Reflections on E-Learning

i) Overall did you put in more hours per day with E-Learning or a regular school day with homework?

Most people's typical answer would be "Aiya, of course not." However, for me, I reaally had problems on time management during the E-Learning. I wear glasses like most people but my degree is unusually high for my age. Hence, the greatest obstacle for me was eye management and I had to rest my eyes frequently during the E-Learning in between assignments, not subjects. This deprived me from my ususal speediness in doing homework at school and it sowed me down a great deal. In the end, the online lessons ended 3 hours late than a normal school day. To round up my reply, yes, I put in more hours on E-Learning than a regualr school day with homework.

ii) Were you able to complete the Language Arts assignments in about an hour each or did they take longer?

Well, as I have mentioned above, most of the lessons took a long time for me to accomplish. However, surprisingly, Language Arts assignments were the only subject I could sail through and complete it in time, or sometimes, so early that I had spare time left. Poetry was something new to me and I take an interest in learning new things. I guess this caused me to be absorbed in poetry and the interesting blog assignments by Mr Spelmer really intrigued me. They were meaningful and soon made time fast for me while doing them. Only once did I pass the time limit but in overall, every Language Arts lesson went on smoothly without prevail in about an hour or less.

iii)Which assignment(s) did you like the best and which one(s) did you like the least? Explain why.

For me, probably every assignment was interesting for me as it was all something enw to me, a new style of learning. However, I do have an order of likings. The assignment I liked the best was lesson 3, "Analysing & Composing Poem". I have multiple reasons for this "biasedness". The most powerful reason was that this assignment was the first assignment that enabled me to write my own poem which I have never done before. The instructions also enabled me to wander away from the busy school life and drift back to the good old days and express them into poems. While writing my own poem, I even smiled at the thought of my friends and hilarious things that have happened to me since Day 1 at Singapore and comment on how foolish I was back then. Analysing a poem was also a new topic for me and I was proud of myself upon completeing my very first analysis on my own. Since then on, I analysis in the coming assignments longer and more in depth, thanks to this assignment.

However, the assignment that is in the bottom of my list is lesson 1, "Figurative Language". Although it was a new topic for me, searching for all the hyperboles and other types of figurative language in a poem deprived me the chance to really absorb the meaning and lesson from the poem and also enjoy it in depth as all I was instructed to do was search for specific things in a poem. That is the main reason why I disliked lesson 1 the most. In overall, despite the setback, I liked all the lessons very much and it will never be erased from my memories for a lifetime.

iv)My suggestions to make E-Learning better are...

I guess one improvement that most of the students want are the timing of the E-Learning. As most students sleep late and wake up late too, they would not like to be deprived of their sleep by E-Learning. What I would suggest is to shift the time of E-Learning to the afternoon, instead of in the morning which makes it very inconvenient even if it takes place in our own homes.

Another improvement that can be made is more accessible communication. Email will take a much longer time than in the classrooms for teachers and students to communicate. For example, queries and questions that needs to be helped answered might be urgent but the teacher will not reply immediately due to email restrictions. Therefore, I suggest putting up a chat board in the ivle for various teachers for ease of communication and understanding.

v) A general reflection on how you feel the week went. Please share your honest opinion as ALL feedback is critical at this time.

In general, this whole E-Learning program was very meaningful for me, especially the Language Arts lessons and I reallt enjoyed them, all too much. However, I am worried that my eyes will worsen after this week. Let's hope it won't so. I have also the freedom of order of which lessons to do at what time unlike normal school days and also learn at my own pace as sometimes, lessons would be too slow or fast paced for me. Another thing I like is that we don't have to write, which does not waste our pen inks and various other accessories. Instead, we type. which makes it more convenient and fast for us to do our homework and lesons.

In overall, I would say that this week's E-Learning turned out great and I hope another of these would be executed soon.