A135745 Freddy Baiwal (IPGKS)

Wednesday 17 August 2011

REFLECTION WEEK 7b- ASSIGNMENT 9 (DATABASE)

First of all I would like to express my highest gratitude to God for with His blessings I finally managed to complete my entire Computer in Education’s assignments. Besides, I would like to take this opportunity to bid a token of appreciation to our course coordinator, Dr. Siti Fatimah Mohd. Yassin and my very humble, generous and benevolent lecturer, Mr. Fariduddin Wajdi Anthony for their undivided attention, support, guidance and commitment towards me and all my classmates for willing to lend their helping hands to all of us in order to make sure that each and every one of us learns something at the end of this course. Not forgetting to my partner Nigel Lawai Willie for giving his full cooperation in getiing our assignments done. I believe that without their assistance, I would not be able to finish up all the assignments that have been assigned to us since most of the time I always have problem in comprehending the tasks that were given to us and it takes time for me to get a clear grasp of it then only I can start doing it. Frankly speaking, this is one of the most difficult courses that I have ever endured but I have gained a lot of experiences and knowledge throughout this course and I am so grateful for having the chance to learn about ICT in this semester as we all know that ICT now plays important roles in all areas including education and as a future teacher we need to be equipped with this knowledge to be imparted to our students later on. Not only that, it will also give benefits to the teaching and learning process in the classroom and thus improve the students’ performance in academic. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to take this subject for this short semester since I will have the chance to build up my knowledge on ICT.

Based on my seven excruciating weeks of attending ICT lectures, I realized that ICT really needs someone to be very patient, hardworking and so on especially in finishing up the assignments given. Even I myself could not believe that I managed to get all the tasks done within the frame time given by our lecturer. Just imagine 1 week 1 assignment that has been assigned to us and I myself have never gone through this kind of experience before. Besides providing me with ICT knowledge, this course also has taught me to be more independent and know how to spend my time wisely.

For week 7b, we were asked to plan, create and edit a simple database for student management information using OpenOffice Base in a creative, innovative and ethical ways. We need to Create table in Design view (4 separate tables) as stated below:

· Student table

· Parent table

· Curriculum table

· Co-curriculum table

After that, we need to create relationships between tables by linking the different tables with each other. Finally, we need to create several queries from the database and create reports based on the queries. Actually, this task seemed to be so simple but it involved a lot of steps in order to create a database and I myself sometimes get confused with it but luckily Mr.Fariduddin has willingly helped me to solve the problem. He has explained to me every single step and demonstrated it to me so that I will understand what I need to do.

I strongly believe that database is one of the most essential components for any organisation be it a school, company, and so on. It is amazing how technology has made everything seems so convenient and ease the burden for us in getting our task done. However, in order to be able to utilize the technology to the fullest, we need to have sound knowledge about ICT then only we can apply it our daily lives and as I aforementioned before it will make our life easier. Although, technology has brought a lot of benefits to human beings but it also has brought many negative impacts to our live for example we will be fully independent to technology until we lost our soft skills and for those students they might need to think wisely on how to manage their times for studying and extra times for online and so on.

In short, once again I would like to thank all the people who have willingly lend their hands in getting my assignments done directly or indirectly. Without your guidance I would not be able to get through in this course. I think this would be my last word for my reflection, I hope we all will be able to remember all the essential skills that we have learned throughout this course by no other way but keep on applying them in our daily life and when we go to schools later we should share our knowledge with our students so that they will be equipped with all the fundamental skills of ICT in order for them to excel in their studies.

THANK YOU VERY (3X) MUCH!!!!!!!

HAPPY LEARNING!!!!

FREDDY BAIWAL
B.ED TESL (SM) UKM-IPGKS
INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU KAMPUS SARAWAK
Jalan Bakam, 98000 Miri,
SARAWAK.
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
TEL NO : 013-8579721

Yahoo mail : freddyukm@yahoo.com
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Facebook Address : http://www.facebook.com/freddyukm
Yahoo Group Address : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreddyBaiwalA135745IPGKS
Blog's URL : http://freddybaiwal.blogspot.com

REFLECTION WEEK 7a-ASSIGNMENT 8a (Spreadsheet) and 8b (Excel)

This week’s assignment was divided into two parts, assignment 8a (spreadsheet) and assignment 8b (excel) and now we are only left with one assignment after we have been struggling in order to finish up our assigned tasks or course work and now I am so happy that we only have one assignment to be done which is assignment 9 but anyways for the moment being I will share my great experience from the process of completing this particular assignment (assignment 8a and 8b).

For assignment 8a, we were required to plan, create and edit a simple one year personal financial management (income and spending) spreadsheet using Calc and name the sheet according to the month ie Aug11, Sept11, Jul12 and so on. After that, we also need to create a formula to calculate a balance for each month (ie. balance of august – will be added to the balance of sept) and lastly link the formula between the sheets. Honestly, this task was quite hard for me as I am not really good in dealing with Microsoft excel. I do not even know how to use and apply the different functions that were available in it even though I used to follow a computer class before but it was like few years ago after I finished my SPM. It seems that all the knowledge that I have learned throughout the computer class were all gone and now I had to recall them again in order to complete my tasks. Mr. Fariduddin is the one who has given me a lot of guidance, supports and encouragement whenever I have problem in comprehending the requirements of the task and I am so grateful for having a lecturer like him and not to forget my course coordinator Dr. Siti Fatimah Mohd. Yassin for her commitment, innovation and determination in providing us with different inputs about ICT. After my partner and I have finished it, we finally uploaded it in GoogleDocs to share with our lecturer and also our coursemates.

Meanwhile, for assignment 8b, we were asked to plan, create and edit a spreadsheet of students’ score and grade analysis by using the functions in Microsoft excel such as VLOOKUP which refers to the grade of the score, STDEV and AVERAGE or the score, COUNTIF to calculate how many students for each grade and after that we need to create a suitable and meaningful graph and sort to rank the highest to the lowest score for each subject; filter to select based on certain queries. Honestly, this task was very hard for me to understand the steps needed in order to come up with the analysis of students’ score and grade analysis since I have never done this kind of thing before. For example, I do not even know some of the functions of the certain buttons in the Microsoft Excel and that’s why it was hard for me to get this task done. This situation really made me worry and I was afraid if I could not finish this task just because of having zero knowledge in this area, but I managed to resolve this problem by asking my benevolent, humble and kind lecturer, Mr. Fariduddin. He has helped me a lot in finishing this task and he taught me in details on how to use the several functions in Microsoft Excel and I hope that what I have learned from him, I would remember it forever as that knowledge will indeed useful for me as a teacher to be. Once again, I would like to thank him for his guidance and support to me. I promise to myself that even though I am not an ICT savvy, but I should not take that as a reason not to develop my knowledge in this area.

Sunday 14 August 2011

REFLECTION WEEK 6-ASSIGNMENT 7 (7a and 7b)

The endless assignments of the computer in education subject (GE1155) have taught me to be more patient in facing every challenge ahead of me in order to become an effective and knowledgeable teacher who does not only have sound knowledge on my major but also other important areas such as ICT.

This week was the sixth week of lecture and our final examination is just around the corner and I could hardly spare my time to do my revision as there are still many assignments that need to be done as soon as possible. I always have problem with my time management especially for this particular subject and I always tried my best to finish my work on time since this subject really tests my forbearance and determination. However, I am pretty glad that we are given the opportunity to learn this subject since we would have a chance to enhance and brush up our knowledge about ICT.

The assignment for this week was about creative effective multimedia Production and the tasks consist of two parts 7a and 7b. Assignment 7a was about the application of Open Office Impress where we had to do a power point slides based on our Mini Research report using Open Office Impress instead of Microsoft PowerPoint. After that, we also need to include some relevant important information from our mini research report in our PowerPoint slides. Not only that, the PowerPoint slides also must be designed creatively with the custom animation and desired templates. It was indeed pretty challenging at the first place for I have never utilized Open Office Impress for doing powerpoint slides before since I have been fully dependent on Microsoft Powerpoint all this while. I finally realized that there are still many other types of software that can be used to create a PowerPoint slides and word documents including the open office. Well, I think it was not burdening at all for I had the chance to explore more about ICT and its worth it. For this assignment, my partner and I had to simplify the information in our mini research report to be included in our PowerPoint slides. Besides, my partner and I also employed some of the basic shapes available and also some pictures and graphic organizers to make it nicer and cool and then we edited it and uploaded it in the GoogleDoc for sharing with our coursemates and also our lecturer.

Meanwhile, for assignment 7b, it concerned more on the multimedia courseware where we were assigned to create a video by utilizing Windows Movie Maker and also include some other multimedia elements such as

layered graphic/image (edit in GIMP), (custom animation; edit in GIMP) & audio record and edit using Audacity. Before we create our video, Mr. Fariduddin has taught us about audio editing using software known as Audacity. The software can be downloaded from the internet for free and it can be used to cut audio and some other applications that were available in the software. After we have edited the music, we applied it in our movie maker to create the video. I personally like this task since it seriously fun.

Sunday 7 August 2011

REFLECTION WEEK 5-ASSIGNMENT 6a (BROCHURE) ASSIGNMENT 6b (BOOKLET)

Moving on to week 5 where the topic that we learned for this particular week was on multimedia in education. Personally I think this topic is very important in the sense that as a teacher to be I should learn and get to know about all these things since the education system is emphasizing more on the applications of ICT in the teaching and learning processes. Fundamentally, multimedia in education is the most effective way to capture the interest of the students as it involves a lot of graphics and so on. I myself personally like this topic and I enjoyed doing the tasks assigned for us.

First of all, we were asked to read up on few important subtopics on multimedia in education such as:

1. 2D Graphic Editing Software

 2D graphic types: bitmap and vector images

 Graphic/Image file format

 RGB & CMK

 Microsoft Paint / Paint Brush

 Shapes/smart Art PowerPoint

2. GIMP (OSS)

3. Online – google draw (collaborative drawing)

4. OpenOffice Draw (OSS)

5. Desktop Publishing Software

 Microsoft Publisher

6. Word Processor Software

 Microsoft Word

 OpenOffice Writer

 Online Word Processor -Google doc

After we read up on these topics, then we were asked to create a brochure (Assignment 6a) and a booklet (Assignment 6b). For the brochure and the booklet, the content must be related to the topic for assignment 1, 4, 5 and we had to use the graphics/image created using any graphic editors mentioned above.

I like to do this task since this task has something to do with designing. So my partner and I decided to create a brochure about our topic, E-Learning and we have discussed about what information should be included in the brochure. Besides that, we have also chosen our desired template for us to create the brochure which is available in the Microsoft publisher. We designed our brochure as interesting as possible in order to make it more vibrant. For the booklet, my partner and I have come up with few brilliant ideas to decorate our booklet using the applications that have been recommended by our course coordinator. I found that the applications were very useful when it comes to create a brochure or a booklet by downloading some beautiful frames in the internet and put some cute clipart on our booklet. In addition to that, the contents of our booklet were mainly on the definition of E-Learning, types of E-Learning and its advantages and disadvantages.

In a nutshell, I really enjoyed doing the assignment for week 5 as I like to deal with graphics and it will definitely help me in enhancing my knowledge and grasp on how to create a brochure and booklet using the applications that have been taught by our lecturer.