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The TEL demo group have been going on for a few sessions and soon it will be my group turn. It is definitely a mixed feeling of relieve and anxiety. Anxious because the previous few groups have been pushing the benchmarks higher as the weeks passes. Relieve is due to the fact that the course is coming to an end and we are left with the final demo.  Been the last group to present on 12 Nov the good thing is that we are able to learn the mistakes from the previous groups. Here's what I feel about all the various groups.

Group A and B 

- I have already blogged on them in my previous entry

Group C 

- A very interesting online platform where the teaching of music is been fused into opera. However, students might not be that patient to go through the whole acts as they can't skipped. 

Group D 

- A very fun tool that allows students to deconstruct a piece of music and find out the various instruments that is been played in the music. 

Group E and F 

- Both team uses a online collaboration tool which is very much similar to one another. Just that Edomo requires signing up for an account whereas Wiggio need not sign up for an account. The good thing is both platforms are able to bring learning out of the classroom context and at the same time provides a collaborative environment for sharing to take place.

Today also marks the end of our Game Based Learning (GBL) experiences. I felt that through these few weeks of participating in different gaming platforms, I am able to gain more insights through GBL. It has shown me that games helps to promote different level of complex thinking and encourages the development of soft skills such as communication skills, interpersonal skills. Learning should be student centered and they learn the best when they are having fun. At the same time in a gaming environment, students are able to "learn by doing" or "learn through failing". However, motivating students would be rather challenging. No doubt that at the start of the GBL, students will be all hyped up and motivated. What happened if they consistently failed and lose motivation or interest? Thus when GBL is been implemented, the choice of games must be highly intuitive and serve the purpose of teaching in my point of view.

Bearing that in mind, I would like to introduce this game called "Art Academy" for NDS for the teaching of art. 

As you all can see, this game practically teaches you the concept of drawing, shading, painting etc and it allows art lesson to be brought out of the classroom. We need not worry about bringing out the paints, brushes, drawing board etc. The tutorials in the games can also act as notes and the students can always go back and referred to it as and when they like. The only hindsights is not all school will be willing to invest in nds that readily.

Nontheless, I will keep looking for ways to implement GBL in the teaching of art.