Day 24 -The Game of Pong Finale: The Light in Darkness

This was a our final destination. We'll be teaching the kids about scratch one more time, and then we'll say goodbye to Johor. The school was really well organized, it's even bigger than some of the universities that I've been too. Reminds me of the good old days when things were used to be simple.

A wonderful view

We were received by a very energetic teacher, who was a really big fan of the makermobile car! Later at the end of the day, she posed as a model for it. There were many students in the classroom, and all from different levels of classes. Some of them are from the better classes, and some of them are from the not so well of classes. But nonetheless, all of them had come voluntary to learn computer programming, or more specifically, how to make a simple computer game. Most of them did well, and we moved rather seamlessly throughout the learning session with barely any hiccups. Perhaps we've learnt from the feedback and comments of the teachers. Below are some snapshots of their presentations:

A game of collecting fruits 

Just before the presentation.. all eyes on you!

Smiling faces

There are a few special items that I would like to draw your attention to, namely there was a young kid, very enthusiastic and patient, who had a very poor English. This was a problem because the book is written in English, and most if not all computer programming is done in English. We gave him special attention and helped explain the terms to him in Malay, so it became a lesson in both programming and English. The interesting is that he was willing to learn! I kept an eye on him throughout the whole session, and he would be asking question after question so that he may complete his game! Which he did in the end! It's not an easy task to finish a game, yet alone in a language that one doesn't understand. You could see it on his face how proud he was with his accomplishment.

The second item I would like to point out is to those students who did poorly academically made really good games! They could understand the material, they were capable of asking questions, and they could manage programming.

The third issue that the teacher shared with us later is about the Chinese students "sense of belonging". Prior to coming to this school, the students tend to be a minority in their respective schools. Although there are more Chinese students in this school, they still bring mentality of not belonging to this new school. As a result, they tend to shy away from events and tend to stick with the few Chinese students that they can gel with. However, in this session, many of them voluntarily participated which was out of the blue according to the teacher. We're glad to see that events like this create bonds among fellow students. With this, we set of for Pahang.