EFFORT...

Salam...

Prof Maznah has given us the liberty to proceed with our SMARTBOARD assignment for the whole 3 hours class. Since she wants the assignment to be 90% completed by next week, each of us has started to put more and more effort in it. There were also some of us who just started to think about this assignment, and I cannot blame them since this semester is quite tough for us. Most of our works involve the use of technology, and this is not a common phenomenon when we were studying at the teacher-trainee college. Furthermore, I cannot deny that some of us are still adjusting with this so called ‘university life’. However, some of my friends seemed at the last stage of completing their assignment. I think this group of my friends were really wise in dividing their time for all the assignment, and this is sign that everything can be managed if we know how to handle it.

I spent most of my time looking for animated pictures, buttons and arrows since I found that all these were very useful in my presentation later. We cannot deny the fact that children are more attracted to all this ‘mobile’ stuff, since they are also active and like to move around. Besides that, it can also give positive impact towards teaching and learning process. When learners are attracted to the teaching aids prepared by the teacher, their attention span will be prolonged. In general, most children have short attention span; they cannot concentrate on one thing for a long duration of time. In order to cope with this, teacher needs to prepare teaching materials that will attract them to focus and participate in the classroom activity. Therefore, the use of animation during presentation is one of the best ways to capture their attention in the activities. However, it is important for teachers to not use too much animation as this will disturb the learning point as the students will be more focused on the animation rather than the content of the lesson.

Besides that, there are also some points to be considered while choosing the pictures to be used in the assignment. A clear, colourful and relevant picture will be some of the main criteria in choosing pictures for classroom activity, as this will enhance students’ attention and makes the process of acquisition of new knowledge easier for them. In short, there are many factors to be considered in producing this SMARTBOARD assignment and I hope that I will always be aware with the needs of learners along the process of completing this assignment.