Technology our helpmate

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In an unexpected turn of events, Singapore entered a month of Heightened Alert where dining in wasn't allowed and schools turn to home based learning. During this period of time, there were news articles highlighting the plight of old hawkers whose business suffered greatly as they did not embrace technology and join the delivery platforms. Likewise, technology has become an essential part of education and we have to learn to use it well to make learning meaningful.


My first HBL 

Having missed HBL last year, I was quite curious to experience HBL after hearing much about it. Nevertheless at the start I felt a little lost as I've not even hosted a zoom meeting before 😅Am thankful for colleagues who gave me a crash course and shared helpful tips. I mainly made use of tools like SLS, Zoom and Loom (a video recording app) for my lessons. While zoom allowed real time interaction with the students and they could ask questions on the spot, some students seem too shy to speak up or were tired from back to back sessions. However the zoom breakout room function worked well in getting my Sec 2 History students into their group discussion for HI and I could hop around the various rooms to provide the necessary guidance. 

On the other hand, recorded lessons on  Loom has its benefits of allowing students learn at their own pace and rewatch the lesson if needed. However it needs to be paired together with an assignment or quiz to check for student's understanding. As for SLS, I like that students are able to receive immediate from the suggested answers and the heat map provides a general overview of student's understanding,  Would probably embed Loom videos into SLS in future and try out other tools.


TCEF 2021

The sharing at the conference gave me new insights and ideas to try. 


AST and Broadrick Secondary shared about the use of SLS to conduct their HI for Sec 2. Similar to them, we also did on the topic of Japanese Occupation with virtual tour of Ford factory. However some things they did differently was that they made use of the SLS interactive thinking routine (see think wonder) tool for students to analyse sources and they allowed students to craft their own inquiry question. There was also differentiated instruction where higher ability students can choose to craft a more complex inquiry question involving multiple communities. 



Kuo Chuan Presbyterian shared about a Geography board game they created to quiz their students. I like the idea of learning through play and how students can revise content and identify their knowledge gaps by quizzing each other during the gameplay. While it may be tedious to created a hardcopy board game from scratch, game based learning can also be done online using tools such as gimkit and kahoot which I've tired and others such as flippity which I would like to try out. The presenters also made use slido during their online presentation to allow participants to ask question anonymously. I thought that was a good tool to try out too especially for students who may be shy to be identified. It can also allow participants to 'like' a question if have the same question so the presenter can know what are some common areas to clarify.


Teck Whye Secondary shared about the use of virtual reality for their GI. I like that for the end product, students were tasked to use CoSpaces to illustrate their suggestions. Would be keen to explore this application and see if we can try it out with our students. 

Hum dept meeting


The Humanities department meeting was a good reminder and revision of the elements of e-pedagogy.

It sets us thinking about how to make our lessons meaningful. Which goes back to beginning with the end in mind, to set clear objectives, success criteria and let it be our guide as we plan our lesson activities. I found the Nearpod tool very engaging and allows us to check our understanding as the meeting progressed. Would like to adapt this tool for lessons with the students when possible.

Another key takeaway is that it would benefit the students to adjust lesson resources based on their readiness. This serves as a reminder especially when I use the 3E resources provided for my 3N Geography students. To provide scaffolds when necessary to help them in their learning and understanding.

Would also like to revisit the learning outcomes in the exam syllabus as I go about planning the O-level revision resources for the 4E Geography students this June Holiday.

I guess this is one of my most lengthy post thus far. Thanks for reading till the end (:

Have a restful holiday!

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