Reflection on Situating tools

In this session we learned about the last ICT tool to integrate in teaching and learning called situating tool. Like the other tools we have already looked at this tool is also another meaning tool that will make teaching and learning process interesting journey. I found it very useful and engaging when I actually used it.

Situating tools are an application that helps to situate learner’s in an environment to experience the context and happenings. Few examples are simulation (flight, farming, surgery, environment, driving, history city, Sim city, play station.), virtual reality (VR).  The importance of situating tools are; situates user in an environment, comprehend and manipulate variable, communicate with other users login, foster creativity and visualization skills.

One example of situating tools is simulation and integration of it in teaching and learning will help the learner experience a certain real-life experience which is impossible or difficult to attain. Simulations are programs that teach strategies and rules which are made to apply real life situations where the computer presents simulation of real learning situation, makes learners to take decision, problem solving skills, manipulates the elements of the model as the computer provides feedback, invokes learners conceptual understanding and higher order thinking skills.  

Two types of simulation are – about something (teach) and how to do something. Simulation about something has physical simulation where users manipulate the object and processes and interactive simulations where users speed up or slow down the process to get the result . Simulation on how to something has procedural simulation where it teach appropriate sequence of steps to perform certain procedures and situational simulations where it provides hypothetical situation to ask them and react.

So, I feel that the schools which has adequate computers and access to good internet facilities  ,the teachers have the opportunity to engage the students effectively in their learning and provides opportunities to interact with the real life situations without danger, expense or difficulty and make teaching and learning process meaningful.

Reflection on constructive tool

Today we learned about integrating Constructive tool in teaching and learning. Constructivist approach to teaching and learning emphasizes on student’s need to construct their own understanding, they make sense of the knowledge and meaning, learning is more effective when students are students are actively engaged in making sense of the information which in turn fosters critical thinking, boost motivation and  they become independent learners.

Weight of 4PCE, 2019 Excel

The constructive tool are the application that help the learner to manipulate information, visualize one’s own understanding and construct one’s own knowledge. Some examples are concept map, desktop publishing program, Word, Spread sheet, Power Point which can organize, record, manipulate and present their ideas in attractive in the form of memos, reports, letters, presentations, record routine information. The computer itself can be used for manipulating information, visualizing one’s understanding and building new knowledge. The Microsoft word computer program itself is desktop publishing software that allows users to organize and present their ideas in attractive formats.

 

Explanation on season on Power point

One of the examples of constructive tool which I feel and uses most is Microsoft Power Point Presentation. I feel that not only me but many are comfortable using this application to teach and learn. The Microsoft office has other useful applications like Microsoft Document, Journal Document, Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation, Microsoft Publisher Document and Microsoft excel worksheet. In PowerPoint presentation we can create our own presentation using the features like animation, WordArt, different background images and even insert audios which makes it interesting and engaging.

So, I feel that teachers should explore and have the knowledge of ICT so that students are benefits the maximum from teachers and also provide opportunities fro them to explore and play with such technologies.

Reflection on communicative tool

The session started with the second role of the computer that is a communicative tool. We learned some of the examples of the communicative tools, categories of communicative tools, types of communications and some merits and demerits of types of communication.

Communicative tools are the applications which enable easy communications between the teacher and the students, amongst students beyond the physical barrier either by space, time or both classrooms. Unlike in the past, we don’t have to sit face to face in order to communicate or share information rather we can be elsewhere where we have to access to internet and exchange information and communicate. Few examples of the communicative tool are Gmail, Skype, chats, Facebook, and video conferencing, etc.

I also use most of the tool or apps like facebook, Wechat, Gmail mainly to communicate, share and save my files, documents, videos and images and many more. What new I learned today is that the apps we use are classified into different types of categories depending on how we use it. There are two types of communications: Synchronous and Asynchronous. The former is also known as real-time as the user both parties (receiver and sender) must be simultaneously connected, like talking in a telephone call, video conferencing and chatting when with both users being online and. The latter one doesn’t require the people communicating to be logged on the internet at the same time. This type of communicate is appropriate for activities that require more time in thinking before responding. Using emails, electronic bulletin board, Vle discussion forum, Wechat, telegram, messenger and Whatsapp falls under asynchronous communication.

We also discussed weaknesses of using discussion forums mentioned above. In synchronous communication the user should have strong access to the internet and if there is no or slow connection it will disturb and fails to keep abreast the interest of the user as it will be difficult to make prompt comments and feedbacks.

I have read beautiful articles on various topics by bloggers and now I can’t believe I have actually created my own so I can post articles which are of my concern and interest. Learning the module also taught me how to create blogs. To create a blog we need Gmail account. We explored the different feature of the blog like setting, layouts. We can change any setting in our blog so the way our blog is displayed is pleasing to our eyes and the viewers or readers.

As I reflect being able to use blogs and other communication tools mentioned will be of great use if used properly. Maintaining a blog and frequently posting articles will be a great way to store, update, improve and engage the knowledge of blogger as well as the readers. When readers comment and give feedbacks it will encourage the blogger to improve further and also increase his circle of people around him. I find it very useful so teachers should explore and integrate ICT in their lesson to have effective teaching and learning.

Reflection on Co-constructive tool

In this session we learned about yet another role of computer to teach and learn that is IT as a co-constructive tool. We looked at what the definition of co-constructive tool is, some of its examples, importance of using co-constructive tool in teaching and learning and worked on Google classroom which is a feature of Google. We concluded the session by creating our own and joining our friends Google classroom.

Co-constructive tool are applications that support the construction of knowledge through a shared understanding that is collaboratively consolidating the ideas. Google docs, electronic whiteboard, blogs and wikis, discussion forum on portals like the Moodle that we use are some examples of tools which we can use to co-construct our knowledge. Google docs, blogs and Moodle apps are free so we can use it while other tools like electronic whiteboard is not free so we don’t have access to it.

Why is it important to teach our students using computer tool is that students can co-edit meaning that they can edit each other’s work, communicate to share ideas which in turn promote collaborative learning. They are involved in series of cognitive process like explanation, problem finding and solving. Here learning becomes active and intentional as students participate to  edit and refine and construct their work.

We also discussed advantages of using Google docs which we have already learnt.  The three features of Google docs: edit, can comment and can view gives the user the full right to change the setting. The user can give right to the viewers to edit if he/she is competent enough, selects who comments and who can’t and even select who can just view their work on Google docs. Any type of changes made while working on Google docs get automatically saved. To access Google docs we can either check our mail or browse googledocs.com online and login our g-mail account which will directly take us to Google docs.

We learnt about Google classroom which is similar to Google docs which is a very useful co-constructive tool. The difference between Google docs and Google classroom is any g-mail user have in –built Google docs which they can access easily whereas for Google classroom we need to have organizational based email. For example my college email (06150282.pce@rub.edu.bt). Google classroom is a free web service developed by Google that aim to simplify creating, distributing and grading assignment in a paperless way. It should be invited through a key/private code which we can change anytime. With access to internet students can download notes, give feedbacks or comments and do their assignment on Google classroom.

Lastly, the class ended by creating our own Google classroom as a teacher and also joining in our friends’ classroom as a student and we explored the interesting feature of using it.  To access Google classroom, we have to go to googleclassroom.com with our college email logged in and either create or join Google classrooms.

Digital citizenship

We were asked to do a reading on the topic of ICT and Teacher Education: GLOBAL CONTEXT AND FRAMEWORK and Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.  as homework so under it we had a fruitful discussion on the understanding of the topic which I have discussed below.

People born on the 1980s and before are called digital immigrants and after 1890s are called digital natives. A digital citizen refers to a person who has the knowledge and skills to use digital technologies to: communicate, participate, create, the digital content with effective and positive engagement.  So educating students on it has become crucial and by educating they will have the opportunity to understand the concepts like internet safety, digital and information literacy, cyber bullying, privacy, and security, copyright, relationships, etiquette and communication and many more.

Knowing these concepts about digital literacy mean being a digital literate where one has the opportunity to grow, develop in a digital society as people and more so innocent students become exposed to the internet and they are likely to vulnerable to digital threats.  It is important to feel safe and take the best advantage of technology while using internet.

One thing I liked about digital citizenship is knowing what is privacy and security. Nowadays people upload everything they do on internet making them vulnerable to threats.  It is crucial what we upload and update on internet , doing that means we are opening and welcoming problems as cyber bullying has become one of the issues among people where to the extreme people land up killing themselves.  We have to be careful what we share on different social networking sites as there are high chances that we may fall victim to cyber bullying resulting in emotional and psychological disturbances. So, as teachers it our role to educate our students and make them aware of the advantages and threats being a digital citizen.  

Reflection on Informative Tool

In this session we learned about how we can use computer to teach and learn. Computers can play different roles depending on our needs so firstly we looked at what does using computer as a tool mean, some of the examples of computers tools followed by a short activity. We concluded the session by discussing pros and cons of using ICT in education.

Educators view on education are diverse and constantly changing so teachers also need to adapt and embrace the new pedagogies and theories on successful learning. In this digital era, children are known as digital natives meaning that they are the computer generation. The traditional methods of teaching and learning which existed for many decades where teacher is the only source of information have to replace by ICT integration and by doing so we are catering to the diverse needs of our students.

Computers can play a significant role in being used as a tool or giving access to instructional materials. Informative tool are applications which provide vast amounts of information in various formats like text, sound, image or video. A student reading a text or information online or stored in a computer, listening to an audio on their topic, simply looking at an image and making meaning out of it or watching a video lesson or tutorial on popular video sites like YouTube are all receiving information on the particular topic but through different means based on their choice. When we use computer as an informative tool we are providing raw materials to organize, reorganize and expand their knowledge and skills.

Sir instructed us to go outside and click a picture of anything that interest us. I took a picture nof our promising national flag. . He then asked us to integrate ICT to teach a lesson on the object we captured. We had a difficult time transferring the image from our phone to the lab desktop. As for me I first saved it in my google drive and later downloaded it from logging in from desktop. I chose micro soft power point to make a lesson on national prayer flag. Once we are all done, we were made to check others work in exchange of knowledge and most of them used power point. We also discussed some advantages of ICT integration in education and that is it saves time, improves engagement and encourages collaboration. To teach about a flower we don’t have to wait for summer, the time flower blooms. We can easily teach by showing different beautiful pictures of flowers to make it more enjoyable.  In this way we can make teaching and learning process enjoyable and at the same time learning takes place.

Lastly, we also discussed some of the challenges while integrating ICT in classroom. Firstly it is the competence of the teacher; he/she constantly need to update their knowledge on ICT, availability of internet access and attitudes of teacher are also some hindering factoring of ICT.

Phet Simulation

Today we learned to use simulation, one of the examples of ICT integration to teach a topic “connection in parallel” from class IV science. Sir gave a sample handout of an integrated lesson plan and explores the lesson effectiveness to the students. There are many ways to teach this topic and the simplest could be to bring the materials and manually fix them but it is not easy to give all the students all the required materials and a teacher should always keep the safety of students as the top priority. It is not always safe when dealing with electrical appliances.

When we say ICT integration, we only think of making a power point, showing images and videos that a student has already seen in real life rather it is more than that. It is making the lesson interesting by engaging the students in a positive way. The sample sir provided was one of it. It is called learning through simulation. We have to go to “PhET Simulation (HTTP://phet.colorado.eduu/en/simulation/legacy/circuit-circuit-construction-kit-ac.)” in google search engine. Click on PhET Simulation-circuit construction-down on left bottom corner-run. 

Once we get to the simulation board we can literally connect and play with the electrical appliances like a battery, switch, bulb, resistor and many more. It allows students to explore beyond the textbook knowledge. They can actually assess their understanding of the concept by trying many times and they don’t have to wait for the teacher. They can also teach one another and build many social skills necessary to function in this world. We can make students have the best and lifelong experience of their life by teaching any topic through ICT integration and making them enjoy and learn at the same time.