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 SOCC

Student-Oriented Content Creation for Science

 

by Yip Chi Kiong

29 Jun 2003

Introduction

 

            The teaching of Science as  a subject to arts-oriented students in this school has been an arduous task, as the students are not oriented towards the scientific way of thinking. To these students, the study of Science is irrelevant, and they have difficulty in grasping many of the easiest concepts of this discpline.

 

            The equipment for the conduct of experiments are out-moded, and it is difficult to maintain a set of working apparatus, both in terms of cost and availability. The choice of experiments in the textbooks have often been trivial, or difficult to perform to satifaction.

 

            Many attempts have been made to introduce ICT content to replace or supplement the teaching of Science. They have often been unsuccessful because they are media-oriented, teacher-oriented, or producer-oriented. The lessons created on Compact Disks and Video Compact Disks have often been unresponsive, trivial, or simply does not catch the attention of the students.

 

            Today, attempts to teach computer knowledge to students have been met with lackadaisical acceptance. Such attempts have met with declining membership and class attendance.This is largely due the the user-friendly interfaces of today's powerful Windows Desktop Applications, where the students do not feel a need to attend a course to learn.

 

            However, the students show a keen interest in the use of computers. We can combine this interest in ICT with the study of science, in such a manner that they use a media that they are interested in using, yet the content that they use will coerce them towards the learning of science.

 

            We need a new approach to the appropriate use of technology, combined with the innate creativity within the students' mind and soul, towards the teaching and learning of science.

 

            In this paper, we present the Student-Oriented Content Creation (SOCC) Method of teaching Science in SMJK Chan Wa, Seremban, Malaysia.

 

Objectives

Encourage students to create their own study content

Encourage the active participation of students in the use of ICT to study Science

Elicit the creative thinking of students in content creation

Utilize the ICT resources for the teaching and learning of Science

Students create content that appeals to them, where they can derive their own enjoyment and pleasure

Learning of Science should be fun and exciting

 

 

Strategies

There are Five periods allocated for Science, one of which is a single period. This single period will be conducted in the Computer Room.

Students will use the computers to create notes for selected topics. The content can be obtained from various sources, such as

scanning textbooks, photographs, magazines, newspapers and revision books

typing in content by hand

browsing the Internet

digital camera

Video Camera (if available)

Students are taught the use of the necessary software for content creation, such as

Tables creation

Spreadsheet, Graph and Chart creation (OpenOffice and MS Office)

Paint programs

Vector graphics packages

Photographic enhancements packages(Ulead PhotoExpress)

Animation packages(Animation Shop)

Video production packages

Internet Applets

Internet Graphics and Animation

Students create content in the form of text, graphics, animation and video

Students who create the best content will be awarded, such as free Internet Access.

 

Logistics

The Computer Room is fully utilized in this project.

As a Pilot Project, 4 Jujur and 4 Setia are chosen to participate in this project for this year.

Each student join the Computer Club with a half-annual fee of RM5.

A network is set up to link all the computers.

A Web Server is installed to form the backbone of the School Intranet System

An Internet link is available to obtain Internet content

All available computers are used

Two scanners are available for scanning text and graphics

A Printer is available for printing

A Digital Camera is used to snap pictures of scientific interest.

 

Foreseeable Problems

We DO NOT have sufficient computers to conduct this project fully.

We have 12 computers available to the students.

Two more computers can be added by replacing TWO faulty hard disks, making 14 computers.

The current computer room necessitates the sharing of each computer by THREE students, for a class of 40 students.

The students have to be divided into groups of THREE each.

Some of the mouse pointers are not working

 

Conclusions

            We can start this project as a pilot project in July 2003. Hopefully the school will approve the replacement of 2 hard disks and 5 mouse pointers.

 

Mailto : smjkchanwa@po.jaring.my

Created By SMJK Chan Wa

Computer Club Students & Internet Team

Officially Launched on April 1999

Last Updated
05/30/05