Entry #1

Reflection

Name               : Ajwad Bin Alias
Matrix Number : WIF180005

Planning Phase

During the planning phase (2 weeks prior the programme) I had an anxious feeling about the programme because I had never been involved with planning a programme before. I was appointed as the Food Committee and since the food will be served by the school canteen, there was nothing much to do. The planning of the activities was done together as a group and I had lots of fun brainstorming some games to play with the kids. Though during the brainstorming session, I notice how I constantly am lost for words mid-sentence.

We had to create the i-LEARN Ace account for the kids. I was not sure why I was feeling so nervous, but it took way more time than it should be to create an account. I kept checking and asking friends whether I was filling the information correctly or not.

I thought my task was basically done and I can relax – nope. The day before the we get to meet up with the kids, something went kind of wrong-ish. I was so caught up with helping an event at my residential college (it was an esports event that happened at the same time as this programme) until I didn’t read an important message in the group chat:

So, I started to panic and worry. Which I knew I should not be doing so.

To be honest, I solved this problem quicker than I imagine really. It took me like an hour and a half or so discussing with Hafizul (also the food committee) on what to eat. I was in charge of lunch, so I choose Nasi Kukus, one of the famous meals in UM(KK7).That very same evening, someone from the i-LEARN Ace staffs came to our faculty and gave us the how to’s of the website and the features it has.

DAY 1 - 23 MARCH 2019

We went to SK Bangsar. Some of the members went there with motorcycle and the rest of us pooled with Marijana. It was a little bit crowded with the bags, foods and water but it was fine because it is only about a 10-minute drive.

When we arrived, we had to wait to meet up with the kids. Before that, we did a group huddle and had a quick briefing on today’s activities.

The kid that I will be looking after is named Muhammad Daim Haiqal. I honestly did not know what to expect of him. I guessed he would be silent/shy type. Maybe a with little sprinkle of wildness. We gathered the kids that will be in our group and fed them breakfast.

 

We had an ice breaking session called Tak kenal Maka Tak Cinta where we sit in a big circle and introduce ourselves. He must tell our, name, nickname, ambition and a signature move/style to do while saying our name (mine was like the anime glasses glare).

Then the next person must do the last person’s style. Unexpectedly, Daim was sitting next to me during that time. The kids spoke very softly during the introduction which is understandable – we were just bunch of strangers to them. Daim picked the finger gun on chin pose as his style said that he wants to be in the army when he grew up.

After we have done introducing ourselves, we played some games. First up is Radio Rosak. It is where the kids line up and are told to pass up a phrase to the last person. Each time they pass up the phrase becomes more distorted and weirder. During that time Daim did not look as excited as the rest of the kids. My guess was correct – he is the shy type. I think that he will take a little bit more time to get used to us.

Next up is Lukisan Karat. It is like Radio rosak but now the verbal massage is switch to drawings. Camel, rhino, scorpion and durian was the massage we gave them. The camel became an elephant, rhino became an eel, and the scorpion turned into a ladybug. They did get the durian correct though.

Then it is time for some i-LEARN-Ace. We went to the computer lab and sat down with our designated kid. It was quite crowded in there.

While using the computer, I noticed that Daim is quite the slow typer which gave me some hints on his overall knowledge when using a computer. He logged in just fine and I began explaining the features to him (the homepage and the notes section). He was very silent at first. Answering to my questions with only a nod or a faint “hum” sound. He was probably nervous… or it is because I kept stumbling over my words. I did manage to get into the rhythm and stop(well not completely stop) stumbling over my words and he started talking a little bit more.

When we reached to the notes part, I taught him how to use the sticky notes, dictionary, etc. There is a part of the sticky note where they can put image or videos on the sticky notes. Daim did not know how to copy and paste things, he did not even know the use of the right-click on the mouse. It was a little weird for me because I think at even his age, even if someone is a slow typer, at least they should have known how to copy-paste stuff from the web. He told me that his family had a computer but it broke. He did not have a phone either. I was not really surprised at all since this programme is targeted at the less fortunate family. All that aside, I taught him how to copy-paste stuff. Out of all the subject, he likes science the most. He likes to choose a year 4 topic which was “Proses Hidup Haiwan”.

Lunch Break! The kids and us facilitators had lunch together.

After finishing lunch, we solat zohor then continue with the next game. The next game was Kotak Beracun. It is where a box will be passed around until the music stops, the last person holding the box must take a random piece of paper that has an instruction written on it and do the instruction.

At this point, I noticed Daim has become more vocal and expressive. During one of the rounds, he was the last person holding the box. The instruction that he got was for person beside him to scribble something on him. I was scared at first since I was not aware that they used marker pen with washable ink. His friend decided to draw a moustache on his face:

The moustache was a little hard to see because it was scribbled using a red marker pen. The next game is the typical Music chair game. Nothing interesting happened during this game.

Finally, the last game for today… Cross the river.

Cross the river is a game where a team must cross a “river” using only 4 pieces of A4 paper. They cannot step on anything other then the paper. The first team that crossed the said river wins.The game was a little bit hectic because we did not tell them the rules properly and some unforeseen stuff happened. The floor was slippery, they can get across by dragging the paper with their foot. One of the team noticed this and took advantage of it and left the other team in the dust. The other team started to raise their voice and argue with us. Luckily, they did calm down. I expected something like this to happen since I saw the losing team was arguing among themselves during the game. I did not intervened(but i should have) because the whole point of this game is to test their teamwork. It is our fault for not expecting the slippery floor and for not telling them the rules clearly.

The play session of today has ended and now it is time for i-LEARN-Ace. Rather then going back to the crowded lab, we picked an empty classroom and used our own laptop. On this session, we taught them how to create mind maps and show them the cool stuff they can do with it. Daim seems to really like the mind map feature. He was quite excited with it and I was very happy for him. I manage to ask him some personal question on his parents’ occupation and siblings.

The day ends with quite the disappointment for me. I did not get to meet his parents at that time. So, I decide to call one of his parents tonight. Before we went home, we discuss a bit on the stuff that we did that day. I did manage to call his mother that night and again, I stumble on my words quite frequently. I hope I did a good job talking to her...

DAY 2 - 24 MARCH 2019

We went to SK Bangsar the same way as yesterday. We wait for the kids to arrive and had breakfast with them. Daim did not look shy anymore which is nice.

With hunger out of the way, we proceeded to an empty classroom for some i-LEARN-Ace.

On this session of i-LEARN-Ace, we taught the kids about the assessment tab. He had them do some objective as well as subjective question for an hour. We told the kids that doing these assessments will gain them some in-game coin, if they get a good score. They can use the coins that they have accumulated to play some games on the I-LEARN-ACE website (basically it is like some sort of virtual arcade). As expected, Daim picked the “Proses Hidup Haiwan” topic for the assessment. During that time, his face was quite glued to the screen of my laptop. 

I was quite happy seeing him doing that. He also told me that he did some mind map stuff at home using his dad’s phone. Unfortunately, the mind map was not there. He probably accidentally pressed the delete button when trying to edit it (the edit button is literally placed next to the delete button. It was quite a dumb design in my opinion). That aside, I hope that he can keep this up.

On an unrelated note, I think that Daim’s typing was a little bit faster. Before, it took him like 2-3 second to find a letter. But during entering his user id and password, he sort of knew where the general area of the letter is. But that’s maybe just my imagination…

After the hour is up, we taught it would be a good idea to let the kids create a mind map like the day before and present it in front. Of course, we helped them. 30 minutes was given to us and we could pick any topic we want. Daim choose “Mikroorganisma” as the topic. 30 minutes gone by in a flash and Daim and I was up first. 

He was nervous. I had to help him to introduce himself and his topic by making him repeat over me. His voice was so quiet that even I had a hard time hearing him – and I was right next to him. I asked him to talk at least little bit about the mind map, but he just stayed silent. I somehow manage to make him talk a bit about how the microorganism looks. Well it is good enough for now. I hope he could improve in the future. We had a seat and watch the others presentation.

Next, we played Lukisan Bisu. It is where the participant must guess something, by drawing, without speaking at all. They cannot write down the answer. Communication between teammates is only allowed via action, movement or gesture.

 

After that, we played Heads up. It is sort of a party game but on a mobile phone.  It is where a person must guess what is written on the phone that is placed on their forehead. The others must help that person by giving hints on what it is. The game was a total 180 degree from the game before. The last game was super silent and now it was like a shouting contest. I had to grab the 1-meter wooden ruler and used it as a barricade because the other players were getting too close to the guesser. They were basically shouting in front of guesser’s face, screaming hints. One of our members, Ray, did snapped a little bit because of that but not to the extent of straight up nagging them. He just raised his voice for like half a second. It was kinda justified in my opinion, the kids were getting a little bit out of hand during that game. On hindsight, we should have told them to give the hints one person at a time. During both games, Daim seemed to be less shy with being with us compared to the day before.

Lunch time!

After lunch we solat zohor. Then it is time for the next game, Tanya Je. Looking back on what happened the day before with the cross the river game, we were pretty much worried about this one. We braced ourselves and were on high alert of any signs of aggression during the game.

The game involves 2 teams. They were given a scenario on which each team can only ask question to the other team. If the other team took too long to answer or answered the question with other than a type of question, they lose.

The game went better then we expected. The only things that bothers me is that the kids used their opponents’ appearance as the question in the game – I felt like they were just insulting each other. Stuff like, “kenapa gigi kau kuning?”. Of course, we then told them not to do that again. In the end, it does look like they were having fun though. Daim was so energetic and was not shy at all.

 

And finally, we played Salah, Benar. It is much like Simon Says but with its own twist. One of the facilitators will say something like “Benar, Salah, Benar” followed by the same amount of instruction. For example, “left hand up, jump, move backwords”. The student must follow the instruction in the order of “Benar, Salah, Benar” but, the must ignore the instruction when it is “Salah”. Failure to do so will result in the player losing. Last one left wins. The game can get even more difficult though. It is when rather than just ignoring the instruction on “Salah”, they had to do the opposite of it.

 

It was quite difficult even for me.

The last game session was over, and it is time for the final i-LEARN-Ace session. This time we showed the kids the reward section of the i-LEARN-Ace and let them have their fun using the coins that they have accumulated during the last session. Daim picked to spend all his coins to play tic-tac-toe against his fellow i-LEARN-Ace friends.

 

Before the end of the session, we gave them 2 pieces of paper and asked them to write down their feelings and opinions, one on the programme as a whole and one on their assigned facilitator. We told them not to hold back any feeling. “If you think that this programme was boring – write it down. If your facilitator did not do a good job – write it down. We won’t be mad at all. In fact, we will appreciate it”.

And now is for the finale, the closing ceremony. We sat down in a circle with the assigned kid with their facilitator sitting next to each other.

Us facilitators talked about our feelings, regrets, and apologised if we did hurt any of their feelings. We also gave them some presents. Generally, it was a book and lots of sweets that was mostly brought by one of our very kind and caring group member, Marijana.

That day I did managed to meet with Daim’s father. I explained about the I-LEARN-ACE to him and I think I did a good job-ish. I was out of breath from running. Daim was exited to go home (like all the kids do) and ran to the front gate. I had to keep up with him with a heavy laptop on me. I felt I was doing such a bad job explaining to him though. I felt like I had a tunnel vision when I was taking to him. 

And just like that it is all over. Before leaving the school, we sat down at the open hall of the school and read the papers that the kids wrote (the overall programme one). We were relived because all of them are sweet and kind words. We also read the one that was meant for their facilitator. This is what Daim wrote about me. It was nice.

MY REFLECTIONS...

I was too nervous and scared. So terrified of messing up that I spun myself into confusion especially when faced with problem I've never encountered before. I stumble over my own words very often... during the whole brainstorming part, explaining things to Daim and talking to his parents. maybe I'm just bad with words, maybe I just did not think hard enough during speaking. Whatever it is, I need to get better at talking to people. The weekend with the kids was quite enjoyable for me. When we talk about our feelings, I told everybody that I did not regret spending a single second with them. That is the truth. I felt joy being around the kids and the other facilitators. I hope that I can join more activities like this. It was fun and quite an uplifting experience.

After Phase... - 29 MARCH 2019

It’s been about 1 week since I the last time I met Daim face to face. I did get the notification from him doing i-LEARN Ace assessment. He did call me last Tuesday. He told me he had problem submitting his assessment. It kept logging him out every time. I tried it myself and faced the same problem:

This is what I saw before it logged me out. After waiting for a while, everything went back to normal… Weird.

That aside, Daim’s progress. All the assessment that he did was Science. The last time that he did was about 2 days ago (during this entry). I probably know why. He his dad works as a guard and went home late evening while his mother works at a mall and went home around midnight. That is probably the reason – he does not have anything to access I-LEARN Ace with. No phone, no laptop or computer.

I did contact his mother today to inform her on his progress and gave her some suggestion.

I don’t know if I was being too formal with her. I just did not want to offend her in any way. You know, like telling someone how to parent. I hope she did not take it that way. Maybe I should try talking to Daim's father next time. Maybe it will go better.