Category: E Learning

Synchronous vs asynchronous learning

3/19/2021

Synchronous and asynchronous are basic terms when it comes to online or distance learning. When the pandemic struck, teaching and learning activities were shifted online. Whether you like it or not, that is the only option left.

But after almost a year of being under this new norm, we should have mastered the arts and science of planning, selecting, conducting, and assessing our online and distance classes. When is it suitable to conduct a synchronous session? What are learning activities and techniques should we use when you have a large group of students in your Google Meet class? How to ensure students' engagement throughout the session? How can you guarantee collaborative learning to take place when students are learning from a distance? These are among the examples of questions that need to be deliberately answered by all of us, educators.

My heartfelt thanks to SieQa committee for this invitation. I had fun sharing my little insights on this topic :)

A week before the seminar, we had a quick catch up with the organising committee. Dr Ooi briefed us the tentative and how the sessions would be organised.

And these are among the participants who attended the session. Thanks for joining!

Smart Learning Discourse

11/8/2020

Another sharing session with other great speakers on smart learning & teaching plan for students and faculty! Unfortunately, due to a specific, personal reason I couldn't make it that day :(
Anyways, I had several participants connected to me via Swapcard as well as LinkedIn. I hope you enjoyed the session and I am sure there are a lot of key things for you to take away!

Edutech Phillipines

8/18/2020

I am so glad to be part of this great event - Edutech Phillipines - a virtual conference for educators from K-12 and Higher Education Institutions. Together with me in the Townhall session were fellow experts from Phillipines - Jeffrey and Giged (Floydeth somehow couldn't make it today) and our excellent moderator - Brent Reodica. We talked about the assessment strategies for HEIs in the time of pandemic and related issues.

There are many ways to do assessment and there are many great tools available online for assessments. But the utmost important thing to bear in mind should be - why do we conduct an assessment? This 'why' question is vital for all educators to reflect on as this 'why' will guide us in determining what kind of assessments suitable to be conducted.

I would like to express my thanks to all the panelists for your insightful sharing. What a joyful afternoon it was! :)

Bengkel Terjah 1

3/30/2020

Empat sekawan. Dan ini idea asal Shahrul Mizan! Ye, kami bersama-sama menjayakan Bengkel Terjah pada 23 Mac yang lalu. Empat orang instructors dengan pelbagai idea dan tips antaranya Screencasting, Mentimeter, Quizizz, serta Flipgrid untuk kegunaan dalam talian.

Terima kasih kepada penganjur - Fakulti Undang-undang serta Prof Nazura selaku Dekan yang supportive :)
InshaAllah jumpa lagi pada siri lain.

Bengkel Industry4ward: AR untuk pegawai pendidikan pengajian tinggi

10/21/2019

Tidak pernah terfikir untuk terbang ke Mukah.
Namun di atas jemputan akhirnya tiba juga saya ke sini. Saya dijemput untuk mengendalikan sebahagian daripada pengisian sempena Bengkel Industry4ward: AR untuk Pegawai Pendidikan Pengajian Tinggi di Politeknik Mukah.

Para peserta semuanya bersemangat dan sangat sporting tentunya! Antara hang dibincangkan termasuklah kemahiran Merekabentuk Pengajaran menggunakan model-model ID, pembangunan bahan Augmented Reality untuk Pembelajaran Abad ke 21 serta penghasilan e-portfolio akademik. Saya turut memberikan penekanan terhadap aspek problem-based approach yang sekiranya dilaksanakan secara sistematik pasti akan membuahkan hasil yang positif dan konstruktif terhadap pekembangan dan pembelajaran pelajar.

Jutaan terima kasih kepada pihak politeknik di atas jemputan ini, serta tidak lupa sahabat saya PM Dr Shahrul Mizan yang mencetuskan kerjasama yang awesome ini :)

What do they say about Active Learning?

9/1/2019

Alhamdulillah, I had a great time mingled with fellow lecturers from the Faculty of Science and Technology UKM during our workshop on Active Learning. I know, it was held on 8th August .. weekssss ago! And a usual, this is a late update folks!

It was a day workshop and the activities planned were quite heavy in a sense that it really required their participation and engagement. I was initially worried that they would be uninterested or perhaps I couldn't reach their expectation .. but it turned out that everybody was so active and participative!

Thanks everyone! I hope that you enjoyed the session as much as I did! :)

Immersive Learning through AR technology

8/6/2019

Cerita minggu nan lalu.
Saya bertemu dengan kumpulan pensyarah-pensyarah yang sangat havoc dan energetic di UiTM Tapah!

Pada asalnya saya bercadang untuk menunda bengkel ini ke satu tarikh lain kerana sedikit faktor teknikal, namun dimaklumkan penganjur yang sudah ada peserta yang mendaftarkan diri untuk menghadiri bengkel tersebut. Tidak sampai hati pula menghampakan harapan orang, lalu perancangan tersebut diteruskan juga.

Saya bertemankan pelajar PhD - Syaida. Kebetulan ulang tahun kelahirannya baru sahaja berlangsung jadi kami mengambil kesempatan meraikannya secara sederhana :)

Jika sebelum ini saya banyak menggunakan HP Reveal untuk penghasilan bahan AR, kali ini saya bawakan Blippar sebagai hidangan. Sebelum bengkel diteruskan dengan aktiviti penghasilan AR, saya meninjau persepsi peserta-peserta bengkel tentang tahap kesukaran menghasilkan bahan AR. Dalam skala 1 hingga 10, rata-rata memberikan skor 8-9. Namun, persepsi berubah sekelip mata setelah masing-masing berjaya menghasilkan Blipp sendiri. Skala 2 menjadi pilihan!

Begitulah, sebenarnya tidak sukar untuk menghasilkan bahan AR, namun yang lebih sukar sebenarnya adalah bagaimana hendak merancang isi kandungan dalam setiap 'overlay video' yang akhirnya dapat membantu pelajar mencapai matlamat pembelajaran yang disasarkan.

Pendekata, untuk menjadikan pembelajaran sesuatu yang imersif, segala aktiviti yang dirancang haruslah menekankan aspek pelajar atau learner-centered. Pengalaman saya memberikan tugasan membangunkan bahan AR kepada pada pelajar seringkali mendapat sambutan yang sangat positif serta impak pembelajaran yang melebihi jangkauan.

Jadi, gunakanlah teknologi ini sebaiknya. AR hanya perencah rasa - tidak perlu berlebihan, cukup sekadarnya sahaja. Jadi, terpulanglah kepada kebijaksanaan pengajar untuk mereka bentuk pengalaman pembelajaran yang bermakna buat para pelajar mereka :)

Jutaan terima kasih buat pihak penganjur di atas jemputan ini.
I had a wonderful time, and I do hope that you did too!

Immersive Learning through AR Technology

7/28/2019

Ternyata tahun 2019 merupakan tahun yang agak 'berat' untuk diharungi lantaran urusan kerja yang tidak berkesudahan datang bertimpa-timpa. Mungkin saya perlu membuat refleksi tentang bagaimana saya menguruskan susunatur pelaksanaan kerja tersebut sehingga hampir 'melimpah' ke tepi meja nampaknya!

Namun kerana hal yang satu ini merupakan passion saya, maka jemputan ini tidak dapat saya tolak! Insha-Allah saya kembali berkongsi tentang penggunaan teknologi AR dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran di UiTM Tapah Perak.

Kali ini bukan sahaja HP Reveal, tetapi turut melibatkan beberapa aplikasi AR yang lain :)

International University Carnival on E-Learning 2018

9/14/2018

IUCEL is an international university carnival on e-learning, organised by the Malaysian e-Learning Council for Public Universities (MEIPTA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education. In line with the role of IUCEL that is to promote best practices in e-Learning, this annual event provides a platform for researchers and practitioners from all over the country or even abroad to share their innovations and best practices.

Even though I didn't take part in the IIDEL competition unlike in previous years, I still attended this year's event which took place in IIUM as a jury as well as a featured speaker.

It has always been a great experience to see what other researchers had done in their field of areas. AR is still significant I would say, as there were many contestants presented their AR-based materials during the judging session. Apart from that, VR can also be seen in some booths. However, MOOCs still dominated the overall participation - from my quick glance at least.

Fostering Students' Meaningful Learning through A Community of Practice Approach: Make USE of MOOCs - that was the title of my presentation. I wanted it to be a light and easy sharing session. No statistics, no bullets in the slides. Just few stories and examples that are closely related to our daily experiences dealing with members in online communities - be it in MOOCs, or WhatsApp or Telegram.

I also touched a bit on the dimensions of CoP - mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. It wasn't just an 'accessory' to lengthen the presentation but in fact, I considered it as the core segment. Without understanding these dimensions, one can remain as a common, superficial online community.

It was a very short presentation, but I do hope that it may give an impact on the way others see how learning should take place in MOOCs. It shouldn't be in in the form of isolated learning - a student sits individually in front of the computer and go through the modules one by one, take all the quizzes and done. Rather, it should be in a collective form of learning - students should be able to interact with each other, share what they did and seek for help and at the same time help out those in need. Learning should take place in a community-based environment.

The 2 day event was fruitful.
I listened to most of the talk sessions - presented by other experts in the field. It was informative, and made me reflected on my own practice in teaching as well. Well done everybody! I learned a lot from all of you!

Augmented Reality as an Alternative Assessment

9/8/2018

This year is my 13th year of service in UKM but the funny things is, I haven't been to our very own Faculty of Health Science, located in Jalan Raja Muda Aziz, Kuala Lumpur until yesterday! Thanks to Dr Ismarulyusda and Prof Rohi, for the invitation ^___^ .. ah yes .. I enjoyed my travel on the monorail too!

One thing for sure, that to have augmented reality materials to work, it has to be associated with at least a good internet connection (if not a strong one). We faced a difficulty to scan the trigger images when we were working in the lab. I could see a frustration in the attendees' faces. Some had to go outside and try again. And the only phone that managed to get the videos through was the one belonged to one of of participants who used Digi line heheh! I am not selling Digi here guys! I was just feeling how lucky she was!

Overall, this group of participants has shown their enthusiasm to explore the use of AR in their teaching. Some had little experience using/scanning the AR materials, but had no actual experience developing one. However, I am grateful and proud that you guys were indeed, fast learners. I am positive that you will be able to re-imagine how to integrate AR in your teaching activities, or even to use it as part of students' assessments. Let them work collaboratively, give them empowerment to choreograph their interpretation of their understanding in their own unique ways. We will never expect what they could actually do!

Taking this opportunity, I wish everybody a success in exploring new ways to enhance students' learning experiences.

Till we meet again!