day 5 - praktikum

Today is Friday. Nothing much happened.
Few activities taken place in the school.
Students are busy participating.
The Akses Room is not in demand today. I guess.
Just few students come in and out.
Most of them are Year 6.
They just finished their UPSR yesterday.


All of us are blogging. Updating information.

The weather is nice. The wind is nicer.
It is a good day. Indeed.

day 4 - praktikum

Thursday
September 11, 2008

today, we have only 2 classes entered the Akses Room. today we also have the room all by ourselves. so having the advantage, we continue doing the unfinished assignments. i managed to do a couple of assignments today. thank god for that.

1. Language barrier

This is a new discovery. I found out that I am having difficulties communicating with the students. We seem unable to understand each other. We try to communicate but we have difficulties understand the meaning. I noticed that we have different mother tongue. I used another alternative. I speak English. Some of them can understand and speak English. Some not. Speaking Bahasa is not easy as I thought it should be. Most of the time, during the lesson I used non-verbal method to communicate. I show them how by doing, not explaining verbally to them how to do things. It involves a lot of effort and energy usage. I dont mind showing them how to do things. Looking at their young innocent faces you will end up doing everything for the sake of them! I honestly speaking, started to like looking at their faces.

2. Desktops breakdown

Oh this is unbelievable. 3 out of 9 desktops are having problems and can't be used. So you can imagine the chaos having a limited number of desktops with a big number of students. I guess God is asking us to use our brain thinking for the solution to deal with this situation. Luckily, 2 classes entered today. My team members take this opportunity to distribute the intstruments for students to answer. They are collecting data for Pn. Mariah's Proquest assignment.


The sunrise shines on the desert and the ocean,
in times of crisis and in times of contentment.

Have a good day.

day 3 - praktikum

Today nothing much happened. 4 classes entered the Pusat Akses and they continued their assignments. Teacher facilitated them through the lesson.


1. PlanB

Another plan b to proceed. Internet connection is not exist. At all. So after having a brief discussion with the other members, we decided to proceed plan b. We will teach students using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Furthermore, Nirmala has the module for those. So i believe we can proceed with that. We have to make up with something or else, life would be meaningless here. For me.

It may sound typical to teach the students with Microsoft Office. And i hate to admit that it is very typical, literally speaking. But then, after doing the situation analysis that is the best we can do for them while having praktikum here. We have limited time, yeah another typical excuse, and we have a big number of students for each class. In order to eliminate of feeling guilty, i guess the corporate video for the school is the best solution.

2. Data Collection

Today, Nirmala and i wandering around the school vicinity and recording the live activities occurred in the school. The main subject, the students, give good cooperation by giving spontaneous post in front of the camera digital. Oh by the way, we are using the humble digital camera for recording purpose. I hope the picture will turn out to be something though.

3. Pusat Akses

I spent the last 48 hours observing the Pusat Akses. I think, looking back at several schools i have been teaching for the last 5 years. The government should emphasize the layout of the room wisely. Or is it the school? The ergonomic elements are left out while designing this room. I am not talking about decorating or beautifying the room to make it feel like home. But im talking about the ergonomic factors, both for the students and teachers benefits. Sometimes we are too excited decorating and beautifying the room, we tend to forget that the room should be functioning the way it is supposed to function. Somebody has to do something to change the stereotype of how to manage the room.


The weather is nice today. The wind is being gentle too.
Thank you mother nature.

I have a good day.