Discovery and creation of Podcast

Truth be told, I've heard of podcast before, but never took the trouble to find out what it is. Thanks to this course, I have learned about how to create a podcast and also how it can be incorporated into language learning.

For the activity, me and my group members, which comprise of Suzi (Brunei), Tess (Philippines), Mony (Cambodia) and Phal Linda (Cambodia), were assigned to create a sample podcast as a model example for our students.

 After much discussion, we decided to name our podcast "Recipe for Success" and it is based on the idea that a local role model, be it celebrities, politicians, pillars of society and so on are interviewed about how they are able to achieve success. The aim is to provide motivation to students and to encourage them that anything is possible.

Anyway, we have so much fun writing the script, where we create a fictional character named Suzy Victoria Rodriguez who is a singer from the Philippines and who has achieve international fame. :)

Three of our group members were involved in recording, as we believe that too many voices will spoil the podcast, while the rest of us chipped in in the creation of the script.

Below are our masterpiece, please feel free to listen, I think it might bring a smile to your face :D

Discovering Voki- A fun, exciting tool for learning

Yesterday in class, Dr. Marta introduced a website that got all of us excited. Voki is a website where you can create your own avatar, and get he/she/it to say anything that you want by typing the text in the textbox or even recording your own voice. There is also lesson plans available for teachers to see how they can incorporate Voki into their classrooms. Best of all, it's for FREE!!!!

I was amazed by the range of options available in creating and personalizing your own avatar. You can choose to be monsters, animals, famous people and so many more. After that, you can customize it to your preference, even down to skin colour and lip shape. Even for the speech of your avatar, you can choose the accent, from US to UK to Australia accent.

I think that this will be a wonderful tool of learning in my classroom. It is interesting and attractive to students. Moreover, I can customize it to suits my teaching needs. This, i think, can be wonderful set-induction, especially for speaking lesson.

Each day, there are new discovery of exciting learning tools that can be incorporated into the teaching and learning process of English language classroom. I marvel at the advancement and sophistication of technology and am grateful for the abundance of teaching aids which is now available for us teachers.

My newly created Voki avatar- Roxanne the witch, a persona which my students is quite familiar with :)

A somber moment of reflection at USS Arizona Memorial

   http://famouswonders.com/uss-arizona-memorial/

This is the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. Beneath this memorial, the remains of 1,177 crewmen of USS Arizona are still inside the sunken ship, which was sunk during a surprise attack by the Japanese army on December 7, 1941. 

Last weekend, we had the opportunity to visit the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Park, which house among others, the USS Arizona memorial .

       The weather was great that day, the skies are so blue, and the view around the harbor was fantastic.

We had the privilege of meeting one of the survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack, and listening to him sharing his reflection on what happened that day and how it has affected the lives of the people in Hawaii, I think that I have, for the first time, get a glimpse on how real and how profound,  the effects of war to innocent people. When he shared about his valiant effort of searching for his childhood best friend for many many years, and finally receiving the news that he has passed away, I secretly wiped my tears away.

Being lucky enough to be born in an era where peace is taken for granted, I have never truly grasped the significance of the consequences of war. Sure, we read about it in our history textbook, and sometimes we hear stories from our grandparents, but that's it. 

So,seeing the survivor that day, and hearing about his description of the attack and the consequences after that, gave me a different outlook about war. I had goosebumps while listening to his story, literally.

Before we board the boat to the USS Arizona memorial, which is located in the middle of the sea, a short movie, using real life pictures of that time, were shown to us.

A park ranger providing explanation about the ship which still lies beneath the Pacific Ocean till this day.

The oil from the ship continues to leak today, even after 60+ years. Experts estimated that the oil will continue to leak for about 30 more years.

 It was a humbling experience to me, to learn about one of the key events of World War II, to see for myself, the names and pictures of young men and women who became the casualties of war, to hear for myself, from one of the survivors of the event, how it was like at that time. 

War brings nothing but suffering, loss and agony. My hope is that may there be no war from now onward, and that peace will be the only thing experienced by our future generation.

Aloha from Hawaii!!!

Hi, my name is Loo Shih Min, my English name is Lauren. I am a English lecturer in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), a public technical university in Malaysia, I was lucky enough to be selected as a participant for the Brunei-US English Language Enrichment Project for ASEAN 2013 program and I am currently attending the second part of this wonderful program  in Hawaii, United States.

This blog will be a place where i collect and compile all the invaluable knowledge and resources that i have learned throughout this program so that I can share and spread the knowledge to my colleagues back home as well as utilize it for the benefit of my students.

Please feel free to comment and enlighten me with your opinions and ideas :)

Here is me saying Hi ^^