Maria's Blog

Here's our product

2006-08-21T00:17:00.000+08:00

Please follow this like to see our product.

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/foodchain.swf

Why using interactive representations?

2006-08-19T22:50:00.000+08:00

Why using interactive representations?

The development of graphical illustrations on educational purposes is highly noticed by educators. Most of the learners can enjoy their learning process through “what you see is what you get”, i.e. WYSIWYG. This kind of learning object is highly recommended by teachers and learners since their interactions can be easily observed. Furthermore, it is deniable that graphical elements such as pictures or a frame of movie express much more than thousand words. Pictures can also deliver a lot of information to the receivers instantly. By using visual representations in education aspects, learners can access all learning materials in terms of images or videos, the effectiveness of the learning process is much more advantageous than using traditional text or numeric mode. In Farberman and Musina (2004), they fully support the use of visual representations in education purpose, they mention that “figurative thinking or thinking through images, offers fresh perspectives and ensures variation in the teaching/learning process, while logic protests the process from potential randomness and haphazardness and promotes critical analysis.”

In a general classroom of Hong Kong school, a teacher should face at least thirty or forty students in the meanwhile, effective and meaningful interactions between them are crucial since a successive lesson lead a successive learning and teaching process. Students are always told to be active and capable to give reply to teacher while they are asked to do so. However, it is an ideal situation. The reality always comes up with low reply rate, inactive responses from students and sometimes, teacher seems to be spoken to herself rather than to his/her students. Such scenes always appear in traditional classrooms, as a result, paradigm shift is requested and such change is imposed in classrooms now. The use of information technology and whatever which can facilitate the learning and teaching effectiveness are recommended by teaching professionals. In the meantime, teachers are also working hard on developing specific visual representations for their students.

In our representation, we would like to follow the theme which Farberman and Musina (2004) propose. The topic of our representation is about food chain. This is a general topic which students will be taught in lower form science lessons. We would like to focus on some simple explanations and giving simple game whereas students can learn about food chain and even consolidate their knowledge. Drill and practice on exploring this topic is essential for the learners, we use game as a tool to provide opportunity for this purpose.

Though our representation is a very simple learning object, learners should realize the content of the learning object is concise and easy to understand, moreover, they should be capable to learn the essence of food chain with confident. We hope learners can make use of the representation and introduce this learning object to someone who would like to know about food chain in a very basic level.

Bibliography
Farberman, B.L. & Musina, R.G. (2004). Picturing the concepts: an interactive teaching strategy. Thinking Classroom, pp. 12-16, 5(4).
Pack, T. (1998). Visualizing information: visualization systems data management. Database, pp. 47-49, 21(1).

Here' our prototype!

2006-08-19T22:46:00.000+08:00

Please follow this like to see our prototype.

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/prototype.swf

Part of the representation

2006-07-28T22:33:00.000+08:00

Part of the representation is prepared as the link below, classmates and someone who would like to have a look can download and open it in the computer.

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/game.swf

What have I done in the past 2 weeks?

2006-07-22T13:46:00.000+08:00

It was a hard time to manage different things in the same time. Besides designing the representation, business work also take me time to deal with. I'm quite sorry that I could not update the blog regularly, anyway, I would like to work on it sincerely.

In the past two weeks, I tried to make some drawings for the representation. This process excited me since I seldom to make a number of drawings by myself in a short time. I enjoy this process. However, it was quite difficult to handle some of the drawings. Most of the drawings are based on my recognitions of the characters (mainly animals and plants), but some of the characters which I should familiar with, I had no idea to draw it well. One of the characters, cow, I tried to draw it for at least 5-6 times, unfortunately, it seemed to be a monster rather than a cow! haha! To solve this problem, I found some pictures about cow in books and the Internet, luckily, I drew it in a proper way before the deadline which I consent with my partner.

In this moment, I would like to thank David to digitize the raw drawings, further, he also make a brilliant work, i.e. coloring the drawing with attractive tones.

Characters appear in the visual representation will publish few days later.

Storyboard

2006-07-07T08:23:00.000+08:00

The storyboard of my assigned topic is about food chain, would you please follow the link below and make comments, thank you!

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/storyboard.pps

Topic of my assignment

2006-06-29T22:13:00.000+08:00

David and I would like to design an interactive visual representation about “food chain”. In order to clarify the relationships among producer, prey and consumer, some simple games will available for students. They need to match the name and the role of the pictures (producer, prey and consumer), furthermore, students can also make some sequencing game by putting the right pictures in a food chain. After finishing the game, students are capable to distinguish and get a clear concept on food chain and its implication in the kingdom of organisms (including animal and plant kingdoms, and also the food source, the Sun).

Task for session 4 -- Shape of a raindrop

2006-06-22T23:17:00.000+08:00

I seldom use Microsoft Powerpoint as a learning object, however, I realized that it was quite easy to prepare for learner to use.

The shape of a raindrop is an interesting topic, David and I use PPT to illustrate it, please follow this link and kindly comment. Thank you!

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/shapeofraindrop.pps

My photo story

2006-06-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

I am teaching in a special school, most of my students are not capable to maintain a satisfactory level of personal hygiene. By teaching them a proper way to wash their hands is essential. I use Microsoft Photo Story to organize the procedures of washing hands and how to make a cup of hot drink. It is a good attempt to use this software and I hope I can make use of this in the future.
The following link is the clip showing how to wash our hands and make a cup of hot drink.
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/WashHandsHotDrink.wmv

Task 2 -- A visual display

2006-06-08T23:17:00.000+08:00

It's my first time to transform text-based information into visual display mode. It is very challenging and interesting becauseI need to analyse and organise the information and present the core element in a still picture. I think I'll do more practice on it.

A better resolution of the display can be found in the following link: http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1238/users/hymchan2/Space.EMF

First blog

2006-05-29T00:02:00.000+08:00

I'm so happy to participate MLIM6323.

It's interesting!

I think I'll really enjoy the lecture because I can familiar the innovative mode of learning process.

Maria

My photo

2006-05-26T20:38:00.000+08:00