Matthew's Comments on Posts in E-portfolios of Other Groups

Topic 1

Group 1

One of the greatest advantages of this software is that it could somehow simulate the situation of real class, in that someone is really writing or drawing in the video. The motion could indeed keep the attention of the students (which is one of the most important things during teaching!), particularly the junior form ones.

Group 3

With the games created in Kahoot, I am sure the students must have fun during the class!

It is however worth noting that as it is basically a game app, how it could benefit the teaching/learning process relies greatly on the instruction design by the teachers, i.e. how teachers are going to use it in the class.

Group 4

It's glad to hear that the TED has a mobile app. With the save function, we could now easily organise our "schedule" of watching the video.

It's rather normal that the app is lack of interactive connection, as after all TED does not serve as a platform for e-learning courses. It is, instead, live streaming or recording of talks by different speakers. In this regard, the lack of interactive connection should be understandable.

Topic 2

Group 1

Your mind-map is well-structured, in that it includes the basic information of the learning theories, i.e. their definitions, influences and examples. These information are clearly listed in the mind map so that reviewer could understand the learning theories quickly.

I particularly like the idea of putting inter-linkage between the learning theories to compare and contrast the learning theories. By way of this, learners could definitely have a better understanding of the concepts of the theories.

Group 4

I like the idea of incorporating real examples (in this case, real lesson plan and learning materials) in the concept map. The examples would definitely make it easier for the reader to grasp the ideas of the learning theories.

Group 5

Your mind map has included the essential information, i.e. definition, example and influences of the learning theories and put them in a very organised way such that the learners could easily understand the concepts of the learning theories.

Using different color to differentiate the aspects of the learning theories is indeed a great idea.

Topic 3

Group 1

I like this video indeed. As the video is so interesting, it could, for sure, engage the audience throughout the entire video.

Agree with Sharon that the video might need to be reviewed so that the typo could be rectified (though the typo mistakes are rather not important in this video, I would say).

And I have a minor suggestion for the "Cantonese Class" session in the video. As the target audience of this video should be non-local students in HK (mainly English or Mandarin speakers I guess?), it might be better to put the English and Mandarin before Cantonese in the session so that the audiences could know, in the first instance, the meaning of the upcoming sample sentence.

Group 4

It's nice to see a real example of teaching material that was really used to teach students in the class.

I have been wondering, during watching the video, whether it is worth spending so much time and effort to make a video like this to teach students only two simple concepts. However, given that the video could be "reusable", I do now think that the effort and time should be worthy.

It's however important to bear in mind that such videos like this should be reviewed continuously so as to fit the needs of the current students.

Group 5

Using the high-quality video from China Daily could really get the attention, raise the interest of the students, as well as activating their previous knowledge about recycling. These are all very important parts that enable learning to happen!

Topic 5

Group 1

I think it's great for your group to compare this course with the Bloom's Taxonomy, which could enhance our understanding of the e-learning course before really starting to take the course.

Group 3

It is quite interesting to learn that there is an e-learning course about wine. I think this is an advantage of the course as it could easily attract the wine lovers to take the course. The course developer would, however, need to think of different ways to maintain the attention of the learners, as basically the wine lovers would have a certain degree of knowledge about wine, i.e. if the content covered in the course is too easy, the learners will soon lose their interest in the course.

Group 4

Personally I like the course "Ten Days to Breakthrough Korean Pronunciation" introduced by Katie. The course not only has clear learning objectives, but also has mentioned its timeframe, in that it aims to let the learners to learn more about Korean within "ten days.

Topic 6

Group 1

Just like what I have shared with the other group, I think the most critical factor for me is the "useful topic", as this is the major reason why I take an online course.

But I was wondering what you mean by "engaging" topic? Does it mean that the topic is interesting, useful to most people (e.g. programming, language skills?) or eye-catching?

Group 3

For me, "Staying updated" and "Being practical and useful" would be the biggest concern, while other would be some supplementary features (though also important, to a certain degree). The reason for that is:

"Staying updated": Spending time to take a course with outdated information and/or knowledge would not only be a wastage of time, but also might lead to misunderstanding; and

"Being practical and useful": this is the most important factor to arouse my interest in taking an online learning course.

Group 4

Many thanks for your sharing, but would be grateful if you could elaborate more on the eighth factor, "Relate to real life". As it seems to me that every topic that could be covered in an online course should be related to real life?

Topic 7

Group 1

I like idea of the HelloTalk as it is always my belief that speaking with native speakers is the most efficient way to practice the language. I just wonder why the app could attract native speaker to use, as basically they don't need to practice their own language?

Group 3

Although both the applications, i.e.  "Grammaropolis" and "Jonny Grammar's Word Challenge" aim on teaching children English through gamification, I guess they are serving different purposes - while "Grammaropolis" is an app which attracts and directs children to learn by themselves, "Jonny Grammar's Word Challenge" may be more useful as a test or a revision exercise.

Group 4

I am quite impressed by the app "扇貝單詞", in that it allows the learner to set daily goal. I think this is a very important feature/function of this app, as the learners could keep track of their learning progress and therefore make the entire learning process continuous, instead of being segmented.

Topic 8

Group 1

It is a really interesting learning activity. I have now learnt more about how to take nice photos with my iphone.

It would be even greater if you could introduce how to take stunning photos using mobile phones other than iphone, for example, Sansumg, LG, as after all not all of us are using iPhone (In fact, many of our classmates are using Andriod phones so they have soon lost their interest during the activity). Otherwise, the topic of your learning activity would need to be changed to "How to take a stunning photo with iPhone?

Group 3

You have done a great job! Although you have to compress a lesson (originally may be a 40-min lesson?) into a 15-minute mini activity, which makes it a little rushed and that some of the features of the nearpod might have been skipped, I still think your activity so interesting and enjoyable. Well done!

Group 5

I am so glad to see that the schools nowadays have so many resources, including the iPads and the apps therein. Although the activity as such is not so smooth as expected due to the limitation of using iPads outside the school (e.g. we could not access the video needed for the assignment), I could still feel the power of using the app to teach/learn concepts of solar system. Many thanks.