Excitement in the air...

Look at all of us... these past few days had been adventurous and exciting. Today we chatted online in google..It was fun and funny at the same time. Imagine chatting with each other in the same class even to our neighbours beside us and laughing to ourselves.. LOLS... From the chat, I learnt e few things about my 'classmates' and even had a chance to talk to those whom I had never talked to. Thanks to the chatroom, we were less shy online and were able to get to know one another comfortably.

Then the fun escalated when we were brought to the COTF (classroom of the future). It was a place I would never had imagine. In truth, on the way there I was trying hard to imagine what the COTF would be like. It was not like what I had thought.

The concept of COTF is indirect and independant learning via technology. The technology available was maximised for the benefits of the students and at the same time made teaching and learning easier and fun for both students and teachers. It was interesting indeed that students are able to learn anywhere, everywhere; be it at home, in the train or at a cafe. Teachers are even able to remind them as and when about assignments etc. The scary part to me was parents could keep tag of students whereabouts. Of course it has an advantage to it but at the same time its also violating their privacy. To me its like juveniles under probation. Well everything does have its pros and cons I guess.

Overall COTF has opened our minds to get out of the rigid box and extend knowledge to students in a comprehensive yet innovative manner. I thought the on-the-spot test and answer technic was great even for group works.

However as it seems technology is ever developing and available for use but its rarely put to great use especially. Sometimes its time consuming to use technology as it requires much practice and knowlegde, however it is a waste to not maximise its usage when its available. Unfortunately, our madrasahs do not have such facilities available to us to make our lessons as lively as COTF. But we could still use its creativity to enliven our lessons. Insyaallah. I hope I would remember to apply what I have seen and learnt throughout this course. :)

And finally, we were exposed to google earth, and some map websites and lastly yackpack. Google earth and the map websites I really find it useful for my geography class and maybe maths. This is especially so since the resources for geography is very limited in school. The yackpack on the other hand seems useful for group discussion. However with the experience just now, I think it will be tough to have in class as the problems which may arise would waste lesson time and students like us, a few minutes ago, would definitely chat about something else. Unless we limit the discussion time and expect a product at the end of the lesson, then maybe the students would keep on track.

Azizah.