Week 11: FISHy but not Fishy

When Prof first started throw the the toy fishes to us, I taught the Prof was going to ask questions related to the topic to those who get the toy fishes (past experience). But, no. Prof was introducing one of the elements in the FISH Philosophy - Have fun.
I wondered why it was called FISH Philosophy and I had my question answered the moment I started reading the article the Prof gave us. This philosophy was used first by fishmongers successfully. It has 4 elements:

• Play
• Make Their Day
• Be There for Coworkers (This is more to do with giving your full attention to a task or individual.)
• Choose Your Attitude

In Wikipedia, it is stated that John Christensen observed the fishmongers in the Seattle Market with the four elements mentioned above and later turned into the film FISH! and a series books. Both were translated into 17 and 34 languages.
The article stated that this philosophy is widely used in the corporate world. And upon reading further, I discovered it can be and is used in school even though this is the first time I hear of it. Perhaps I have never heard of it before because the teachers hardly use it or use it only sub-consciously.
I believe this philosophy gives a more human touch to the teacher-student relationship and gives due respect students as well as teachers. When the students are respected, they would definitely feel important and it will promote their sense of industry.

Weeks 9, 10 & 11: Progress with the IWB assignment

As we explore this software more in depth, we began experience more problems and I realised how much there is for us to learn about it.
Some of the problems occurred because we used the older software in the laboratory and later found some features missing when we opened them with the newer version. Sometimes there were some smart technology files that could not be opened and we had to redo our project.
Another problem was that the pages in the software can extend as we us them however, in the end they shrink to fit the window, thus, the font and everything in the pages becomes small. This was a sort of restriction for me as I believe the if the pages could be extended the entire activity could be presented in one page. Therefore, there would be a continuation on it, rather than when it is presented in several pages, in seems like the activity has been broken into several parts.
Prof and the tutors' guide in the making was very much helpful. I had my project done with various backgrounds until Prof raised the question of the relation of the background to the topic taught.
The presentation by some of the groups helped me to rethink on what I have done. The use of this software in the topic we selected need careful consideration. Not all the Smart Board features can be used for all the topics to teach in classrooms. It was important to consider the suitability of the content. My topic was emotions and I often consulted MsChin to check if my activities were appropriate.
Moreover, the extension of the dateline gave us more time to refine and improvise. I must say thank you very much to Prof and the Tutors for it. All in all this assignment I had the opportunity to learn in depth of the use of Smart Board Technology. Even though we have been using Smart Board since the las three semesters, we did not get the knowledge of its usage in the classroom in depth like this. This assigment pushed me into learning more about what I taught is only a refined version of Microsoft PowerPoint.