Victoria Junior College gives home-learning a try
Some glitches but students LOVE IT
By Liew Hanqing
July 15, 2008
Teacher Hoe Gim Yau looks like he’s relaxing at home but he’s actually conducting a class via the Internet.
IT was a Thursday afternoon on a school week and teacher Hoe Gim Yau would usually be in class.
Instead, he was in front of his laptop at home, his eyes fixed on a chat window.
But the 31-year-old General Paper (GP) teacher at Victoria Junior College (VJC) was not on medical leave.
Neither was he absent without leave.
He was still very much at work, taking part in VJC’s first try at home-based learning.
On that day, students and teachers attended their classes, in real-time, from home.
Taking part in the one-day exercise were 110 of the school’s 150 teachers, and it involved the school’s JC1 and integrated programme students. JC2 students were not involved.
When The New Paper visited Mr Hoe at his Joo Chiat home, he was conducting an online GP lesson on the topic of ageing. It was his second lesson for the day.
He said sheepishly: ‘The server just went down. We probably won’t be able to use the (home-based learning) program for the rest of the day.’
He had planned to use Elluminate – a software program which simulates a classroom – to run his class.
In the virtual classroom, students can interact with their teachers, draw on a ‘white board’ and conduct group discussions.
With the server down, Mr Hoe had to think of how else he could conduct his class. He went to Plan B: Conduct the lesson through MSN Messenger, a popular chat program.
He said: ‘With technology, these glitches are bound to happen. It’s not surprising.’
After he received an e-mail notifying all teachers that the server was down, Mr Hoe simply uploaded his lesson slides onto Google Documents, which allowed him to share the slides with his students.
He then gave instructions to his students via MSN Messenger to split into groups to discuss the effects of ageing.
Students’ voices sounded intermittently through Mr Hoe’s computer speakers, as some of them spoke to their classmates through microphones.
There was laughing, joking, and advice on technical issues for those who had trouble using the online applications.
Mr Hoe said: ‘The students are very comfortable using this platform – it’s very casual and informal.’
In minutes, the students had split into groups and had begun creating their slides. One group had even decorated their slide with a black-and-white photograph of an old person.
Earlier, Mr Hoe had conducted a similar lesson with Elluminate, before the server glitch.
‘I was in my home clothes and eating durian at the same time,’ Mr Hoe said, laughing.
Home-based learning was a new experience for Mr Hoe, who said he enjoys exploring new kinds of teaching platforms.
He said: ‘Among colleagues, there was a lot of sharing, and we learnt from one another.’
He said the GP teachers at VJC have even set up a blog to share ideas on current lesson topics.
Between his lessons on Thursday, Mr Hoe sat in on a colleague’s chemistry lecture, along with 180 students.
He said: ‘With Elluminate, you can make your class public so anybody can sit in.’
He was also chatting with his colleagues, comparing their experiences using the program.
To familiarise themselves with the idea of teaching from home, the teachers attended a one-day workshop and also experimented with the program in their spare time.
The New Paper understands that the school may conduct this exercise once a year.
Second-year integrated programme student Yasmin Yeow, 16, said she enjoyed the home-based learning session.
She said: ‘It was easy to follow the lessons through the slides. At the same time, we were still able to communicate with each other.’
She added that while classroom learning is still more productive, home-based learning would be useful in the event of a crisis, such as the Sars outbreak in 2003.
JC1 student Wong Kang-An, 17, said he enjoyed watching a pre-recorded Economics lecture that his teacher had uploaded for them.
He said: ‘I find that I sometimes can’t pay attention in regular lectures, but when the lecture is pre-recorded, you can play back the parts you don’t understand.’
