Week 7 - Reflection

Hi readers,
I am terribly sorry for not posting this reflection on time. I was very much occupied by many other academic urgent matters that I need to deal in the previous week. I managed to have a good look out for things that grab my attention from the previous week discussion. The most interesting point discussed in the class last week was regarding to make the best out of having minimum facility for classroom lesson. I picked out that many of my classmates do not have sufficient facility as to start a comprehensive technology integrated lesson. Nevertheless, that would not really be and end of trying to make the best aout of it. Perhaps, having as minimum as having ONLY one single laptop to create a lesson would really be a great issue if one is having more than average small-class number of students.

What to do with one laptop?
Here I would like to share some options for solution that you would need to try to understand as the basis of having only one laptop for a class. Having a single laptop for a number of students, you would likely have a very limited way to share the screen of your laptop if you don't have a big screen as of having a digital projector to project the display on the wall. Perhaps, if this is the situation you might need to choose to have as big laptop screen for you to get it best for the show. Considering laptop price that doubles if it gets bigger thatn 15.4', it seems that that size is the most affordable price for the biggest screen you could get. The idea is that you might have more students to have visible view angle at a close range. Remember that screen of that size will be hard to view in certain close distance.

The next thing you would need to have is to get a wireless mouse/trackballs that would make the teacher to control the input from a possible distance without blocking the sight of your students. A wireless keyboard would also great to use, which by most brands, it comes in a package of wireless mouse and keyboard. To have interactive class, where you need to have your students to work on certain inputs to the computer you are having, you will ease the students just by sitting at their position and move the input device around, without bothering them to rearrange the position.

Next will be about the sound. Indeed, sound coming out from the laptop speakers are relatively small. In addition to that, it would also be heard a bit treble-ish. It is not very good for listening comprehension lesson that you are presenting. Perhaps, as little as a few funds out from your pocket you can purchase a passive speaker with a small amplifier that would really boost the volume for the students to hear it clearly. Besides, it would also tweak the treble to a warmer sound that would help students to distinguish different voices, tone, pitch and various background sounds, in case you are going to deliver a audio clip of a average quality audio recording.

As for the materials, I would recommend to find lots of video and audio streamings on the net that can be downloaded freely, which of course with a little trick that I will write on another post. Some interactive education flash games are also available on the internet be downloaded and played offline. I can say that there are lots of free good stuff that you can use for your lesson with that specification of facility that you have. Also, I can say that to find these materials is relatively easy as we are mostly already familiar with web searching and finding great sites that offers free downloadable items. The hard part will be combining these materials and construct them into a lesson package. Creativity, patience and willingness are the most important quality for the teacher to be able to run the lesson successfully and interestingly. Often teachers with abundant of fancy facilities could not develop any, thus I think no matter of how low is the specification, the super teacher knows how to make it great--of course, with the lessons and all the great experiences that we all have been learning together in here, it will be a great challenge full of excitement.

Have a good day readers,

Best regards,
Rahmat