備課

 不少教師好像沒有怎樣放過暑假，又開學了，這因為暑假中要重新策劃開學後如何網上授課。但有教師亦覺得因此多了空間備課，多了時間思考教與學的事情，因而有滿足感。

我也喜歡備課，常常因備課而進入positive psychology學者Mihaly Csikszentmihaly所說的Flow的境界。備課是一個讓教師運用專業知識(例如英語教學法)和發揮創意的過程，令你覺得專業，的確可以是很rewarding 的活動。

每年就算教授已教過的課程，我也重新檢視先前的設計或教材，找空間試試新的教學活動，或嘗試modify 教材，這樣下來，就算教的是同一topic，也逐漸累積愈來愈多的教學點子和材料under my belt。

希望全面恢復面授後，教師仍然有時間和有空間去備課，這對培養他們的專業感绝對重要。

第三十年

 這張照片，拍於1991年9月，當時開始在中大教育學院任教，換句話說，這個九月，將會是我在學院執教的

第三十年。

在學院最初主要教授小學教育學士學位課程，其後逐漸有機會教授其他課程，到今天，我教過的課程包括PGDE Secondary, PGDE Primary, B.Ed Primary Ed, B.Ed Language Ed, BA+B.Ed double degree, MA ELT, 和M.Ed。 Teacher education 是我最享受的工作，對我來說，它包含了Dan Pink 指出Work Motivation 的三個最重要元素：

Meaning:我找到我工作的意義: Autonomy :我有一定程度的自主，去設計和執行我的工作;和Mastery:我的工作性質讓我不斷進步，給我滿足感。這三個因素使我全情投入教學，終於在數次獲得學院的教學獎後，在2005 年，在校長劉遵義教授手中接過「香港中文大學校長模範教學獎」，自此，對教師教育這伊人更加是「终不悔」(雖然實情不是衣帶漸寬,而是漸緊)。

隨著日子的過去，由於大學退休年齡制度，我终於不能繼續以全職僱員身份服務下去，幸好得到學院的眷顧，授予honorary staff 的身份，使我可以繼續教學下去，到今天促成這「第三十年」的佳話。

能夠這麼長時期享受工作，從中找到意義，同時又可以不斷學習，不斷進步，我不得不承認我是非常非常幸運的人。

Quizizz's new 'Lesson' function

 Quizizz has launched a new function. While previously teachers could only create quizzes, they can now create 'Lessons', which can contain slides, interactive questions, videos, audios, and images. If they present the created 'Lesson' live, it works like Nearpod and Peardeck. So far, the main difference as far as I can see is that if you insert an interactive question somewhere in your lesson, when students have responded, an interim leaderboard will show up. Of course, at the end of the 'Lesson', the final championship table will also appear. So compared with Nearpod and Peardeck, Quizizz lessons have that pervading competitive element throughout the teacher's presentation. 

I will give it a try in September to find out the effect. 

https://youtu.be/Sh_TVG83evI

Loom vs Screencastify

Thanks to the recommendation by Vivien Chan, I've just made a screen-recording instructional video with Loom. I used to use Screencastify for screen recording, but Loom, which is a Chrome extension, trumps Screencastify because ...

a. It has a pause button, which is important if you're doing a long screen-recording, and/or have to switch between opened tabs;

b. you can share the result immediately as a URL, or download it;

c. Unlike the free Screencastify, Loom doesn't have a five-minute limit.

Because of remote teaching, as well as flipped learning, competence in producing instructional videos is becoming more and more important for teachers.

https://www.loom.com/

Video Puppet - good for creating a narrated video from a PPT with speaker notes

 Another video creation tool I have recently tried and found useful for creating instructional videos is Video Puppet. If you have a ready-made PPT, all you need to do is to type in your speaker notes, and upload your PPT to Video Puppet. The website will generate a voiceover-narrated video with background music for you. The narration, though automatically generated, is not bad as it doesn't sound machine-like. 

Of course, if you can use your own voice for the voiceover narration, that would be best. But sometimes you may be too busy to do the narration yourself, and if you have the speaker notes ready, Video Puppet is a handy way to create a narrated video from a PPT. 

Below is an example I've made. It's based on an article for Ming Pao which I wrote in June. I copied and pasted the article into a PPT, used PPT's built-in 'search Internet images' function to get the pictures, and then uploaded the PPT to Video Puppet, which instantly gave me the video below. 

What makes a noun count or noncount? 

https://youtu.be/eN7tLNjEGxA