organization in Mainland China. That organization gets a pool of qualified Putonghua teachers. Student can talk with the teacher face to face through Skype (or MSN… any communication software in internet) each week (appointment beforehand).

Comment from my sister and daughter about learning Putonghua through the communication software (Skype):
1. It is convenient and flexible. They can talk to a Mainland China teacher face to face without travelling to China. The time of the Putonghua class is flexible. They can arrange it with the teachers.
2. They can fix the course syllabus with the teachers according to their requirements. My sister requires to include the examination practice in the course. My daughter requires her teacher to talk more about the Chinese culture.
3. They can talk to the teacher face to face, similar to that of having a private Putonghua teacher but the cost is much cheaper!

Experience of using Technology for learning

E-learning Environment

For my experiences, e-learning is a mostly use of technology for student’s learning.
Each student in my school will have their own WebCT account. They can login the account and see all the modules which they are studying. Each module’s teacher will upload their teaching materials to the web and some self-learning exercises also let them download freely at home. So they can follow the video or powerpoint on the web to do the exercises step by step. And then upload back to the WebCT.


If they have difficulties when doing the exercises at home, they can leave the problems in the WebCT ’s discussion broad. An open platform for students and me to give comments and ideas before we meet on the next class time.

Students and parent‘s feedback is very positive since they think they can easily to get the updated learning material at home and can improve their self-learning attitude.