Alhamdulillah praise to Allah because I managed to finish this assignment on the time given by the lecturers. Through my assignment for subject EDU 3105, I think have learned a lot of new knowledge through the process of completing this assignment. For this semester, as the PISMP SEM 4 students I have to take a course on Technology in Teaching and Learning (EDU 3105) and my lecturer for this course is Miss Sumitra Kan Fong Kuen. For this course, I have been assigned to do a project which to complete the coursework. We were given four tasks which are to produce a video based on a given theme, to produce a web-based learning package, to write a reflection and also to attach a list of appendixes. We were given a briefing by Miss Kan about our tasks. Video making was the first task assigned to us. The video must have a time frame of three to four minutes. The content of our video must be related to the theme of our e-learning. The theme given at first was Integrity but later, it was changed to a free-theme video. At first, this integrity theme had given me quite a problem as I had a difficulty on thinking about the idea. But then, luckily our lecturer told us that we did not have to follow the theme and can come out with our own theme. I was glad because I can come up with many ideas for my video. The first thing I do was selecting the topic that I want to teach in my website and include in my video. At first, I selected the topic of verb but then I decided to change it to adjective because based from my observation during School Based Experience in school, more pupils having grammar problems with adjective rather than verb. I have gone through the primary student textbook and choose Unit 12 about Fresh Fruits from the Year 3 textbook and set up my mind to teach students about adjective. I have decided to create a video about fruit to explain about adjective. My early plan was to shoot the video in a market. However, due to some circumstances such the noisy condition in the market and a lot of distraction from people in the market, I cancelled my shooting there. As for the solution, I decided to just download the video from Youtube and edit it. There were myriad of videos that I manage to found. Then I download several of videos that were suitable to be inserted in the video. For the editing process, I used Windows Live Movie Maker as my basic software. It was my first time using this software, thus it give me some difficulties as I do not know how to use this software. My major problem using this software is inserting the music and cutting it to make it accordance with the video. I failed a few times before succeed. Through this editing process, I need to spend lots of time to explore the software yet sometimes like want to give up. However, I keep on tracking and searching for new ideas for the betterment. I require some help from friends and family in the process of finishing the video. I learned a lot about using this software from the people around me. This weakness make me realize that I need to learn and explore more about the technology. After finished with the video, I continued the second task which is producing a web- based learning package. The content for the package must be suitable for learning a topic or part of a topic within the syllabus of a subject taught in a primary school. The learning package also must incorporate several multimedia elements which include text, graphic, audio, video and interactivity. The video that I have produced in task one must also be included as part of the learning package. Throughout this second task, I learned about a lot of new things. For example the software needed to produce a web-based learning package like Dreamweaver, HotPotatoes, and CoreFTP. Our beloved lecturer, Miss Sumitra taught us to use KompoZer as it is quite simple and easy to use by beginners like us. However, I decided to use other software which is Adobe Dreamweaver CS6. It was because of its function. Adobe Dreamweaver have more function than KompoZer. For example, it has the split view interface which allows the user to quickly build a page in the design view and then refine the html in the coding view. Also, code that needs to be modified may be located quickly by selecting the corresponding element in the design pane. The code pane automatically scrolls to the html for the selected element and highlights the code. The ability to work form one interface surely helped me speeds up creating and editing the web. Besides, Dreamweaver is customizable so I can adjust code coloring, what fonts that I want to use for coding, and how code is highlighted. Thus, using this software I can create an attractive website. The first thing I did in creating the website is choosing the template. I am not having much problem in choosing the template as I can easily find and download it from the internet. I chose the simple and attractive template that I think can attract pupils to visit my website. In our website, we are required to have 6 links respectively which are Home, About Me, General Information, E-learning, Video and Reflection. At Home, I just put some pictures and link to other website that can be used by students to learn. At about Me, I include my biodata and some information about me. At General Info, I put some information about E- learning and what my website is about. For the E- learning, I put link for the exercise that I have develop by using HotPotatoes. For Video I embed link of my video that I had uploaded to the Youtube. Last which is Reflection, where I put this reflective essay about the process taken to complete this assignment including strengths and weaknesses and also problems encountered and solutions involved. Then I continued with my learning package by using HotPotatoes 6.3.0.4. Miss Sumitra had taught us how to create an exercise using HotPotatoes so I do not have much problem using this software. This free software is fabulous as it is time and cost saving software. I also can set the time limit for students to complete the attempted task in a given time frame. I used all the elements in the HotPotatoes such as JCloze, JMatch, JQuiz and JCross to create the exercises for the pupils. The exercise is accordance to the topic that I choose which is adjective. I used JCloze to create fill in the gap exercise, JMatch to make matching exercise, JQuiz to create quiz and JCross to create the crossword exercise. All this exercises are very useful for revision. Using this software, teaching and learning in English is made fun and creative. The interesting part about HotPotatoes is that the images of different formats can be easily added. Thus the exercises created will contain images and it can attract pupils to do the exercises. Besides, it also gives immediate feedback once the pupils have answered the questions. It will show whether pupils have answered it correctly or wrongly and also display the score accordingly. Since the feedback is given on the spot, it enables students to further improve themselves. The last stage is to publishing the website. I used CoreFTP software to publish my website after finish developing it. Miss Sumitra had taught us that before publish our website all the files that we used must be placed in one place. Then we just select that file for the CoreFTP to upload. If we upload file outside the folder, they will not be publish on the Web. It took me a lot of time during the uploading process due to the slow internet connection. This cant be helped as I am using the free wireless internet access provided by IPTHO.
The problem that I encountered in finishing this task is the software that I used was quite heavy for my laptop. There were a few times when my laptop hang and stop working. As for the solution, I have to borrow my friend laptop in order to complete the task. Throughout the process of completing this assignment, I have gain a lot of new knowledge and learnt many new things especially about technology. In conclusion, technology plays a huge role in education nowadays as it help to make the teaching and learning process better and much more interesting. It is crucial for the teacher to know how to use technology in their teaching. As a future teacher, I must make sure to make use of technology fully.