REFLECTION ON EDU 456

Hi, this will be my last post.

I will write some reflection on this course, EDU 456. In general, this course have increased my knowledge such as I never know different way of teaching method can influence the student's level of understanding. This course is related to my field of study so I enjoyed so much during the learning process as it enhanced my learning ability. My confidence level in this course has increased because I finally know the real way of teaching and many type of learning such as Universal designed learning, Flipped Classroom, Online Grading tools and many more. The best part of this course is the lecturer. I love the way my lecturer explains and teach us. She is always ready and concern about us so it is easy for her to approach and understand us and she is very approachable. She is ever ready to provide academic guidance to students. Overall, my lecturer exhibits high professionalism and I enjoyed the teaching style of her.

This course, in my opinion, is crucial for educators to learn and utilize in the classroom. This is because, in this day of globalization, the use of technology is crucial, especially in the current covid-19 epidemic. Because all classes are now offered online, we can plainly understand how important it is to employ learning technology.

This course has benefited me so much such as I finally identify my skills, improved my communication skill and finally know the right way to develop the best teaching method. The course is pretty nice with great contents but I sure we also want to improve it. I want the course to make the duration is shorter and divided in two sessions in a week instead of one session for 3 hours straight. Other than that, I enjoyed learning this course so much. 

Thank you for reading all my blog post, bye.

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING

 Hi!

As you read the title above, I'm going to share about Universal Design For Learning.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed. The goal of UDL is to use a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers to learning. It’s about building in flexibility that can be adjusted for every person’s strengths and needs. That’s why UDL benefits all learners.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed. So, all students can succeed even though they have disabilities because we practice equity. 

I will practice UDL classroom during teaching. I will create flexible learning environments that students can personalize.

Flexible learning is a philosophy of learning that allows for more choice and engagement in the learning process. It is strongly based in empathy. We can ensure that our students have greater access to learning through choice, flexibility, access to resources, and a deeper understanding where they are in the learning process. Formative assessment and feedback are very important elements in this framework. Flexible learning also includes technology, whether it be through online course work or digital options to access course content, to collaborate with peers, or to demonstrate learning. 

To practice flexible environment in teaching, I will take an inclusive approach such as sit the students in a group and approach them group by group to explain things. Then, I will build in flexibility using UDL principles which is engagement, representation, action and expressions. Next, I will offer flexible options such as student can make their own choice to choose subject content, who they might access for help, who they might work or collaborate with. I will consider on how the solution can be offered to everyone as I will identify the student needs such as they are fast learner or slow learner or etc.

4 steps that I will use to make a flexible environment of a UDL classroom are:

1. Start Small and Set Achievable Student Goals

2. Create a Flexible Classroom with Furniture and Digital Tools

3. Choose Technologies, Materials and Methods Thoughtfully

4. Give Lots of Feedback to Establish Deeper Learning

Teachers can also have students provide each other peer comments on homework, projects, and the events of the day, allowing for even more in-depth learning. UDL is intended to be applied in a comprehensive manner, transforming not only the school, but the entire district from the ground up.

The concept is simple: provide many means of learning for an inclusive classroom. It may not be something your school or district can achieve right now. A teacher can make the changes needed to help each of his or her students find their own road to success with knowledge and preparation, the correct technology, and a positive attitude.

I think that is all for today's post. See you again, bye!

FLIPPED CLASSROOM

Hello, welcome back to my blog. Today I want to share about flipped classroom based on what I learned in my class.

Have you heard flipped classroom ? 

What is it? 

Flipped classroom is a type of "blended learning" which is students are introduced to content at home and practice working through it at school. Face to face interaction between teacher and students are mixed with independent study usually via technology.

What students do at home?

They will watch an online lecture, review the material, read the physical or digital text, participate in online discussion and perform a research.

This image show the different between traditional classroom and flipped classroom.

At school, the student will develop skill practice, discussion with peers, debate, presentations, lab experiments, assessment and review. This doubles student access to teachers once with videos at home and again in the classroom.

4 Pillars of Flipped Classroom

I think you already know what is flipped classroom. Let's move to my favorite form of the flipped classroom. My favorite flipped classroom is using YouTube. Why? 

This is because I spend half of my day on YouTube, this shows that I already know all the features in YouTube. During class, my lectures also use YouTube for us to review the content and I can say that I understand well everything that explained in the YouTube video. 

The benefits that I got in flipped classroom is I can develop my own learning skills. I love that whenever I don't understand, I can rewind the video how many times I want. Next, YouTube is free. That is the best thing that I look forward to. Furthermore, students who absent will not fall behind because they can view the YouTube links anytime they want. As a student I found that flipped classroom is more interesting than the traditional classroom. Even though, it benefit students, it also give advantage to educators such as they can re-used the content to other classes. Besides YouTube, we also have TEDTalks, podcast, Duolingo, Khan Academy, Udemy, etc.

That's all for today. Bye!

CANVA FOR EDUCATION

 Hi! How are you ? I'm finally back. Today I'm going to share about canva and why I choose Canva apps for education purpose. 

First, I'm going to show you one of my slide presentation. I used Canva to make this slide. Canva is a free account for everyone and also has canva pro and as a student my university provided us with Canva pro so, it's free to use any features in Canva!

This is my slide presentation in video.

Why I choose Canva is because it is user friendly. As you can see in my slide, Canva has provided us with various tools so the slide will look attractive and creative. Canva has multiple templates design that can be use. For example,

Canva has every digital design possibility covered from Facebook and Pinterest posts to e−book covers, Infographics, and Resume. You can also make GIFs, animations, videos It also has an option for you to create custom designs.

We can also create our own team so others can view the design.

Canva is one of the best options for graphic designing. But you might want to rethink using it as a primary platform for your business. That's why to use it for educational is great.

Why Canva is not practical for business are because, Canva does not have local file storage, Overuse of Designs, No Source File, Pay for some good features and The mobile app has less than half the features of the desktop version.

My personal opinion why I choose Canva is because it is user friendly and has many good features. For the creativity, I love Canva the most and it also can save as many types of files such as PDF, MP4 and image.

I think that's all for today. See you on my next post! Bye!

 

ONLINE CLASSROOM APPS

Hi, It has been a while since my last post. Since you have read my title, I guess you know what am I going to share.

Online classroom apps. I know some of you may be familiar with any online classroom apps since most of the students now have to study online distance learning due to pandemic. So, what type of online classroom apps did your educators use? 

Today, I'm going to review my best personal online classroom apps. First, I would like to review Google Classroom. I know all universities and schools provides the an email for their students. So, students can use their emails to access in google classroom.

Google Classroom is a free blended learning platform developed by Google for educational institutions that aims to simplify creating, distributing, and grading assignments. The primary purpose of Google Classroom is to streamline the process of sharing files between teachers and students. In google classroom, students just need a code to enter the class made by the teacher. Then, teachers can assign the practice in the google classroom and it is automatically shared to all students in the class. This apps is user friendly and it can be install in any device. This apps also connected to emails and students can actually received an email whenever teacher assigned the practice. Google classroom also providing a grading tools and teachers can insert the due for the practice. So, teachers can track the student progress. I love google classroom because it is very easy to use and very easy to understand as it has folders separated for every classes.

Next, Microsoft teams. 

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Teams primarily competes with the similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration. Teams is one of my best online classroom apps, because as a teacher, teacher can detect whenever students open the class. Teacher can track their timestamp every time the students study in Teams. So, if they find out their students didn't open Teams for a quite long, teachers can message and ask their students. This way, it helps teachers and students to keep track on each other and the student wont leave behind.

As students, it is easy for them to do meeting, assignment submissions, watch lectures video and notes, communicating and discussing with members. Everything is in one place so there wouldn't be any mixed up like we have to discuss in WhatsApp, meeting using google meet or else. We can access Teams with student's email and for attendance, if the students didn't attend the class, teams will remind the lecturer or teachers so, they can contact and ask their students. I would recommend to use this two, since both of it are user friendly.

For quizzes, I would like to review and suggest Kahoot.

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform, used as educational technology in schools and other educational institutions. Its learning games, "kahoots", are user-generated multiple-choice quizzes that can be accessed via a web browser or the Kahoot app. I had so much fun when I used Kahoot. 

It is a game-based learning platform where you have a questions and need to answer within the time given. The one who answer it correctly and fast will be in the first rank. Studies reported that classes using Kahoot! especially those that used it often saw increased attendance, student participation, engagement, motivation, as well as interaction between students and teachers and students and peers. I can say that students seems more enjoy to use kahoot! because the students will do their best to get the first rank and the attendance will be full since it is a fun quiz to attend. 

For the disadvantage, as a student, I once use kahoot! for my quiz. Sometimes whenever I nervous, I accidently click the wrong answer and Kahoot! cannot recheck our answer because it is game that have time and rank. So, it will affect some of the student's marks if they accidently clicked the wrong answer. 

So I think that's all for today, this is my personals best apps that I can share with you. Thank you, see you on my next post!

WHAT ONLINE LEARNING MEANS TO ME?

Hi! Good Evening, I hope you have a nice day today. 

I just finished my revisions so today I'm going to share to you what online learning means to me. What is online learning ?

Online learning is an internet-based courses offered synchronously and asynchronously. Since pandemic started due to Covid19, the government has implement online distance learning for students. Our academic calendar has been drastically changed because of this new way of learning. Let me tell you the advantages and disadvantages of online learning.

The advantages of online learning is efficiency because online learning offers teachers an efficient way to deliver lessons to students. Online learning has a number of tools such as videos, PDFs, podcasts, and teachers can use all these tools as part of their lesson plans. Next, online learning has accessibility of time and place which is very flexible for the students to attend classes. Another advantage of online learning is reduced financial costs. Online education is far more affordable as compared to physical learning. This is because online learning eliminates the cost points of student transportation, student meals, and most importantly, real estate. It is also improved student attendance because they can attend the classes wherever and whenever they are. 

But, online learning also has their disadvantage which is inability to focus on screens. With online learning, there is also a greater chance for students to be easily distracted by social media or other sites. Therefore, it is imperative for the teachers to keep their online classes crisp, engaging, and interactive to help students stay focused on the lesson. Other than that, technology issues has been a key challenge of online classes which is internet connectivity. Without a consistent internet connection for students or teachers, there can be a lack of continuity in learning for the students. Online learning requires teachers to have a basic understanding of using digital forms of learning. However, this is not the case always. Very often, teachers have a very basic understanding of technology. Sometimes, they don’t even have the necessary resources and tools to conducts online classes especially for a senior teacher. 

From my experience, I do enjoy online learning as much as I do because of my privilege's. But sometimes, I do face some challenging such as overload work from lecturers. Since I already face online learning since 2020, I can finally adapt with my environment and my advices is don't procrastinate your work. For my current semester, I can finally handle my work and my stress level because of all my lecturers for this semester are very understanding. 

I think that's all from me. See you on my next post. Bye, Have a nice weekend!

GRADING TOOLS

 Hello. Welcome back to my blog!

How are you? I hope everything is fine. I'm currently outside brainstorming a little bit of idea for my blog. So, today I'm going to share about grading tools. Grade can serve as communication tool between students and instructors and allow instructor to track the progress of students. Grading tools has been helping user especially teachers to key in the students grades. There are many grading tools can be used such as spreadsheet in Excel, grading in google classroom or free grading tools online such as quickgra.de. 

My personal best to grade students is spreadsheet in Excel. In spreadsheet excel, I can use their automatic calculator, graph and many features. In this YouTube link, I learn a lot on how to use spreadsheet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqeIKvah70&t=650s.

Here is one my example that I did on my own using spreadsheet in excel.

This is because Excel allows you to let others view the amount of data by letting you to send it or print it to be viewed. Excel also can be password protected for extra security by creating password through the excel file. Excel has provided more features such as formulas, chart, graph and other which is useful for grading purpose. It contains thousands of row and column which is unlimited data can be insert. Excel makes calculation much easier than working things out yourself with a calculator.

The disadvantages of Microsoft Excel is viruses can be attached to and Excel file through macros which a mini programs that are written into an Excel Spreadsheets. While it is easy to create the formulas, the reference cells, copy and paste the data and link the worksheets & spreadsheets together as the work gets more complex, the spreadsheets become more difficult to change and manage. Microsoft Excel does not offer a good variety of graph capabilities, The customization of the standard formats and the combination of different data sets and different types of graph is awkward & not intuitive, For a powerful worksheet, this is a big disadvantage. Other than that, Microsoft Excel is still useful for grading purpose which has been my best grading tools.

That's all from me. Thank you, bye !