EDWARD'S 👨‍💻🖨️ CCTI PROJECT

I can now confidently conclude that the Assure Lesson Plan model is indeed one that I can not do without if I am to successfully design a Technology rich lesson. In the last lesson I have discovered a number of ways to make my learners engaged in the lesson in ways I orignally was not doing namely: Placing them in groups allows them to more confidently share their views which they would have not done in a large class due to fear. Allowing learners to have hands on experience with the desktop computers as compared to using the projector or chalkboard to illustrate concepts. Making the learners have a first time experience of a new activity (e-titration with iLab) which if done in a real laboratory for the first time could be potentially harmful to learners. Allowing the learners to critique their own work across groups an make recommendations to their peers. Allowing learners to share their own work online and go a head to get hands on experience on the internet. iLab applica...

The whole new experience of lesson planning using ASSURE is getting more interesting. I have now attempted to write objectives, select media and materials using all this to come up with an almost complete lesson plan. You are actually in position to visualise your lesson before hand much more clearly than before. I have even come up with a plan B that ensures that nothing really goes wrong. I want to try out this lesson and see how it gets along when I am done with the whole lesson plan. We have continued to discuss with friends in the group forum and everyone seems to be so enthusiastic about this experience. At first, it was difficult to detect flaws in sample ASSURE lesson plans but I can now do it with ease. In the group forum, I have been able to detect when objectives are not stated well especially when they lack the measurement criteria.

There has been a heated debate in our group discussion on the importance of certain elements of analysis of students in the ASSURE lesson planning model. These are ethnic background (to what extent should we analyse these students background? By country of origin, tribe, skin colour or others?), What learning styles need to be considered in what kind of lessons? and How do this analyses auger with the use of technology? I strongly agree that analysis of students is important and MUST be done if proper planing for individual needs in a classroom is to be successful. However, only those criteria which may affect the teaching learning process should be considered. For instance, if you are going to handle a lesson on piggery in agriculture, you must consider religious affiliation as an issue otherwise some denominations may have a problem at the end of the day. The same would definitely not be true if you are handling "law of diminishing returns" in the same subject. Some ...

It is long since I last blogged and I am happy to finally get back to this rather enjoyable activity; especially about what I am learning on the CCTI online course. Today I encountered applications in a way I had never done before. The evaluation of a particular application to gauge its suitability for the task at hand seems to really make one appreciate how much effort developers put into their projects to meet our needs as teachers. It is surprising that one app when evaluated almost seemed to meet all the requirements of not only my lesson but many other lessons I envisaged could be conducted to facilitate learning using this particular app (I am not surprised that it is not a free app). Today, the favorite pass time of most of our learners (and even, surprisingly, some of their parents) is video gaming -- online video gaming to be specific. The sensation to win, discover, create, compare, anticipate, design, remain in suspense etc. lures these gamers to always want to go back to ...

I have a few resource websites that I want to recommend. In my analysis, I have chosen to consider the following key elements as criteria for gauging their potential to enhance teaching and learning: Authenticity and credibility: Is the site legitimate? Is the authorship recognized? Who are referring to these sites? Are these referees of significant caliber? If a site is not authentic and credible then whatever it has to offer may not be accepted broadly. You may be able to identify some useful content in it but not all academicians may buy in. Relevance: Does the site have what I want; clearly brought out without any unnecessary jargon? Can my learners' class level of learning match that of the website's content? If a website cannot meet the need, then however fine looking and credible it may be it cannot be beneficial in bringing change. Organisation: In today's world this is a key factor. If the website is not easily browsable then learners can not easily get wha...

I must say that office software is an invaluable resource to the teacher. What you would have taken ages to do can now be done in a matter of moments. A learning aid you used some time back and now needs to be modified can be worked on quite faster than you would have using charts or models for that matter. Take the case of diagram drawn on a chart which, with time needs to changed. Take a map of Africa, for example. Drawn 5 years ago, it does not have the country - Southern Sudan. You would probably have to buy a new one or draw a new one (both ways being costly in terms of money and time). Using a projector with images downloaded from the internet, you can update your information quite cheaply and quickly. Talk of a list of new words that have to be increased, a diagram in science that needs a 3D feel, a song in sol-fa notation, the list is long. Office Software is definitely a thumbs up. As concerns stifling of depth of knowledge, I would say let us use office software for what it ...

The level to which one has integrated ICT in facilitating the learning process obviously varies from one individual to another. How this variation is measured has always been a challenge, at least, for me. This has made me settle at using ICT for what I now understand is in enhancement of tasks (substitution and augmentation) as categorised by the SAMR model. The SAMR also has another level of integration used for task transformation (modification and redefinition). I cannot say I have completely understood these level of categorisation but I know that the higher the category the more proficient you are at integrating ICT in your day to day activities as a subject teacher -- the higher the better. I am so impressed by the task transformation modes of integration i.e. modification and redefinition which provide for ICT significant task redesign and creation of new tasks previously inconceivable. This will provide for better learning especially for those who find it had to grasp certain ...