Reflection for Session 5

Now I can appreciate Dr Quek's Jigsaw approach of putting things together. How clever! It's a great help to us. Everything seems to fall into place and I can concentrate on the readings and try to internalise the concepts of LE and put them in writing.

The presentations by each group are also beneficial as they allow me to have a clearer picture of the research studies. Dr Quek's inputs on the background of the studies are very interesting. It's amazing she can remember all the details after so many years.

2nd Reflection on Session 4

After Dr Quek's lecture, I began to understand the instruments eg. OLES, WIHIC better. Now I know what the different terms mean, eg dimension, scale that are mentioned in the instruments. Items in the scales need not be the same as one is allowed to choose the relevant items applicable to one's class.

The rationale of administering the actual and preferred form of the questionaires and how the different studies attempt to validate the instrument after making modifications to the original form of WIHIC also become clearer to me.

This kind of scaffolding is indeed necessary and important to our students.

Reflection on Session 4

Yesterday, Dr Quek emphasized on the term ‘psychosocial’ when she asked the class "What is LE?" At that time, I thought ‘psychosocial’ is the same as social psychology. However, after checking up the term on Wikipaedia, it says the term "psychosocial" can be used to describe the unique internal processes that occur within the individual. It is different from social psychology, which attempts to explain social patterns of behaviour in a general sense. Psychosocial refers to one in psychological development and interaction with a social environment. The individual is not necessarily fully aware of this relationship with his or her environment. It was first commonly used by psychologist Erik Erikson in his stages of social development. It involves aspects of social and psychological behaviour.

So am I right to say that when a person interacts with the people in his environment, the things present in or around his environment, his personalities and behaviours also change, thereby causing change in his personal growth?

Reflection on Session 3

After Dr Quek's lecture in class, I began to change my perception of this course. It is going to be useful. The things that James taught us in class made me realised that I know so little about ICT. There are so many things more to learn. I am looking forward to the 4th session where Dr Quek will teach us how to use SPSS which will be useful for performing statistical computations.

As I looked closer into the items used in the instrument in Castillo's article, I realised that there were other factors that affect the perceptions and attitudes of the students in a classroom environment. The instruments contained items like student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, tast orientation, attitude etc but there is none on the use of IT. Am I right to say that elearning is another platform that teachers should explore as we move into a globalised world?

Reflection for session 2

I shared the same sentiment as Desmond - did I sign up the wrong course? I am thinking more like the physical classroom environment, tone of learning environment, instead of IT-enrich classroom environment. However, since we have signed up for this course, we have to make the best out of it and take this opportunity to brush up our IT skills. Jia You!

Reflection on Session 1

Still trying to get myself familiarise with Wiki, facebook, blogging. All these are rather new to me, especially Wiki. This is a new learning experience for me! I have to keep up with my students' IT skills in just 1 week!

The literature reviews in the readings are useful as they gave me the background of NLEs and how they are applicable to today's globalised world.