Photo Editing

We do come across with lots of pictures and images in magazines, newspapers and even billboards that make us wonder on their authenticity. Batman on the KL Twin Tower? A human’s face on a giraffe’s body? A house with colourful cloud background? How these are possible??? With lots of software available in the market, it is possible to edit original pictures for numerous purposes. Editing pictures is a significant skill that should be learned by primary school teachers. This is because by having this skill; teachers could actually edit a picture to be unique or funny so that it can capture pupils’ interest and attention during the set induction of a lesson. Besides that, teachers can utilize their editing skill to omit unnecessary parts of the picture so that it would be suitable for the use in classroom.
One of the tasks given by Puan Foziah Mahmood was photo editing. We are required to select any picture, either from Internet or camera snap and later edit it according to our choice. At first, I used Microsoft Photo Editor to edit a picture from Internet. Then, I edited the same picture by using the Photo Bucket’s tools. Then, one of my classmates taught me on how to edit images using Adobe Photo Elements software. It has variety of editing tools and user-friendly. It took me around three hours to browse through the software so that I would know the functions of each icon in the software. I also learn to crop and paste my picture to replace with a cartoon’s body. Finally, I edited the picture and uploaded in Photo Bucket. Now, if anyone ask me if I know about editing pictures, I would proudly say “Oh yes, I have done that before”

Editing images in a click of mouse

Not satisfied with your picture shot? Then, change it!Maybe some of you out there would be wondering how could we edit the so-called "imperfect" sights. Yes, we can!Yesterday, during the lecture, we learnt on how to edit photos through Adobe Photoshop. I was quite shock when I got to know that photos can be edited through many softwares. For example, removing the red-eye from the picture of a person, adding blue sky to a picture, making a picture brighter and yet, it does not look fake. We could not even detect which are the original ones. Besides that, we learnt on how to add frames,additional clips and effects such as adding bubble speechs, glittering butterflies,welcome words and so on.In addition to that,we were assigned to do photo editing individually by selecting an image from net or camera and edit it for a creative look.However, it has be potential enough to be used as an appropriate teaching/learning aid in classroom.I have not start my work on this.Currently, I am browsing for lots and lots of image in hope to get a spark of idea.As teachers,why do we need to learn about photo editing?As we know, children learn better if their learning is supported with concrete materials as well as appropriate pictures. Therefore, by having the knowledge of photo editing, we teachers could cut out unnecessary elements of the particular picture to be used during lesson.I am pretty sure every Cohort 3 members will be cracking their head for ideas on this video clip assignment.Relax and take your time...We can do the best!

Learning more?

Previous week, we learnt on the elements related to children's learning as well as the capacity of a child to learn.The interesting matter here is our lecturer, Dr. Foziah Mahmood divided us into groups and asked each group to present a topic through power point. The topic that my group received was on 'children's instinct for fun and play'. The notes related to all the topics were displayed through Adec.Therefore, it was easier for us to refer. Since i was working on the topic 'Children's instinct for fun and play', I have learnt on the importance of fun and play to kids. Firstly, it can lower the children's affective filter, promote creative imagination as well as lengthen pupils' short attention span. I also learn on the roles of teacher to promote fun and play in classroom for beneficial learning. Additionally,I was impressed with all the groups' presentations as colorful slides were prepared and also added with Youtube clips...Thumbs up to all!

What I learn...

During the first two lectures, Pn. Foziah Mahmood explained briefly on the content of this course and I found it very interesting. She also required all of us to have a 4GB thumbdrive for each. At first, I was reluctant to buy the pendrive that she suggested. This is because I already have two pendrives of 256MB. Later on, she clarified to us that by having a pendrive of 4GB, we could start find and save images, animations and download songs from Internet for our teaching during the practicum at schools. Then, I realized how brilliant idea of her was that. Yes, indeed, it would be a great act to start collecting our resources for primary teaching from now onwards. I’m glad that I have a 4GB now. Besides that, she introduced some terms related to technological and non-technological resources. There were ‘e-book’, ‘limewire’ and ‘flickr’ which I never heard before. Pn. Foziah encouraged us to browse through the net frequently so that we could get familiar with the search engines and software linked to our resources.

My expectation on this course...

The successful implementation of a lesson depends on the teacher’s creativity to develop resources for classroom. There are many resources that can be designed or adapted through the use of Internet and software. Why designing and adapting resources are important? Definitely, it is to cater the needs of pupils in classroom in order to ensure maximum learning for them. Therefore, I would love to enhance my ICT skills to prepare resources for my future students. Through this ‘Using and developing resources for the ESL classroom’ course, I’m very inquisitive to learn about making simple animation. Animation is a motion video clip that attracts primary school students’ attention as a set induction of a lesson. Hence, it would be very useful for me to have some knowledge on it in order to create my own one for future students. Besides that, I’m really eager to learn about Windows Movie Maker. This is because I have seen short video-clips that are played in classrooms for certain lessons. I always wonder how the videos can be edited with additional words and motions. Therefore, I hope this course would provide me a chance to learn about making video-clips.

The Art of Defining 'Resources'

According to Jayne Moon, which taken from the book Children Learning English, resources can be defined as anything which can assist the teaching/ learning process, either human or material. It can be song tapes, magazines, charts, pictures, flashcards, textbooks, task sheets, puppets, realia, posters, objects, pupils and many more can be listed. Resources are essential for primary school pupils because it able to make a lesson interesting as it would be colorful and has sense of motion. Furthermore, children learn better if they involve in ‘hands-on’ activities using resources as it appeals to 5 senses of the children. Thus, it can sustain students’ short attention span and also motivate them to learn. Resources help children to link meaning with the words related to the resources, which makes the learning more meaningful. In addition to that, resources also provide opportunity for the pupils to practice the language. Since we are walking along the bridge of scientific era, teachers nowadays tend to use technological gadgets as the resources for lessons. For instances, the Internet, assists Malaysian teachers to conduct lessons as teachers download video clips, songs and images from the network as aids in explaining a teaching point. This indirectly creates a dynamic and attractive learning environment as it stimulates the children to interact with the resources.