Week 3: The Check List

You can lead a student to material, but you can’t make them read

This make me recall a Chinese proverb 牛不喝水强按头which similar to idiom  “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. If created web based learning environment only provide reading material to students  will only make them bored, cannot achieve the purpose of develop a learning web.
In the virtual world, there are thousands of temptations, students easily distracted, especially they don’t used to learn through web. For them, internet is interesting place, but not place to learn. I set up a wikispaces as a platform for learning for my F4 & F5 students which only access by their classmates. I try to update every week and make sure there will be at least a a material for review every month besides homework they have to pass up in class. I found that although I try to include issue they might interest, but unfortunately response not very good. Some student gave excuses that they don’t have internet at home, so I allow them to complete the review in class. Once they online, I found that they are not watching material I gave in wikispaces although it is a video clip which I think students might like to watch. Unexpected, almost everyone busy interact with their friends in Facebook. Then I understand, what’s the actual problem!
I once thought by concern whether the material is suitable with their prior knowledge and able to arouse their interest are the most important issue, but then I realize I should put in more effort in engaging students with its learning, it is not just easy as lead them to material which I think they might be interested.


Do something unexpected to engage learners

There are different ways to engage learners, do something different from the usual will give them some refreshment, you will be surprise. 
Last year, I have a very naught 3GH class. They never sit properly learn something. Every time after their class I will be exhausting. I remember one time, I tough them a poetry regarding clogs, as usual they pay no attention and talked loudly in the class. Normally I will continue with discussion, but an idea suddenly pop out: since they really like to talk, then let them debate in class, although I don’t think they will be able to made a favorable view in the debate which need higher thinking skills. Unexpectedly, they are actually very serious in discussion. Although they don’t really know the rules in debate, but under guidance, they still could state their idea clearly and logically. I surprisingly found that they really enjoy the activity, even when bell rings they still non-stop debating. This made realize that if I could be able to do something unexpected, I will be able to engage my students.
I believe online learning also like that, don’t ever let our students know what we want to do the next, they will be looking forward to our class. There are several ways to engage online learner, such as use funny video clips to bring up some important issue, linking teaching material to popular or fun shows, quizzes, and of course games. 
 
 
 
Don’t under estimate the power of fun, play, and the unexpected

James Paul Gee said: “Without motivation, there is no learning”. Fun, play and the unexpected aroused one’s motivation in learning.
Some teacher insist that learning process must be conducted in a a situation under control, but in my opinion, this tensed atmosphere not conducive to learning. I prefer using fun, play and unexpected at the appropriate time. I believe this can motivate students by increase student attention and maintain focus. Besides that, I found that it can help create a more open atmosphere and aid in classroom. Research shows that students will retain more information from a interesting lectures and class discussions.
I once let students produce their Music Video in group as their project. They are require to rewrite lyrics of their favorite pop songs, record their singings, put in suitable background and subtitle to produce a music video then uploaded their masterpiece to Youtube. I linked all the video posted in Youtube to their learning platform and encourage students to click “like” to select the most popular works. After the activity, students reflects that they found this activities bring a lot of fun to them, it is more like playing then completing a project. Even other grades’ students also require to have such an activities.
The effects of using fun, play and unexpected will make students enjoy, as a teacher, I always remind myself don’t let students play just for fun, they must gain something while they play.



Things take longer than you expect

Using website/ blogs/ FB as a T&L platform takes more time than face to face, especially at the beginning stage of development when everything seems new to us. I still remember I spent a few weeks to explore and learn from tutorial online how to develop a wikispaces, it really take a lot of time. after develop, I still need to learn from other wikis users how to engage learners from time to time.
Design an online learning environment which successfully engage students is not that easy, and a lot of effort have to put in to maintain the website also. It will take a lot of teachers’ time. unless we find ways to get students to take the lead.
From the students’ perspective, they prefer pass up their work in exercise book than key in computer and  pass up online. For those not use to computer complaint that they take a lot of time sitting in front computer just to complete a simple task.  Therefore, in order to let students used to online learning need time also.