Education – Page 27 – Hedy's Place

Introduction to 3D Perspective

My grade 8 students in this semester will study about 3D perspective. The lesson started up by playing games……yesssss. What games? Tetris 3D 😀

I asked the students to bring laptop to classroom. Not everyone can bring it, of course, but I’m quite happy that most of them can. I’m still encouraging them to bring it to school because we will use another program, Google sketch up (a free software) to help students develop their three dimensional visualization ability and visual-spatial intelligence. Back to this tetris 3D activities, they sat in groups of four and play the games. Most of the students have played Tetris but not Tetris 3D 🙂

Since we have trouble connecting to the internet, so I also asked the students to had the website pre-opened at home so the page load completely and after it load, let the laptop hibernate so it can be opened quickly at school. Fortunately, for some links, the game is available as an installable software (so no internet connection will be required later on)

Some pictures taken during the activities:

[Show as slideshow]

the-most-creative-screen-capture-in-the-world

There was an article about “What are the benefits of tetris?” posted in BBC news several years ago. It means, by doing this games, students’ brain are also trained in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness.

“Tetris was the perfect game, it was simple to learn, you had to practise to get good and there was a good learning curve. Tetris is an excellent tool for neuroscience.” ~ Dr Richard Haier

The complete article can be read here.

Below are some students’ reflection about doing this activities:

From Amanda:

I think that the 3D game is a really educational game, and is really helpful when studying 3D shapes. We can view the shapes in from quite a lot of angles.

While I can’t say it’s the best, I think it’s quite impressive where it helps us train our quick thinking and logic while having fun.

Even so, Tetris in 3D isn’t very easy to play. It requires a strong mind and some patience, as it may take some time to memorize the controls and shapes.

In conclusion, I believe that Tetris 3D is very helpful for study purposes, and helps train our minds into slicker and smarter ones.

From Audrey:

In total, I played the game for four times. In my first game, I did not know the controls, so I often messed up, which caused the game to end quickly, scoring a little over 700.

However, after I learnt the controls (thanks to Erlangga), I managed to score a little higher everytime I played. Starting from 3056 to 3477, and gradually growing to 4083.

During the game, I found some obstacles. For example, like I said before, I was a little unused the controls, so I often pressed the wrong button (I’m not a very good gamer, after all). Another problem is that because it is circular, I cannot see all faces of it, making it harder to see all the possibilities that fit.

I tried to overcome these problems by turning round and round quickly, before deciding where to put the shape, although this method does not come in very handy when it is near the death line. I’m still working on it though.

Although I admit that 3D Tetris is challenging, I will try my best to not give up and so to improve my 3D skills.

From Erlangga:

Tetris 3D is very fun. It helps my understand 3D shapes more, and it is not boring. It is a bit hard because I never played it before. I think that the game is very creative, and I would like to play it again in the future to improve my 3D skills.

From Louis:

I have never played Tetris before, so I am not good at it. Playing Tetris requires a smarter and more creative mind, and also lots of practice.

So all students, you did all good job….proud of you 🙂

Lembar Kerja Siswa Abad 21

Sabtu 8 Desember 2012 lalu, saya dikagetkan oleh sebuah sms dari seorang guru les yang kebetulan sedang bersama seorang mantan siswa saya setahun yang lalu. Dengan menggunakan telepon genggam siswa tersebut, si guru menyapa saya dan menyatakan mengenal saya dari beberapa Lembar Kerja Siswa (LKS) yang saya produksi sejak 10 tahun yang lalu. Ada perasaan senang “ow nooo saya dikenalllllll” *ge-er mode on* 😉 walau tentunya percakapan berlanjut ke cerita-cerita mengenai beberapa murid yang kebetulan kita kenal.

Kembali ke media pembelajaran untuk siswa, Lembar Kerja Siswa, yang merupakan model klasik, masih sangat dominan membantu siswa dalam belajar dan membantu memahami materi dan sekaligus berlatih soal-soal.

Bentuk Lembar Kerja Siswa yang secara umum kita temui memiliki kesamaan bentuk. Siswa diantarkan untuk menjawab soal dengan langkah-langkah yang dipandu oleh si pembuat soalnya.

Guru yang melengkapi dokumen administrasi pembuatan RPP pun biasanya wajib menyertakan lembar kerja ini. Sumber lain dari pemenuhan kebutuhan lembar kerja adalah buku-buku lembar kerja yang banyak dijumpai di berbagai toko buku.

Lembar kerja siswa yang saya rangkum biasanya bergabung dengan sebuah ringkasan materi. Yang mungkin sedikit agak berbeda adalah pada segi penulisan ringkasan yang biasanya merupakan rangkuman materi yang akan saya jelaskan melalui presentasi kelas. Ringkasan tersebut masih beberapa dikosongkan dengan tujuan agar siswa sambil mendengarkan penjelasan, merekapun akan ikut aktif untuk melengkapi beberapa bagian yang sengaja masih dikosongkan tersebut.

Saya sebut selanjutnya sebagai “handouts” dan “worksheet” yang bagi mereka dapat berfungsi menjadi petunjuk / tolok ukur mereka memperhatikan pelajaran atau tidak. Dalam sesi obrolan dengan mereka, mereka sering mengungkapkan bahwa kalau mereka absen maka tidak akan mudah sekedar mengkopi “handouts / worksheet” tersebut karena ada tulisan-tulisan tangan temannya yang bisa saja tidak rapi, tidak terbaca bagi yang lain. Sementara kalau minta yang masih baru, berarti masih kosong dan artinya bingung mau diisi apa. Lalu saya katakan ya berarti harus menjumpai saya untuk belajar dan bertanya 😉 dan mereka biasanya akan teriak X_X “ooww nooo” dan saya balas “ooww yessss”, mereka: “why should we?” saya: “why not?” 😀

Untuk meningkatkan kualitas “handouts / worksheet” yang diberikan kepada siswa, maka saya belajar kembali bagaimana menciptakan handouts/worksheet yang lebih efektif, yang salah satunya menjawab keberatan siswa yang tertinggal (maupun yang ingin belajar lagi).
Setelah belajar “memanfaatkan PPT sebagai papan tulis virtual”, belajar lagi “penggunaan kelas online”, “penggunaan rekam pelajaran kelas”, maka kadang – kadang jika memang dibutuhkan, worksheet saya pun bisa menjadi sebuah worksheet interaktif menggunakan media video yang biasa dibuka melalui “class online”.

Tahun-tahun berlalu dan pemerintah merencanakan bahwa dalam kurikulum 2013 mendatang, mata pelajaran IT diintegrasikan ke dalam mata pelajaran lain. Saya pun teringat dengan lembar2 kerja elektronik yang di dalamnya termasuk pula video untuk pembelajaran. “Lembar Kerja Siswa Abad 21”, adalah istilah saya untuk menyebut worksheet ini.

Attachment berikut merupakan contoh dari salah satu worksheet yang pernah saya buat dua tahun lalu. Walaupun worksheet tersebut mengandung unsur video, tetapi ketika siswa hendak mengerjakan, dia akan mencetak file tersebut dan video hanya akan terlihat seperti gambar. Mungkin akan muncul pertanyaan “lalu apa gunanya video tersebut?” Ya, memang video tidak hanya untuk dibuka melalui kelas online saya saja, karena saya juga melihat handouts / worksheet apalagi dalam bentuk pdf lebih dari sekedar kertas untuk mengerjakan soal tetapi lebih mendekati sebuah modul unit pembelajaran mandiri, di mana instruksi dan pemandu alur pikir dan alat ukur pengertian (soal) ada dalam satu unit yang mudah diakses. Jadi video, sisi instruksi dari LKS tersebut, memang akan berhenti berfungsi ketika file tersebut di cetak untuk dikerjakan.

Silahkan didownload di sini, semoga bisa bermanfaat untuk rekan pengajar maupun pemerhati pendidikan lainnya. Serta membantu agar kita dapat lebih yakin dalam penggunaan IT pada beragam subject, yang mungkin walau belum umum, tetapi sangat mungkin untuk dilakukan. (Handouts / worksheet dengan pengantar dalam bahasa Inggris karena sesuai dengan kebutuhan pembelajaran di kelas).

Sine-Rule-worksheet

Using PowerPoint as Virtual Whiteboard

When I was in school, teachers used to use chalkboard as their tool to present the lessons transferring ideas. … and that means, over 30s years ago 😉 x_x

Different then my first teaching experience, I used “whiteboard” as writing tool, advancing to Over Head Projector and then presentation software.

Since entering the era of 21st Century learning and teaching, medium for education field had been advancing too. Media getting easier to access by teachers or students, to the point that a teacher once said “Good to have YouTube. Just play a mathematics video and we can sit comfortably” (the video mentioned is the one from Salman Khan) “Aha! with Wolfram Alpha, you don’t need to write down the formula, just run it through Wolfram’s site” x_x uh oh, but er… this is not what i’m going to write about 🙂

Back to the topic of PPT as class presentation media. After created several presentation slide and skilled with “pen stylus”, I asked my self ‘why not combine both?’

Imagine, if presenting through a projector, then a full writeable board is in front of us through a writing medium of 3.6″ x 5.8″, all while we face the students all the time, instead of showing our back to them.

If the presentation slide already filled with the content, we want to add some information while presenting, then we can easily write on the slide.

Here are the steps to write on virtual whiteboard from a blank PPT file:

1. I feel convenient using “pen stylus” commonly used by graphic design industry, but of course, this technique is equally applicable with any mouse (the sample picture showing a pen manufactured by Wacom, Intuos 4)

2. Prepare the whiteboard through the projector:

3. Start writing and explain the material:

4. Save one screen after you finished:

5. In the menu Edit, your writing will turn into a picture.

6. Save your PPT as usual and the file can be distributed to the students if necessary. It might help recall students’ memory about what they observe during your lesson. Of course, you can combine this with screen recording technique as was explained in the previous article “Live Recording of Class Teaching” and produce an easily re-playable video to be “fast forwarded or replayed” according to the viewers need.

With the spirit of Curriculum of 2013, I imagine this technique might be combined with “Latex” (mathematics) to wrote down the formulas, with chemistry to have this interesting Molecule structure to sketch, with Bahasa Indonesia to explain words hyphenation and intonation on a sentence. Wow, a lot of practical application.

As mentioned, these steps are just one from various available media today. Each have their own uniqueness and could be used for the same target, depending on each teachers ability and availability (from the simplest to the most advanced).

For me, this method is most appropriate to communicate with students while keep watching them while doing my explanation in the lecture style classroom, with additional advantage to walk to to closer to middle of the students if the pen stylus have a wireless facility.

Happy Learning!

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