Appreciation

As final exam week comes to a close, students will be saying farewell to teachers, friends, and a daily routine they have come to expect during classes. In this post, I would like to thank my lecturer Madam Azidatunoor for her guidance through out this Internet Technology for Language Learning class and honestly, I learned so much about the software, website and more applications that can be used for my study or business purpose. Without your sincere learning process, surely me and my friends could not have the chance to drill our IT level performance. Thank you very much, madam!

Not to forget, to my fellow members and friends, all of you have been my pillar of strength in my studies for this hectic semester and your kindness, help, understanding are truly appreciated. With friends like you, this class have been coloured with colourful rainbow! Thank you friends.

Until we meet again. Bon Voyage!

Time to learn Rhyme!

Hello! Here is my group Smart Builder. We decided to go for Rhyme topic as it more interesting and fun to be learned especially among the primary school students. In this e-learning, we provide our students or users to get to know about the topic and enjoy their English learning process while playing fun games and answering quiz. 

You may click here! Enjoy!

https://lrs.smartbuilder.com/l/f3j8jggvee8y

Smart Builder reviews

It is finally week 11! Which means, we are in the process of learning on how to use Smart Builder and use the benefits of the software as an e-learning process. As a beginner like me, I find it really hard to use as it have few actions button that can be chosen and it really takes some time for me to understand completely how to have a good page presentations.

Let me share with you, what is SmartBuilder. Shall we? 

SmartBuilder provides authoring software and consulting services for creating performance-focused elearning. The SmartBuilder authoring tool empowers instructional designers and developers to rapidly create interactive elearning and mlearning that include branching scenarios, case exercises, assessments and more. SmartBuilder runs on PCs and Macs and generates HTML5 that runs on all major computers and mobile devices.

Do you know what I like the best about this software? I like that I can dream up anything and SmartBuilder can make it happen. I have run into walls time and time again with other authoring software and have felt limited in what I can make. With SmartBuilder, the sky is the limit. I like that it's a software that grows with you - in the beginning, you can get up and running quickly and build simple things, then create more advanced things as your needs grow. Hence, for this task assignment, me and my group members decided to choose a topic on Rhyme as our subject presentation. Our target student is between 8 to 12 years old and we really hope that our Smart Builder turn out well and nicely created to make the English learning more effective and fun to learn!

Our first video on Youtube!

Presenting you my (successful) Powtoon video I have created with my team members. The topic that we have chosen is Myths VS Facts. We hope you learn new things through this video and don't forget to sign up for Powtoon, if you would like to share your story or knowledge! But overall, creating Powtoon was entertaining and I am happy that we finally completed our second assignment using this generic software, Powtoon. 

Hope you enjoy!

Prepared by :

1. MOHD SYAKIR ASYRAF BIN SULAIMAN
2. KHAIRUN NIESA BINTI ANUAR
3. MUHAMMAD AIZAD ISKANDAR BIN ROSHAIZAD
4. NUR FARAH AQILAH BINTI ROSE MAN 

My Canva impression!

If you have spent any time on editing poster or advertisement all over the years, you surely have heard of Canva. Canva is one of the easiest, most effective tools I have ever used for creating brilliant images other than Ps and Photoscape, as it help me to deliver my message to my audience or completing my editing task, easily. But, if you have never tried, there is a reason why so many people are excited for the tool. In fact, there is more than one! It is Free, Easy, Powerful,  and Collaborative (allow you to edit with your online friends at the same time)

In Canva, it already had a great template library and with Canva, you can create your brand templates for your business purpose that align to your specific content needs. I can simply include business logo, colours and fancy fonts. Well, after poking around through this semester, I think this ESP6013 class has helped me a lot in learning technology features and enhance my skills in so many ways which did not occupy so much time to get something to be done. Yes, Hello time savings!

Here in this post, I will be sharing with you my business poster for the Entrepreneurship subject that require me and my team members to sell our product, cute indulgent cookies! Hope you like it and don't feel hesitate to follow us on social media and purchase our cookies at cheaper price. Thank you everyone!

A newbie with PowToon

Hi friends! For this week class I have learnt how to use PowToon for our Educational Video assignment. As you can see here is my respected ESP6013 lecturer, Madam Azidatunoor gives brief explanations to the whole class regarding this task. I have never tried creating any video from this website because I thought it is difficult. But, as I go deeper in learning about this PowToon I find it pretty easy, fun and convenient to use. Let us jump straight to get to know what Powtoon is. Shall we?

PowToon is an online service that allow you to create animated video for your website with ease! They have the drag and drop features that is wonderful which make it pretty easy to use and they offer you to use it for free!!! C'mon who does not like free stuff ☺ However, I think I have found the downside of the free version is we have to use their watermark on our video and if you decide to pay, you will get to access more of their animations and music. Well, that is somewhat not a big deal for us because we just want to use PowToon for our studies purpose. Oh! Another thing I like about this PowToon is I can edit my video from the scratch if I don't want to use any of their template provided. It requires you to learn new skills as well. 

Alright you can read more on step by step to use PowToon by clicking a photo below. If you wish to see more powerful and beautiful animated, presentable and inspiring videos you can discover them on YouTube. Hopefully you will find a good time editing PowToon video, just like me and I will share with you my PowToon on my next post (perhaps) Bye friends!

Recording my first podcast.

For my latest subject assignment, I have bravely entered the world of podcasting with zero broadcasting experience under my forte. The result was literally days of record, delete, record, edit, delete and then that was perfect! Well, at least for me *take a bow* ☺ If you are comfortable with talking to get your ideas across, and you are not scared of a little technical adventure, then you are more than ready to start your own podcast. Ok, here is my podcast you are looking for.

So why begin a podcast? A podcast is an approach to contact a crowd of people that you would not achieve generally with simply your blog. There is an expanding number of individuals who tune in to podcasts more than they read web journals.The existing of podcast help students in self study, listening in class, encourage students to find their interest topic and many more.

While a podcast is an awesome method to convey new followers to your blog, it is not by any means the only reason you should begin one. Not only that, you can also connect with your group of onlookers on a more individual level. Hearing somebody talk is, almost certainly, more effective and entertaining rather than perusing words on a screen. With this sort of association, you can pick up your audience's trust and stand out enough to be noticed in lesser time than it takes to peruse a blog entry. 

What are you waiting for? Hurry up, get a microphone, start recording on Audacity (or any online audio editor) and upload it to podcast medium like SoundCloud.  

Instructional Design?

Going back to class after a long break can be tough but surprisingly me and my other friends managed to maintain the hard times. To let you know, I have been away from class for few days as I has decided to join as volunteer for the international event- 9th World Urban Forum that was held in Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. It was organised by the United Nations. Trust me, it worth every drop of sweat I spent there. 

A selfie with the inspiring leader
Deputy Minister of Urban Wellbeing,
Housing and Local Government,
Dato' Halimah Sadique during WUF9

For me, this is the time for personal growth and learning about yourself into becoming the awesome person you were always meant to be. I always take a challenge in as many ways I can (eventhough people see me as "soft" or fragile individual) but it is okay as long as I have the chances to always grab any kind of fruitful lifetime experiences. 

For this week class, I will share with you about the Instructional design. It is actually a  process of creating instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing. It generally involves finding the most effective ways to provide knowledge and skills to learners of all ages. Here through out this learning process, you able to learn on the creation of syllabus, planning of lesson and material selection and adaptation. The main goal of this ID is to construct a learning environment in order to provide the learners with the conditions that support the desired learning process. 

The focus of this ID will be an instructional design model called ADDIE. A model is a simplified representation used to explain the workings of a real world system or event. The ADDIE model has been a very popular model and some experts have made their own version of the ADDIE model. Let us look closer at the ADDIE model like the Dick and Carey model. It is in systematic instructional design model consist of five phases: 

1) Analysis

During the Analysis phase, the designer identifies many things including the learning problem, goals and objectives, the needs of the learner and the existing knowledge of the learner (key word: Identify)

2) Design

During the Design phase, the designer goes through the process of specifying learning objectives, storyboards, prototypes (key word: Specify)

3) Development

During the Development phase, the content and the learning materials are produced, all based on the design phase. (key word: Produce)

4) Implementation 

During the Implementation phase, the content from phase three is put into the production. The training for the learners and for the teacher are put into place and used. 

5)Evaluation

During the final phase, the designer assesses criteria used and gathers learner feedback. 

There are two types of evaluation that are conducted during this phase which is Formative evaluations and Summative evaluations. 

CMC: What is it?

Hello! Have you got any idea what is CMC all about? Let me give you more explanation about what is CMC the abbreviation for Computer Mediated Communication. In this technology era, you must thinking of how technologies has taking over our lives and one of the thing I want to introduce to you is the motion of people living in a technology society and information technologies around us that we use them often. Hence, I am going to spend my time today while sipping my glass of Twister juice, sharing with you what have I learned from this second class from this week. Mainly, about what those tools are, how they affect us in some of the ways we can understand conceptually what it means to have communication technology. 

CMC is a term used to communicate between two or more people who can interact with each other through different computer. However, computer is not used as much and often now. Around 90's, computers began to mushroom in the community and came the term Computer Mediated Communication because people began to get acquainted with websites, emails, and the internet at the time. Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is any form of human communication gained or aided by computer technology. 16In addition, communication with computer media (CMC) can also be defined as communication transactions that occur through two or more related computers. Examples such as chat, instant messaging, SMS (Short Message Service), and email.

Be aware of hackers when you post something online

Besides, the rapid development of information and communication technology enables social media on internet to be used to interact with others in long distance, as in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth. 

Overall, the presence of CMC or internet computer in the midst of society can generate new knowledge for technology lovers especially students, adults and the Gen Alpha generation. The Internet might affect the mindset and behavior of its users and can cause various impacts for its users, both positive and negative impacts. Internet computer users have a way of looking at how to use various media and features that exist, properly and wisely to ensure CMC preserve the values, cultures and customs that have been held since time immemorial. 

Search Engine vs Database

In this week 3 class I will be sharing with all of you about this above topics. As a college student in English course programme, you surely be faced everyday with new terminology and vocabulary. When you missed the chance learning, you might be stuck in a poor position by looking 'blur' just because you used the wrong word to explain or describe something, being all confused by what your lecturer or professor talking in front of class. But, when you join this Internet Technology I am lucky to learn more how to cope with this problems. 

Examples of search engine

Are you familiar with all these logo above? In this post, you will look at the difference between a database and search engine. We will also look at how the Internet figures into this whole picture. So, what is a database? The answer is it is an organized collection of journal, magazine, newspaper and article. A database works like an index that allows you to locate articles relevant to your topic. If you go any library at local university, national library or maybe school library, they have subscribes to database services or in other words the library pays for the service. Some examples of database are the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL), ProQuest, Academic Search Premier, PsychINFO, and Science Direct. 

Meanwhile, search engine on the other hand is a general Internet search tool that locate pretty much anything on the Web. A search engine offers basically no organization of information, no control over the information you will find. The commonly used search engines, I used are Google, Bing and Yahoo. I am sure you are familiar with the Search Engines already and probably use them everyday. Now, how does the internet figure into this? A connection to the Internet is necessary to use both a search engine like Google and a database like ProQuest. 

The internet is a broad umbrella like term and database and search engine fall under that broad term as more specific identifiers as both them need to have a connection to the Internet in order to use its functional. Hence, if you say "I used the Internet to find my source.", I think you have not really said much at all. What is more important is to know did you use a search engine like Google or did you use a database like GVRL. That is all for now and don't forget to use your Internet wisely! ✌

Ready, Set, Learn CALL!

Perhaps once you become a teacher you’ve found yourself thinking about how great it would be to go back to your school and learn more about different aspects of the field of education. It is just a perfect time to brush up on some of your skills, or even learn something entirely new. Or not. Either way, it’s not a bad idea. In this second week of class, let me introduce you what is CALL all about, which is being used from top-notch universities around the world by the educator or teacher.

As defined by Mark Warschauer, Computer Assisted Language Learning or simplified as CALL is divided in three phrases, which are- Behaviouristic CALL, Communicative CALL and Integrative CALL. CALL is an approach to language teaching and learning in which computer technology is used as a tool for presentation, reinforcement, and assessment of material to be learned. The factors that determine the characteristics of any CALL program include:

1. the language taught
2. the language of instruction
3. the language writing system (both roman and non-roman character based)
4. the level of the language to be taught (from absolute beginners to advanced)
5. what is to be taught (grammar, informal conversation and pronunciation) 
6. how it is to be taught

Moreover, the programmes which have been specifically designed for English language teaching consist of CALL-specific software (CD-ROM's and online), Web-based learning material, Generic software (word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet) and Computer-mediated communication (online chat, discussion forum). I believed this presence of  CALL helps to promote student or learner centredness or autonomy as it gives meaningful purpose in learning. Computers quickly allow us to access to a particular piece of information, whereas teachers looking for a specific section will definitely spend more time retrieving that piece of information. 

On the other hand, while computers will always deliver the same type of information in the same way, teachers in classrooms are very important because they offer various significant examples in order to provide a better understanding of a particular topic, adjusting their pace and rhythm according to the students individual needs. The role of the teacher in the classroom is very important and even though computers have become part of the learning process, helping students with information, it is the teachers that can provide valuable feedback and offer always good information to their students, teach them how to correctly choose the right  and genuine sources of information on the  Internet and also be creative.

Now, I hope all of you clearly understand the  role of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and understand why computers are valuable instruments for the learning process and at the same time, how Internet has successfully create the creativeness in language learning among students or learner. Oh! Before you go, here is a video found from YouTube by Prof. Peggy Marcy's TESOL Education covers about this topic. Enjoy!

Why blogging?

Bonjour, mon ami! Here we meet again on the second week of class. Today, my lecturer shared about a topic on Blog Writing for English Language Technology. In this topic, it consist on types of blog and the pros and cons of blog. For me, blog should be featured as a form of education in Malaysia, as the importance of blogs in institution is clearly evident. Blog as well, can be a site to disseminate information about the studies they work on. Through blogs, teachers can get better teaching techniques and can be practiced for their students.

#bloggingtips for beginner 

The types of blog are Weblog, Tutor blog, Class blog and Learner blog. Firstly, Weblog are easily-updated online journals that combine text with images, videos, and links to other web sites or other blogs. According from the ComputerHope, many weblogs are like a personal journal or a look into another individual's life and can be a way to learn about people, events, places, and more from people around the world. Meanwhile, Tutor blog is one of the platform that run by educators which contain the class materials, course information, homework and share about any cultural experiences that is related to the teaching material. Class blog is also related to Tutor blog. It is a site where the educator and students able to exchange their thoughts on any specific discussion and it makes the students more participate on the content. This blog is moderate by the educator or teacher itself. However, learner blog is a student personal space where it is used just like an online journal. Students will be encouraged to write their own reflection on lesson that have learned in class or sharing their interest. From here, educator able to evaluate the impact or outcome from their teaching process.

Examples of :-

1) Weblog- Blogger, Movable type, LiveJournal, Radio Userland, Typepad, WordPress.
2) Tutor blog- SmartTutor, CloveClouds
3) Class blog- INTECH, Wildcats Write
4) Learner blog- Just like mine and my friends from the blog list 😁

All in all, for me one of the nice things about creating a blog is that the only things you need to get started are an internet-enabled device and some time to write. Whether you are using a computer, a laptop, a tablet, or even a smartphone, there are plenty of free applications and tools available to help you get your thoughts on the page and out to the web. Okay see you in the next class! Au revoir! 

#FIRSTCLASS

Rise and shine readers! May today will be a good day for you to start planning and doing on productive things to do. As for now,I just finished reading Mitch Albom's novel. If Sparks can prove that love is more powerful than death, Albom managed to take you to different dimension between life and death. I bought Mitch Albom's on the Big Bad Wolf about four years ago and his first write up that I read was For One More Day and guess what, he touched my heart even more, even I already read it about five times. 

At first glance, I thought this class will be the same as the Computer Application class during my semester 1, which is more about the hardware of the computer, software application and the uses of internet in class learning. But, it is mainly a different things.  I will swim in depth in the ocean of technologies - get to know more how actually internet has helped us in creating a new atmosphere of learning, instead of dull website with only boring thousands words in it. I could not wait to learn the SmartBuilder software and also Powtoon because I never had any experience in using those tools. You must be interested to know what SmartBuilder is, right? It is a platform of e-learning that met all requirements as it work better, smarter and faster to use in teaching and learning process for teachers and students. It is 'quite' easy to use as it fosters our creativity instead of hampering it. I think I will able to do it in so much fun since I can learn more on the rich-media and powerful branching scenarios provided. 

Quiz 1 - 20 marks

Blog - 20 marks

Podcast - 10 marks

Educational video - 20 marks

E-learning Courseware - 30 marks 

This week is my first class of Internet Technology for Language Learning. In this class, all of us were given a brief learning outcome we will received through this class. Madam gave us information on the introduction of this subject. Basically, it is more on the use of internet as well as other technologies as the tool for the language learning, especially English. We also will get to discover on various computer software and its application that will be used in and out of the class. Besides, we also will received the basic of designing applications for the purpose of language learning. 

However, before I start will all the assessment given my madam, I need to create a blog as our reflection journal based on what we have gain through out this class begin from the first week until the thirteenth week. Yes, that means my fellow readers will read 13 ridiculously-exciting (read: more facts, more awesomeness) post or more in this blog! I remembered I started to have to my own Blogspot when I was in high school at the age of thirteen and here again, I am started to write blog again but this time, with extra information on studies. Hopefully everything goes well! Till then, goodbye! xx

Hello Aquarius!

Thank you for this 'fabulous' birthday surprise, best friends ♡

Time is running faster. It's almost end of January already. But, what day is today? It is January, 29th my birthday! Yes, as I post this first entry I believed that I have finally grow "younger" hihi! So, let me share you few things about myself before you go further reading my entries. 

My name is Khairun Niesa Bt Anuar, usually friends called me by the name Niesa. During my entire lifetime, I do have several nicknames given by other people but they still prefer to call my real name.Therefore, to be called other than my name is so uncommon and unparalleled to my universe since then.

I am twenty-four years old. Well,maybe not officially that adult yet but it doesn't matter at all.I hope this 2018 year going to end up just like my past years,which I thought most awesome years. I was born in Hospital Kuala Lumpur and I am the eldest among three siblings. Talking about hobby? I'm not sure whether I have one or not because basically I love to do everything that gives me the benefits.

However, volunteering is always be my passion. I always looked up for any programme or upcoming events that needs volunteer. I think most every month, at least I gives some me time for me to do the volunteering work. I don't mind not getting paid because it is a rewarding hobby! Doing volunteer work I find it so meaningful and interesting as it can be a relaxing, energizing escape from myself from day-to-day routine of college life. It able to renewed creativity and motivation that can carry over into my personal (and future professional life).

Alright,  last but not least what do I expect from ESP6013 class is I hope what I will learned from Madam Azidatunnoor gives me new output about these technology era we are currently living in.This is a century of scientific inquiry and technological innovation. It filled our lives with new gadgets and new understanding. More profoundly,  I hope I can contribute to the community or children about the importance of the internet technology in order to use as a tool of language learning. Thank you! xx