Task 3...

1. Why do you think evaluation of CALL courseware, websites, materials etc important?

In my opinion, it is important for the moderators or the creators of the CALL coursewares,websites or materials to do evaluation since it is the best practice for managing their own work. Basically, evaluation is a process of collecting,analyzing and evaluating the data that tells the moderators/creators on how well their work is meeting its objective. If happens the CALL courseware and such is not anymore reliable to the users, improvements can always be made and thus a high quality work can be produced.
Besides that, evaluation is needed as it helps the moderators to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of their CALL courseware,websites,materials and such to maintain its effectiveness. A good CALL courseware and such can give vast impacts to the users.
In conclusion, evaluation on CALL coursewares and such is needed as it benefits both moderators and users.


How do you think Hot Potatoes JCloze may help your students learn English?

Frankly i think that Hot Potatoes JCloze is the superb computer based exercise for students as it can help the students to learn English easily. First of all, Hot Potatoes JCloze obviously can replace the dull textbooks and pencils as students just need to click the mouse several time to finish the task.
Next, this Hot Potatoe JCloze teaches the students to be an autonomous learner as in they need to complete the exercises on their own with the help of hints and clues given in the text. Besides that, the eye-catching graphics and layouts of the Hot Potatoes JCloze may help to build the students' interests in doing English exercises.
Apart from that, Hot Potatoes JCloze gives immediate feedback to the students which enables them to evaluate their performance and identify their strength and weaknesses soon after completing the task. This JCloze can also help the students to learn new words and enrich their vocabulary through the hints or clues given in the exercises. Students will also enjoy doing English exercises through Hot Potatoes JCloze as they do not have to waste their time writing the questions written on the board.
In conclusion, I really think that this kind of computer based exercise should be utilized wisely by English teachers as it brings a lot of benefits to the students in general.

a simple grammar activity...tadaa =)

Salam.

Woo-hoo..this is my first time blogging! oopss..sorry.. too excited!

I'm Faten Najwa bt Zamani. Most of my friends call me Faten which means wisdom. heessh..i hate knowing that the most controversial transsexual Malay man who married the British guy is also called Fatine. Urghh~
Okay, I'll be 23 this coming July.Man!I hate the fact that my age is increasing year by year! But Jacob Black said age is just a number! Thanks Jacob..u changed my mind..hee..
Well, currently I'm in my last semester and I hope I'll be able to graduate on time.InsyaAllah.Everyone please pray for me!!
I'm a cheerful kind of person and love surfing the net so much... I'm so easy to be recognized cause I'm towering over my girls classmates. In regard to this, i DISLIKE high heels. =(

Regarding my computer skills, I would say that I'm just a novice computer user because I just know certain computer skills.However, I consider myself as an expert when it comes to facebooking, downloading files and of course online chatting. Frankly, there are loads of computer skills that I really need to learn.I wish to learn those one day.

I don't have vast knowledge on latest hardware or software like the experts. However, I did know some of the hardware and software that I usually use. For hardware, the examples are thumbdrive, netbook, mouse and wireless adapter and if for software I do have Ares, VLC Media Player and Photoscape in my netbook.

As a student, of course I have experienced learning online. For example, I usually listen to listening texts on IELTS websites and answer the questions provided on the web. I also did online grammar exercises and subscribe the free grammar notes and read them just to improve my grammar knowledge which I consider as poor.

I've exprienced teaching in the real setting during my practicum which was last year. I taught in SMK Seafield in Subang Jaya and my students were the form 4 students. During my practicum, i did incorporate the technology in my lessons and the students like it so much. For example, for the text 'Looking For A Rain God' , I've downloaded a video of ritual practices taken from 'Apocalypto' movie and showed it to them. I made them find the similarities from both stories and we together listed them out on the board and we also talked about the the values of the story. Students seemed to enjoy watching the videos and they understood the story better. Thus, I would say lessons using the technology is a success!

As a future English teacher, I would say that the use of computer and technology in language teaching is very important cause it helps the teaching process become easier and enjoyable. Well, by just one click teachers are ready to preach and teach.No chalks and less sweat! Besides that, by just displaying exercises on the screen, teachers will have much more time to facilitate students doing exercises.
Apart from that, I also think that using computer in classroom helps the lesson become more interesting. For example, the use of songs and animated cartoon characters in video clips for grammar class sounds cool to me. All in all, integrating computer and technology in language teaching is beneficial to both teachers and students.

For the last question, Well, I hope to learn more about computer skills and technology from this course. InsyaAllah.=)

Till now....bye..