Post 15 Sunday, Dec 30 2007

Hi all,

Today is the final day in my work placement. I felt happy because I am going back to college. On the other hand, I feel sorry because our work placement period was short because I enjoyed working in the Bank. I felt nervous when my mentor gave me my wp report. However, the positive feedbacks about my skills made me more confident and believe on myself.

I attended in the last day another training course that was hold in the department. I learnt some staff about Fincale system in the Banks and using accounts. I also remembered my JavaScript and HTML lessons when I saw the validation and forms being used in the Banking system.

This work placement is another valuable experience that I had during my studies. I learnt more how to be independent worker, cope with the new atmosphere of the work that was entirely new and different than our teaching practices. I learnt that communication is another important component in the work environment. I also learnt how to deal with problems and solve it.

I was happy to use my skills that I learnt at the college and create some learning/teaching resources for my mentor. However, I was sad because I did not learn any new software that could be related to bank or my field. This work placement was an opportunity to look at my career choices in the future.

To sum up, I recommend that the college to send the second group into places like this organization to learn from different experiences.

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Post 14 Sunday, Dec 30 2007

Hi all,

This is the day before we finish our work placement in the Bank.

Work I did during the day:
1. Categorize the books for the department’s library.
2. Complete the learning material which is a website in the Dream weaver.

I was confused little bit about how to categorize the books in order because I have no experience or knowledge about library stuff. However, Hayat and I managed to do this job and create some excel sheets about all the books (Arabic and English). 🙂 I enjoyed completing my work with Dreamweaver without any interruption from anyone. I felt I am an independent person doing her job. 🙂

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Post 13 Sunday, Dec 30 2007

Hi all,

In this post I will discuss about the Bank’s website that I evaluated using a checklist that I created for one of my courses last year.

General Description of the website:
The website is a business site which is about banking (http://www.nbq.ae). It provides services for the customers and it also offers jobs for different nationalities with a focus on the local employees. It is a useful site for people who want to open accounts, to take loans and to apply for a job.

Website evaluation:
The company that created the website has considered many principles of creating websites while designing it. For example, the background that is used is light gray and comfortable for the eyes. The font size that is used for the texts is around 12-14 which matches with what Williams’s states (2000) about the best font size that most of the readers normally can find easy to read. Furthermore, the pictures that are displayed in the homepage are well organized and there is one animated image that is related to the banking.

Moreover, the icons that are used in the website can be identified easily by people globally because the icons are words Go, Login, Register. As far for the authority, the bank is a well known organization in the UAE and people can use this website for banking purposes regarding to opening new accounts, using their existed accounts or taking loans. Another good point is the purpose of the site is clarified in the About Us section (History page). Another advantage is the data of the site is updated. However, I am not sure if the registration procedure is linked to open an account or login as a user in the site because it is a Bank!

Furthermore, one drawback that I found while evacuating the site is the links are crammed and there is lack of spacing between them which can be a problem for some viewers to use it easily.

Overall, I think this site is a good business website. However, the purposes of using it will differ from a normal site because it is related to banking and offering services and jobs for people.

This is the checklist : website-evaluation-checklist.doc

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Reference:
Williams,T,R. (2000). Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating the Display of Informaiton on the Web. Third Quarter 2000. Technical Communication. 383-396

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Post 12 Sunday, Dec 30 2007

Hi all,

Resources and materials are an important element in the teaching/learning process. Educators should always plan to create resources with consideration the different type of themes that they present, learners’ age, their interest and needs. I have been creating resources nearly two years since we started our program and I believe effective resources can motivate the learners to be active and engaged in the learning process.

During my experience in the training department in the bank I realized that my mentor did not use any interesting or effective resources except some long presentations! I think having brief and short presentations are better than the long ones.

Therefore, I believe our role as educational technologists in the department was very helpful where we created various types of teaching/learning materials for different courses using our IT skills that we learnt at the college. I was also sad because we did not have the opportunity to use any new software that can be related to the Bank and their system.

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Post 11 Sunday, Dec 30 2007

Hi all,

In this post I will discuss about one of the teaching strategies which is teaching style that my mentor used during my experience in the Training department.

Teaching style is an essential part where the trainers decide how to present the information to the learners and make the learning effective. Some trainers prefer to use trainer-centered style where the focus is more on feeding the learners the information without giving them an opportunity to be a part of their own learning. In contrast to the pervious style, some others use more effective way of involving the trainees in small groups to discuss and share their experiences where the learning is more active and constructive. Furthermore, sometimes the trainers use a blended teaching style where they mix between the two approaches that I mentioned above based on the courses given to the trainees and their needs.

Regarding to my experience in schools and the bank, I noticed the most teaching approach that was used in both establishments is traditional where the main concern was filling the learners with information without considering their needs, abilities and their learning styles. Although, there is a difference in teaching adults in an institute than a student in the school, I think these learners share some needs that are the same.

I cannot blame my mentor or the teachers that I worked with in the school due to their teaching styles because maybe there were not exposed to a learning environment that I had where I learnt about the education theories and realized the rationale behind it when implementing them in different learning environments. Moreover, I was happy to give my mentor some ideas how to make the training sessions more interesting by involving the trainees in groups and using open-discussion tasks.

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Post 10 Monday, Dec 24 2007

We started working on the presentation after we translated the text into English. We found translation a difficult job even Arabic is our first language! I think the reason of this difficulty is the terminologies that are related to the Banking. Therefore, I hope our translation is correct. I found designing the PowerPoint an easy job because Hayat and I are competent in using the MS PPT. We also thought adding a short quiz at the end of the presentation will be a good idea so we used the Hot Potatoes software to create a quiz.

Furthermore, our mentor found our work very interesting and impressive. However, I think creating PowerPoints is something we are used to do during our college life.

To sum up, at the end of the day I felt happy to finish some work and I am glad that our mentor liked what we have done. I hope the website will be another good resource for the Customer Services course. 🙂

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Post 9 Monday, Dec 24 2007

Hi all,

There are days in the work placement where all you can do is describing more than reflecting because we complete our tasks. Therefore, I am afraid that some of my posts will not be how did I feel or what I observed. It will be more like describing what I did during that day! I hope the posts will be changed for the next year students to be 1 reflection for whole week so they can express their thoughts better than us. 🙂

I felt happy because I finished with my classmate the English presentation and we solved the Dreamweaver problem. We also discussed with our mentor about the last day of the training. We found out that our mentor was nervous and hoping the trainees will be able to apply what they learned during the training time into real practice. I think communicating with the trainees will help our mentor to know if the trainees learnt something during their training.

At the end of the day, I felt happy and proud because our mentor liked our work and offered us a job in order to support him in developing the Training Department in the organization. However, working in the bank will be one of the options that I will consider for my future career.

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Post 8 Monday, Dec 24 2007

Hi all,

In this post I will compare between my previous experience in the school environment and my current experience in an organization such as Bank in terms of system of organization including the staff and learning environment.

The way each establishment run differs regarding to reasons of their being exist. I realized from my pervious experience that the staff in the school environment is specified by principal, assistant, secretary, teachers and learners. Whereas, in the organization the root goes further from the head manager to head departments, head offices and employees with different positions such as clerk, legal assistants, IT technicians …etc. Based on this description I noticed that my responsibilities were general in the school where it included the learners and administration too. I had to do the job of computer teacher and some IT work related to the administration; whereas my position in the Bank was more specified as an Educational Technologist and my role was to create teaching/learning materials for different courses. I think these differences will give me the opportunity in the future to consider my options in different fields.

As for the purposes of each place, I believe they differ too due to the materials and subjects given to the learners. In the school, it focuses on teaching and learning cycle with clear stages that the learner shifts as they grow up. While in the training department in the Bank, the courses are given based on any needs are demanded by the work environment with no assessment system. Therefore, I think the knowledge is given to the learners in the school is more board whereas, in the Bank it is limited regarding to the employees’ needs and experience.

To sum up, I think each work environment has its differences and requirements. I found myself a lucky student to have an opportunity to explore different work places which will help me to decide which environment will be good as my future career.

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Reflection 7: Training Day 2 Sunday, Nov 18 2007

Hi all,

Today was the second day of training course but we did not attend the whole session because we thought it would be better if we complete our tasks since we are not involved in any real training.

Our second task was creating materials about Customer Services’ topic. Hayat and I decided to create a variety of resources such as:

1.Teaching material: PowerPoint presentation to be given by the trainer.
2.Teaching material: Flash about customer services to be introduced in the beginning of the session as a warming up activity.
3.Learning resource: Designing a website using the Dreamweaver as a reference for the trainees for future use.

We started working with the Dreamweaver. However, the information that our mentor gave us were written in Arabic. Therefore, we found difficulty to use it in the Dreamweaver software. We looked for a Middle East version of Dreamweaver that supports the Arabic language but without any results. 😦

To sum up, Hayat and I worked on translating the text into the English language and we worked on the presentation at the same time. I think this experience improved my solving problems’ skills. 🙂

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Reflection 6: Training Day 1 Sunday, Nov 18 2007

Hi all,

I hope all of you enjoying your WP. 🙂

Today was the first day of training new employees from different branches about the OPCSR-Cash course which discusses about credit and cash. There were 7 trainees who attended the workshop. In this post I will discuss about teaching style, management, type of learning and reflection after the training session.

The first thing we did in the morning was helping our mentor with preparing the handouts and attendance list. We took part in the training day by taking attendance, checking the laptops if the network is working or not. We also checked the online exercises and registered all the trainees.

According to Kyriacou (2001) one of the “most important aspects of the beginning of the lesson is punctuality” which my mentor had to manage the class. There was a positive mental set when the class started as I realized and all the trainees were focused and ready to start.

Each teacher or trainer has a different teaching style that makes him/her unique from others. I observed my mentor during the training session and I noticed he used the traditional approach which is mostly teacher-centered with a lot of demonstrating and filling of knowledge instead of giving the trainees’ opportunity to learn by group or individualized tasks. However, the practical part of the session gave the learners’ opportunity to apply what they learned from their instructor.

Furthermore, one of the trainees complained about over repetition that was given by the trainer. I believe having different needs is a fact that we cannot deny even in training centers. Therefore, I think if our mentor had different activities in order to target all the learning styles in the session that would lead to better training course.

Another issue I mentioned in my previous post was the cold atmosphere that prevented the trainees to focus and they were complaining all the time about this problem. I also noticed lack of management in giving clear instruction for the trainees. For instance, there was no timetable explaining what the learners will have in each day and there was only one break around 20 minutes during the praying time for them which I think is a very short break for a training session given in 7 hours.

After the session ended we discussed with our mentor about the day. We have suggested to him some ideas such as open discussion with the trainees at the end of each session and group activities. I felt happy because our mentor listened to us and appreciated our support for him. I also learned that collaboration is one of the important elements of effective sessions.

Reference:
Kyriacou, C. (2001). Essential Teaching Skills. United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes.Ltd

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