Task Four : Interactive Visual Representation -“A Farm”

1. Group members:

*Chan Pik Shuen, Mandy

* Cheung Pui Man, Emily

* Chow Kam Lan, Maria

I formed partnership with Mandy and Maria for designing one interactive visual representation as a part of our final assignment. I chose Mandy and Maria as my group members because all of us are primary teachers. I think that it will be easier for us to choose a learning object to develop into the representation as educational contexts. After discussing with my partners, we decided to develop "A Farm" into the representation. In the farm, there are many different kinds of animals, for examples: chicken, cow, dog, duck, horse, lamb, and pig, which are easily seen in our daily life. At the same time, this topic is always taught in different subjects, such as English Language, Chinese Language, General Studies and Music. For enhancing our lower-level students to learn object easily, we shall try to use “Flash” to design the interactive visual representation. The important goal is to assist our students in constructing their knowledge of “A Farm”. After finishing teaching those contents to our students, we shall encourage our students to read the classic book, which is called “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” to enhance their reading’s interest and reading’s ability.

2. Teaching Level:
- Primary 2

3. Teaching Aims:

3.1 To identify animals’ names;
3.2 To identify animals’ sounds.

4. Folk Song:
Old MacDonald Had a Farm

5. References:
5.1 Gus Clarke (1994). E I E I O: the story of Old MacDonald, who had a farm. London: Random House Children's Books.
5.2 Dawn Bentley (1996). Old MacDonald's farm: a pop-out book. New York: Random House.
5.3Jessica Souhami (1996). Old MacDonald. New York : Orchard Books.

Reflections on Session Four

In the fourth lesson, I read most of my classmates' visual representations "Rain drop", which were designed very well and interesting. My classmates could complete their task by using many skills of Flash. After reading their visual representations, Daniel guided us to discuss how to design "Rain Drop". After discussing, I agreed the following points, including:
1. To get correct information is a challenge;
2. Over-reliance on the internet may be a problem;
3. To consider getting information from books, videos and discussing with experts;
4. Self-learning skills are required.

Besides, I learnt many factors which were affected the raindrop consisting of air resistance, gravity, velocity, size, angle, wind and angle, air pressure and surface tension and aero-dynamic forces.

In addition, I agreed with Mayer's suggestion, “People can learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone” (2005). I strongly agreed with him, especially it is very important to the mentally-handicapped children because their attention is very weak. If teachers can make their teaching materials better, I believe those resources will strengthen students' learning ability from the learning object.

Reference:
Mayer, R.E. (2005). The Cambridge handbook of multmedia learning. New Yor, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Revised Our Task Three -- Falling Raindrop

Dear my classmates,
In the fourth lesson, my partners (Mandy Chan Pik Shuen & Maria Chow Kam Lan) and I have learnt more flash skills, especially the timeline. Therefore, we decided to review the last week's task (Falling Raindrop) for showing us to strengthen our knowledge about the "Flash". Please read our design from the following links. For our classmates' convenience to see our product, we provide three different types of documents. After seeing it, please leave your comment to us. Thanks a lot!

The topic is about "Falling Raindrop":
1. http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Fallingraindrop2.html
2. http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Fallingraindrop2.swf
3. http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Fallingraindrop2.fla

References:
1. Raindrop Shape:No more tears http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_sky/9123/2
2. Raindrops, so many raindrops http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2000/alm00jul.htm
3. The shape of raindrops http://www.eng.vt.edu/fluids/msc/my_pages/raindrops/raindrop.htm
4. Flowfield and the Shape of Raindrops http://www.fluidmech.net/tutorials/raindrops/drop_flow.htm

Task Three: Falling Raindrop

Dear all of my classmates,
This is the first time my partners and I designed the learning object(Falling-Raindrop) by using the software of "Flash". We felt very difficult in doing this task because we never learnt it in the past. However, we have tried our best to do it. At this moment, our group (Cheung Pui Man, Emily; Chan Pik Shuen,Mandy; Maria Chow Kam Lan) has completed this task. After reading our task, please leave your comment to us. Thank you!

1. http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Falling-raindrop.swf

2. http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Falling-raindrop.fla

Some useful information about "Flash"

Are you annoyed right now?

Dear all of my classmates,
Did you complete to design the learning object (Raindrop)? If you have any difficult in using the "Flash" to design it, the following websites will be helpful to you, especially those information is mentioned in Cantonese. I hope that it will be able to assist you to complete your task.

Basic Level:
1. http://resources.emb.gov.hk/fasmx/Cantonese/Basic_Level/

Intermediate Level:
2. http://resourecs.emb.gov.hk/fashmx/Cantonese/Intermediate_Level/index.html

Advanced Level:
3. http://resources.emb.gov.hk/fashmx/Cantonese/Advanced_Level/index.html

The Draft of Falling-Raindrop Shape

In the third lesson, Daniel asked us to design a simple learning object (Raindrop) by using Flash. Actually, it is very difficult for my two partners (Chan Pik Shuen and Maria Chow) and me because we never learnt it in the past. For saving our time, we drafted the shape of falling- raindrop by using PowerPoint at the first. Later on, we shall try to use the software of Flash 8 to design the falling-raindrop shape according to the content of the draft.
The following falling-raindrop shape was designed by Cheung Pui Man, Chan Pik Shuen and Maria Chow.

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/Falling-raindrop.ppt

After seeing it, please leave your comment. Thank you!

Some information about "The shape of Raindrops"

Dear all of my classmates,

Before reading the following information, I believe the raindrops are spherical in shape when they begin to fall. But, after that, I don't know what happens to the shape of raindrops. According to Keith(2000), he said that the raindrops look like hamburger buns than teardrops as they fall. I have found some articles about the shape of raindrops. If you are interested in looking those information, please click the following websites for reference.

1. Raindrop Shape: No more tears
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_sky/9123/2

2. Raindrops, so many raindrops
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2000/alm00jul.htm

3. The shape of raindrops
http://www.eng.vt.edu/fluids/msc/my_pages/raindrops/raindrop.htm

4. Flowfield and the Shape of Raindrops
http://www.fluidmech.net/tutorials/raindrops/drop_flow.htm

5. General Properties of Raindrops and the Geometrical Optics Approximation
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~onross/MSc/chap1.html

Reference:

1. Keith C. Heidorn (2000). The Weather Doctor's Weather Almanac Raindrops, So Many Raindrops. Retrieved 10 March, 2007, from http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2000/alm00jul.htm

Reflections on Session Three

After seeing our classmates' visual design of Earth's Atmosphere, I make sure that the visual representations are very important to students, especially our students who are mentally-handicapped children. Their attention is very weak. For strengthening their learning motivation and interest, I think that our school teachers will be able to use computer skills to design visual representations for drawing their attention to see and listen what they are teaching. Simultaneously, teachers will be able to use the visual display as teaching aid, for students' discussion. Besides, I think that a teacher-librarian will be able to use computer technology to design visual representations as an e-book for telling stories to students. For designing better visual display, I agreed with Daniel that we can insert additional information on the same slide if there is some space on the visual display area, such as background music.

Task Two: Design a Visual Display

Hello, every classmate! I have just finished the Task 2. Please click the following website to see it.

http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/pmcheung2/EarthClimate.ppt

The following websites are provided to you for understanding more information about Earth's Climate and the Atmosphere.

1. Earth's Climate

http://www-class.unl.edu/geo/101i/15a_climate.htm

2. Earth's Atmoshere

2.1 http://www.biocrawler.com/biowiki/Earth_atmosphere

2.2 http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12/features/912_liftoff_atm.html

After seeing my Task 2. please leave your comment to me. Thanks a lot!

Reflections on Session Two

In the second lesson, I learnt some key points about “Visuals” from Tufte (1983, 1990) and Lester (2000).
First part: Key points about “Visuals” from Tufte (1983, 1990)
1. Well designed graphics are far more effective than words.
2. Human eye can make remarkable number of distinctions within a small area.
3. Presents text and numbers as visual ideas rather than parades of words and
numbers.
4. Visuals are instruments that help people to reason information.
5. Principles of information design are universals and are not tied to unique features
of a particular culture.
6. The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static,
flat-envisioning information can escape from it.
7. Envision of information works at intersection of images, words, numbers and art.
8. It is not how much information is there but rather how effectively it is arranged.
9. Confusion is failure of design not attribute of information.

Second part: Key points about “Visuals” from Lester(2000)
1. Pictures invented to communicate complex thoughts. With invention of print words
become more important than pictures.
2. Produce powerful pictures so that viewers can remember their content.
3. Analyzing images makes you take long careful look. Image becomes part of your
general knowledge. The more you know the more you see.
4. Deconstructing Visual Information by questioning who the visualization was made
for, by whom, why, and based on which data.
5. Individuals do not have good visual literacy.

The above key points tell us how important of understanding visual language. Besides, those key points explained what and how to improve our visual language. For doing better presentation, we can insert the following types of visuals on our PowerPoint, for examples: photorealistic images, paintings, drawings, caricatures, cartoons, abstract art, maps of territories, symbols, icons, diagrams, charts, mindmaps and 3-dimensions. In Daniel's handout, there are different kinds of technology tools to be introduced. Nearly all of them are new to me. I think that I will need to spend soem time to learn them because they are very useful to me for developing my teaching job.

Finally, I would like to tell all of you about my reflection after second lesson. I understand that we not only pay attention on the visual content, but also concern about the format. According to Lester (2000), he said, “Analyzing image makes you take long careful look. First image becomes part of your general knowledge. The more you know the more you see”. For enhancing analysis and creation of our own vision, I firm believe that we need to learn how to visualize new visual language in this century. Perhaps, we should try to use different types of technology tools for making our great PowerPoint, for examples: Photoshop, Illustrator, 3-dimensional graphics, 3DStudio Max and so on.

Reference:
Lester, P. M. (2000). Visual Communication. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
Tufte, E. R. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, Connecticut: Graphics Press.
Tufte, E.R. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, Connecticut: Graphics Press.

Reflections on Session One

In the past, as I made a presentation, I used PowerPoint as a Teleprompter. I always wrote a lot of words on each slide and then read my slides word for word. After taking the first lesson of the Module MLIM6323, I understand that “Visuals” can communicate complex ideas with clarity, precision, efficiency and convey the most knowledge in the shortest time in the small space (Tufte, 1983). In the future, when I prepare a PowerPoint for my presentation, I will use the PowerPoint slides as a visual communication aid. For avoiding my audience non-stop taking notes and yawning, I will use much contemporary technology to create powerful visual displays on the PowerPoint, for examples: I will insert pictures, sound, movies, maps, diagrams, drawings, images, icons, symbols, signs and flowchart on my slides. I make sure that I will be able to make my future presentation more interesting and it will enable my audience to remember what I am going to tell them.