Episode 2 - Online Learning

This week the class discusses the online learning classes they have experienced this week. These include dog training, architecture, Japanese language and Chinese culture, saxophone classes, and Arabic caligraphy... find out who is top of the class in today's show!

Transcript

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Stephen King : 0:00

Welcome to the second episode of incongruent big cheer from the power this posse Yeah. And this week we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people know we're missing Hashem and we're missing a Reba today big, big fake cries everybody. There we go. Okay but we do have Angelica, yeah Angelica! We have Samira we have Dhan we Imnah. We have Arjun, Mabel, and Zainab and today we are going to be discussing online learning and not the school online learning which was going spiffingly well, we are going to be looking at other learning courses we've all been experiencing over the course of the past week. And the first one to discuss their educational experience or training class that they were on is Angelica and this was her idea in the first place. So Angelica, you get to go first tell us what have you been looking at this week?

Angelica : 1:03

Um, I don't know if you'll consider this like, a class. I've been attending live sessions with someone called the Beagle Lady. So she's a dog behaviourist Yeah, I have a beagle at home. And she really likes testing our patience all the time. She's not like any other dog. I just wanted to take these sessions to kind of bring out the best in her and her behaviour. According to the live session that I took this week, I took a lesson called positive reward based training specific to my case, where my Beagle loves stealing stuff. So she loves stealing, notebooks, pencils, pens, anything on the table, anything on the ground, like your slipper, and also food so whenever we have our dinner time, she would always jump on the dinner table, and she would try to lick the table, which is the skin quite disgusting. So so I really want wanted to stop that. And she advised me to keep her somewhere where she can rest, like, like a couch or sofa. And that's what I did. And for a week now, she's been staying there. And I've been giving her treats and I just based my trading on positive rewards and not on negative face, you know, training. That's correct. Yeah. Which absolutely correct. And I'm really happy about that.

Stephen King : 2:25

Excellent and how did she deliver that training? Was it by email written? Or was it YouTube? Or was it like a live training? How was it delivered?

Angelica : 2:31

It was a live session on it was a live session on Facebook.

Stephen King : 2:35

All right, excellent. And did the dog watch whilst, your Beagle what should be his name? Izzie Does Izzie have a Facebook account as well? Did she join in?

Angelica : 2:49

No,

Stephen King : 2:49

No. It might might be up for something though. You should get her a Facebook account and she can she can train herself self training. That's great. All right. Brilliant. Ah, good. But that's a great way of starting it very alternative. Who would like to go next? anyone's wants to put their hand up? I know Samira always wants to put her hand up. I think Samira given the fact that I just played the most beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday, based on my online lesson with my with my saxophone teacher, which is going well, my saxophone lessons. I think he must have, would you agree based on what you've just heard?

Samira : 3:26

Definitely.

Stephen King : 3:28

Definitely great thumbs up there from Imnah. Thank you. That's really helpful on a podcast. My being on a podcast for a while, right. So back to turning my own microphone back on again, so I can record myself which is also useful. And so like, who's gonna go next Samira? Are you gonna tell us what what have you been learning about this? What are we learning this week? Go for it.

Samira : 3:51

Well, for the most part, I've been attending my mom's online classes because she's an English literature. teacher. And so I attended a few of her lectures where she analysed the short story about a boy and his wooden horse. And then but mostly been just looking into Dickinson, poems and literature. But I guess that's super interesting. And it was all the lessons were conducted on zoom. And it was just interesting to try out a new form of analysis and teaching through online courses and just looking at how teachers have been incorporating new technology based ways of interacting with their students and making sure that they understand the content of their classes, that also last week, I really, I didn't get through the entire lesson. But I did look into a few classes on Tastemade cooking classes. And they are conducted online and on their app. And one of them one of the ones I looked into and found most interesting was, it was taught by Zach Nagin, and it was a class on crafting your own condiments. So I thought that was pretty creative and unique. You don't really find classes often that focus specifically on just the flavouring behind each meal. So

Stephen King : 5:39

Okay, good. So you had the experience of two things. One is you've been almost a pseudo teacher, you've been able to observe teaching in progress. And you've participated in some cooking training, which is fantastic because we all have to do

Samira : 5:51

Sort off

Stephen King : 5:51

Yeah, sort off. Well, maybe you'll actually get into the kitchen next, maybe that will be the next step. First step is to look at food and then And then to read the recipes I think the next step is to develop some sort of conscience to help your parents and cook something. Help. Still so far, so some distance to go then I'm sure. So tell me about the whole teaching experience. What is what was your mom's perspective of it? Or how is your mom preparing? Is she sort of like stressing out what's what's what does it look like from the other end?

Samira : 6:23

Well, it's definitely been a difficult journey, a lot of screaming and just not very positive feelings attached to the experience overall for her. But it's been interesting just seeing how far she's come. And just the progress that she's made because I find zoom quite difficult. So I can't imagine she finds it. I promise I'm not attacking older people. But it's just it's it's quite an interesting experience. Just Seeing what they come up with and how they try and connect with the students on a more guests personal basis through a screen.

Stephen King : 7:12

Hmm. So it's good to have that reflection. So thank you very much Samira. That's fantastic. So we don't cooking we don't music. We don't pet training Imna, you're on unmuted. So I'm assuming you have something you want to explain or describe....

Imnah : 7:28

Sure. So I've been doing is I've got an app that allows me to learn Japanese. I initially started with Duolingo which did not end very well for me because the Japanese alphabet is very different from conventional alphabet forms. And so it's just it's just really difficult to learn with an app.

Stephen King : 7:51

Thank you very much Imnah, for that wonderful experience on Japanese. Could you give us an introduction and here is Zainab or here's a Arjun introduce the next victim for our show in Japanese.

Imnah : 8:05

Oh, um, well I don't know how to see that here cuz I really let my vowels.

Stephen King : 8:12

Can you do A E I O U me a give me A E I O U and then we'll move into Arjun because that's a a fudge and give me a for Arjun. Is there a vowel of A in Japanese?

Imnah : 8:23

Ah, it's a is Arjun. So there you go.

Stephen King : 8:27

You paid money to learn the Japanese vowels and A is A. I mean seriously,

Imnah : 8:32

That's hard.

Stephen King : 8:33

what's what's what's you paid? How much money you paying for these Japanese I could teach you I get you guess what I get I get E is what? What's E? What's E?

Dhan : 8:44

It's Eh... Dhan is trying to defend you here. Dan is also doing free Japanese so So Dhan, can you say anything in Japanese with this free app. Yeah, actually, it will teach you sentences and introductions. So if I want to introduce myself, I would just go [Japanes]. So it is just it just means that hello, good morning. My name is Dhanyetta. I can say like if I say this camera is expensive, it has the English pronunciation so I can go [Japanese] it's based on the pronunciations so yeah,

Stephen King : 9:37

you see no sometimes it's very hard for us to make the distinction between the top of the class and the bottom of the class but i think you know what I'm gonna get

Imnah : 9:44

Hey. So level I aspire to be

Stephen King : 9:52

The top of the bottom.

Imnah : 9:55

Yeah, yes.

Stephen King : 9:59

Okay. Arjun, it's over to you now. Thank you, Dhan. We'll come back maybe in a minute. If you've got more to add to the I hope you'll come back and go give us Arjun. Tell us what you got.

Arjun : 10:10

I have been trying to study software's apparently, Adobe Audition through YouTube videos from, from Mike Russell. Right. So he's podcast. So I have been learning to do that. And so that's like, it's now pretty easy for me because I'm starting on one side, and I'm applying it on the other side. One way. And another case is like I started my course with Harvard University on Chinese, then on China and communism. Harvard is having a sort of set number of courses, which they give for free during this time, so I chosen that China and communism

Stephen King : 11:01

What exactly does China and communism help you...? What have you learned?

Arjun : 11:08

Okay, technically I didn't understand the first class after again we actually go through the first class again because I was having no idea like some of my things got distorted apparently. So I was like, cool so I did again do we do that one more time? When I get over this entire mess my intention is to do this..

Unknown Speaker : 11:35

So you know, you know when you reach my age people try to flex by saying I got an online certificate from Harvard and you just got like, I'm trying to flex like I attended a bit of a class from Harvard well done well done for trying well done for trying. That's good. Yeah. Okay, Imnah, you've risen in the ranks. Well done. You didn't have to do anything either. Brilliant. All right, smiling and laughing at the bottom. Zainab, give me give me a lesson. Give me something that you've learned or you've tried to learn.

Zainab : 12:13

Okay, so I started Arabic calligraphy a week back. So we paid for online classes. And I did some, you know, I attended a few sessions in Dubai as well. I think the online is nothing compared to what I actually learned. Because, you know, while writing there's so much like calligraphy specifically, there's a kind of pen that you have to have ink the way you see it, the kind of paper so it goes in depth, a lot of it. And this guy online, I mean, he's a really good calligrapher based in Canada, but he doesn't know anything about sort of like my talents in in the field or whatever. So he's just not able to guide me nothing. So I think you It's not worth the amount that I'm paying, especially because it's online. So it's not helpful like in one word. It's not as helpful as it would have been if I physically studied.

Stephen King : 13:14

Yeah, I can get what you mean because when I'm playing the saxophone, the coach is continuously asking me to bring to show where my fingers are on the thing so he has to try and use his experience to see what's in the tone. And to, I've got a funny story on this, I'll come with that. But he has to use his ears to determine what's going wrong and then he has to try and investigate and ask where's your fingers show me this show me the show me the other. And, you know, the other week with my saxophone I won a PlayStation four, big me up. I got a PS4 Pro from Careem and I got that from learning and after I saw my cut, so my teacher after a while, he really he told me that I was I had the the the mouthpiece upside down so I was I was practising for two weeks with the with the mouthpiece twisted the wrong way up and he and he, we went through 10 minutes in the class before he realised that that was what was wrong and he asked me for period closer he said do you know you've got it upside down and that makes a big difference so that's that's that's right so if you don't

Zainab : 14:22

online nothing is not that bad you know not for everything especially like Imnah and Angelica how they mentioned their courses. You don't need to be physically present for everything like online is really helpful but not with what you and I are learning you need to have a teacher right there guiding you every step of the way, or you just don't learn effectively so

Stephen King : 14:43

Yeah, you sort of hit and miss it's it's but it's depends on the coach. Thank you very much Zainab, that was that was really helpful. Mabel.

Mabel : 14:53

Yes. Can everyone hear me?

Stephen King : 14:58

Yes.

Mabel : 15:00

Okay, um, so just like Samira said that she was joining in with her mom's causes. I've also been sort of walking in and out of my mom taking classes. I didn't learn much, but I did see how difficult it is to sit at home and teach a class of 36 screaming students. That was an experience. I when I enrolled in a course yesterday, it's called the architectural imagination. So I was just scrolling through a bunch of free online courses. And I came across this and I was like, You know what, I want to try something. So I just enrolled for it. I haven't started yet. But I'm looking forward to doing the classes soon after this. Yep, that's basically whatever.

Stephen King : 15:43

Great, good job. We have an extension on everything, isn't it?

Zainab : 15:48

Hey, maybe what is the what what architecture is that again?

Mabel : 15:52

It's called the architectural imagination on edx.org.

Zainab : 15:59

How are you going to learn architecture online

Mabel : 16:02

I think it's more history and things like that. It's not like I'm not gonna become an architect or anything. I mean

Stephen King : 16:09

I bet you could start making your own house I mean that'd be quite useful this I think it's quite good Foster. I mean if we're going to be stuck inside for a bit longer, maybe maybe you could get the you know, the egg cartons and boxes and make yourself a little Playhouse if you've got brothers sisters, maybe they'd be quite appreciative of that maybe you could make that I think that's that's quite worthwhile. If you actually got and did the courses Thank you, Mabel, for trying to find a course at the very last minute and failing, but

Mabel : 16:42

I found it five days ago, not just

Stephen King : 16:46

Ah, but you found it five days ago and then procrastinated until the email this morning.

Mabel : 16:54

Don't get me all do it. Well,

Stephen King : 16:56

No, apparently not. We don't

Mabel : 16:58

OMG Steve

Stephen King : 17:03

Okay, then we only came in there to save him now Can you can you help us Imnah, save Mabel or throw her completely under the bus give me give me some give us some advice on how you've managed to do so well on this on this course and, and give us some tips for how you've managed to focus on learning online.

Dhan : 17:22

Okay, well for me is that mainly because I enjoy learning new languages and I've always wanted to go into like the linguistic field or like speak to other people since I have a lot of online friends. And most of them are like the Asian side, the Japanese and Chinese side. So when we are on calls with each other, it's hard for them to speak in English. So I try my best to communicate with them in Japanese and they teach me as well and also by the fact that I like anime. It's like basically the Japanese are to me. I like watching that and I push myself hard To watch the series without subtitles, so I can see how much I understand. And if I don't I go back to the app and I try to gain more information about it.

Stephen King : 18:11

Oh, that's great. That's good. So which which which anime are you recommending for us to watch any any particular?

Dhan : 18:18

I probably say a sports anime if you guys like basketball, I would go [Japanes]. Okay.

Stephen King : 18:29

Imnah agrees.

Dhan : 18:33

And there are many other animals but most of the things which I watch are like most fairytale and fantasy type, the one that I enjoy most would be Demon Slayer because it's very interesting. So I think I should watch that. It's pretty good. Okay,

Stephen King : 18:49

Good. I'll put that I think I was watching something as a few on Netflix that somehow come up but they've got bad dubbing. So I've been watching someone make quite fun. So two bits of advice. There have friends to learn with I think that's really helpful. I guess that's

Dhan : 19:03

Yeah

Stephen King : 19:03

That's I think I would agree with that. That's one of the reasons why I'm happy to play the saxophone with all of you. And because that helps improve me and I've learned a song in thought So Dhan, before we go, can you wish us goodbye in Japanese and then we'll all try to give you our best repetition starting with Arjun so listen carefully everyone to what Dhan has got to say. Go on Dhan.

Dhan : 19:25

Danne Ma Tasha

Stephen King : 19:27

Okay, Danne Ma Tasha. Right.

Dhan : 19:33

No, it's Danne Matta ashta

Stephen King : 19:37

[Perfect Japanese} Yes. Arjun. here we go!

Arjun : 19:42

[Perfect Japanese}

Stephen King : 19:45

Yeah. Imnah

Arjun : 19:48

I get it. I get it.

Imnah : 19:51

Unintelligable

Dhan : 19:53

Matashta

Angelica : 19:56

[Perfect Japanese}

Stephen King : 20:03

That's all good. Samira. That doesn't sound anything like it. Zainab

Samira : 20:18

[Perfect Japanese}

Mabel : 20:18

Danny, Natasha.

Zainab : 20:23

Danee Natasha

Stephen King : 20:24

I got a moustache, a moustache to everybody and Happy birthday, Samira and let's let's keep safe [Perfect Japanese}