1st week 17 & 18 Jan 2007

I started my first class on the 17th of January at 2.10 pm till 4. pm in room 314. There were 24 students in the class, 2 were absent. Six of the students are males and the rest are females. This tells something about the unequal proportion of males and females at our university and particularly in the teaching profession.

Topic covered was implied main ideas. I distributed the student profile questionnaire. Upon skimming through the questionnaires, 1 did not fill in the part which ask them whether they have read, commented and own a blog. Another wrote her name instead of her age in the 'age' section. I wonder why?

I told them about the blogs that they will create and use for the class. However, a majority of them did know show any form of excitement. A few look worried and I assumed that they may have some fear of the computer.

Thursday, 18 January 2007.

Class was at S110, INTEC computer lab. I thanked God that this lab was available at this time throughout the semester. I would like to thank also Saki for letting me use the lab 'dgn tidak banyak songeh'. Tuhan lanjutkan usia and murahkan rezeki Saki. Amin.

In briefed the students on some facts about weblog and showed examples of blogs owned by Malaysians. Later I showed them how to create their own blog using Blogger. Things did not go well today because the students could not start creating their blog. They tried many many times to submit their information and it kept redirecting it somewhere else. I assume that blogger is jammed up with application from 24 students at the same time, or the internet connection at the lab could not handle it, or the problem with internet connection due to the Taiwan earthquake has not completely gone back to normal. So this is one problem ( a technical one) that anyone may face when trying to integrate technology (particularly the Internet) in the classroom. Luckily, the intended treatment of the study is not due yet.

Thus, I told the students to create their own blog outside of the classroom over the weekend. I hope they would really do it and have better luck this time around.