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reasons teachers don’t blog

it’s been a long while since i posted anything related to edublog (yes, one of the original purpose of this storeroom), and i saw this link to steve wheeler’s post, and apparently, he had posted “Seven reasons teachers should blog” the day before, and responses were overwhelming (:

some reasons why teachers don’t blog:

  • fear
  • no time, tired after a day in school
  • nothing of interest to share with other teachers
  • access to (common) weblog platforms were blocked (i.e. firewall)
  • don’t see the benefits of (edu)blogging

and why teachers should blog according to prof wheeler:

  • blogging causes one to reflect
  • blogging crystalises one’s thinking
  • blogging links one to a wide audience
  • blogging creates personal momentum (and improve your writing and thinking)
  • blogging gives you valuable feedback (through visitors’ comments)
  • blogging improves your creativity (in expression)
  • blogging improves your grammar (cos you are more careful when you know there’s an audience)

while the above reasons are about why a teacher should blog (him/herself), the benefits can be applied to students too, don’t you think so? (:

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musing …

was reading a doc and saw this in the concluding portion:

“Vasyrkvoyr pheevphyhz @aq z@grev@yf”
“Pbafge@vagf bs ybtvfgvpf, gvzr g@oyrf, @aq yr@eavat fc@prf”
“Y@px bs gbbyf sbe @ffrffzrag/zbavgbevat/srrqo@px sbe gr@puref gb rssrpgviryl zr@fher kkk”
“Trare@y t@c bs ubj kkk ybbxf yvxr sbe @ y@etr e@atr bs fhowrpg @er@f.”

.. @aq y@fg ohg abg yr@fg
“Fpubby‐jvqr phyghe@y @aq flfgrz pu@atr g@xrf gvzr.”

how interesting (:

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Two new books published for teachers!

(cross posting my 3-mths old post in The ICT Connection Happenings blog, which is opened to ‘members’ only)

—- <begin cross posting> —-

It’s been 1 year since the launch of The ICT Connection portal. Part of our objectives is to deepen the common understanding of the multifaceted concepts of mp3. In-line with this objective, we have worked over the past many months with the NIE professors. And today, we are pleased to share with you that two new books are now available for download through this portal.

 

The first book is titled “Self-Directed Learning with ICT: Theory, Practice and Assessment“ (By Tan Seng Chee et al.)

 

And the second book is “Advancing Collaborative Learning with ICT: Conception, Cases and Design (By Chai Ching Sing et al.)


With these two newly written books, one touching on SDL, and the other on CoL, we hope educators in schools will benefit from reading them as much as we do. Enjoy! (:

—- <end cross posting> —-

LK has also a post on the two books here (:

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New education minister tells teachers to ‘take a break’ during June holidays

and that’s a headline off The New Paper via asiaone yesterday.

“referring to retired teachers?”
“just finished 1 week of remedials, plus training the whole of today (my remedial students were still here!), now stressing out over overseas trip with students tmr”
“still trying to clear admin work this June plus …”

these are some of the (adapted) comments that i’ve collected via my fb thread. and this is my share of peeve:

wife’s P just took away 10-20 key personnels’ families’ weekend today! there’s 20 weekdays, and only 4 weekend Saturdays, why must he choose the 1 out of 4 to do RETREAT (and it’s by no means a treat)?!? if a leader prioritises work as everything in his/her live, the subordinates have to be no live as well?

“it takes some political wills to right things” said a colleague during lunch yesterday when we discussed this piece of news. such “high-handed way” is definitely not welcome by most (and it probably will affect popularity), but personally i think it is the single MOST effective way. cos by making 360 Ps (most likely lesser cos there are still many Ps with live) unhappy, 33000 teachers will be happy! let’s see when the decree of “all schools MUST BE CLOSED on Saturdays and Sundays” … “no BUTS. when there’s a will there’s a way. 有志者事竟成”. yes i hear boo-ing voices out there, but i’m one who’s hopeful, as always (:

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angry bird and Chinese Language

have been playing angry birds since gotten my droid last oct, and am always impressed by the many physics within. chanced upon this post “Using Angry Birds to teach math, history and science“, and i thought why not let’s have a list for “Using Angry Birds to teach Chinese Language”, and here’s some powder and smoke:

课前必备条件Pre-requisite:
– 学生必须玩过angry birds，否则教师可想方设法让学生在课上，或课后玩过angry birds

听说 Listening-Speaking
– 让学生听不同版本的angry birds 音乐、或音效，然后让他们回忆并复述该音乐、音效属于游戏的哪个部分并象征什么意义 （听、说）
– 让学生假扮销售员，当堂兜售angry birds游戏，说服观众为什么一定要玩angry birds （说）
– 可让其他学生复述上述活动中，同学所说的内容，同时锻炼听和说的能力 （听、说）
– 让学生辩论angry birds及其他受欢迎的游戏，例如Mega jump、Fruit Ninja等。
– 若要配合ICT，上述活动可配合audioblog, podcast, 任何录音平台，甚至是VoiceThread、Glogster等进行

读写 Reading-Writing
– 制定阅读有关angry birds的篇章，并配合阅读微技的训练，设计理解问答
– 让学生上网搜寻有关angry birds的文章，例如游戏指南，玩后感等，然后写一篇综合报告，整理并总结所见到的内容
– 让学生写一封电邮或一篇说明文，介绍angry birds游戏及其玩法，或是闯关秘笈walkthrough
– 让学生写一篇记叙文，述说一次和亲友一起玩angry birds相关的经历
– 让学生假设本校将主办一次玩angry birds游戏的比赛，写邀请函邀请参赛，或给赞助商赞助活动
– 若要配合ICT，上述活动可配合blog, wiki, discussion forum, linoit等进行
– 除了独自进行活动，也可让学生分组进行协作学习collaborative learning (CoL)

感觉好像还可以衍生很多其他的活动，改次再写吧 😛

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