FOURTH REFLECTION

Google classroom

In this world of technology, ICT has been developing rapidly. It has become a vital responsibility for each and every one of us to outfit ourselves with the basic knowledge of technology. All the skills learned are very useful in our daily life. More over recently, we have learned about creating Google Classroom. Google classroom is a free, blended learning platform that offers a variety of benefits for both students and teachers. I found it very engaging and productive if we use, once we go in the teaching field.

Google classroom is very expedient to use because it can be accessed from any computers via Google chrome or any other electronic devices regardless of platform. All the files uploaded by teachers and students are stored in a classroom folder on Google drive which can be used as a future reference for both teachers and students. Users can access classroom anytime and anywhere. Those students who are absent in the class can access missed work and locate other resources that they need and the students will never feel like they are left behind.

The classroom also provides students with exposure to an online learning system which is really interesting. It will reduce the use of paper, and your back will thank you when you are no longer carrying that giant bag full of books. The students will no longer fear of losing their important works. Students can work flawlessly wherever they are, without worrying about losing progress due to computer malfunction and other reasons. Students can refer to those two-week or more old 

assignments or notes they missed and they can also refer to the rubrics or other materials frequently. 

  

These days every teacher complains about workloads and syllabus coverage. That is mainly because of poor time management and I think we can solve this problem by using Google classroom. With all resources saved in one place and ability to access the classroom from anywhere, teachers will have more free time to complete other task. Since classroom can be accessed from a mobile device, teacher and students can participate through their phones or tablets. Teacher may use the “create question” feature to post questions to the class and allow students to respond to one another. That way, the teacher can know how far the students understand and may not have to consume time explaining what they already know.

Google classroom brace and built the relation between peoples. Teacher and students can send emails, post to the stream, send private comments on assignments, and provide feedbacks on work. It can also promote the communication among teachers, parents and students regarding announcement and due dates of assignment through emails.

Integration of Google classroom is really engaging for students to learn. Classroom offers numerous ways to make learning interactive and collaborative. It offers teacher the ability to differentiate assignments, include videos and web pages into lessons, and create collaborative group assignments. When creating an assignment, teachers have the option of sending it to the whole class or to individual.  I am so lucky that I got to learn an ICT module which will be really helpful in our near future as a teacher.

 

THIRD REFLECTION

I have learned that integrating ICT into teaching and learning solely depend upon the teacher's creativity and the way the teacher uses technologies to teach children to make them understand better. After attending the FIT class, I came to know that ICT plays a vital role in teaching and learning. Through the use of ICT in the classroom, unlike in the past, there won’t be monotonous teaching and learning rather it will boost up the active participation from the students and also helps in promoting the needs and the skills required in the 21^st century.

When I was in school there was no such facility. So, we had a hard time both teachers and learners in terms of teaching and learning. Every time we rely on the teacher because there are the main sources of the information and we always have to depend on our teachers for all kinds of information. To my surveillance one of the key features of the universities in Bhutan is the mode of assignments; everything has to be done using technologies and the internet. From the very beginning itself, we are undertaken with a course called, ‘FIT' where the tutors familiarized us with the basic use of electronic devices (laptop, computers), which plays a vital role while doing our assignments. 

In the first semester, our class was divided into small groups and we were assigned a work where we had to prepare a brochure each. We were asked to design a brochure in soft copy which would activist health tips. Having gone through the FIT classes I and my group members had a little knowledge about the usage of laptops and computers. We asked ourselves, what we already know about brochures. We also made sure to consider anticipated audiences and possible purposes. Then, we decide to make a brochure each and choose the best one at the end.

One fine evening I walked towards the computer lab to get started with my work. I started the window and the first thing I did was that I browsed some of the samples from the search engines.

I opened a Microsoft word, and then I inserted some pictures related to my topic. After that, I wrote down some of the key points or appealing statements under the pictures. So, after editing several times, I could finally come up with a brochure which was acceptable to my group members. One fine day we gathered along with our brochures which were printed out.

This assignment has encouraged me to make connections between audience/ purpose and characteristics to reinforce the concepts. It was a great opportunity for us to explore and learn new thing in our life. I really enjoyed and it was a very fruitful experience besides having some challenges while doing the assignment. It was from that assignment where I came to know how the assignments could be manipulated in order to make it a better one. All in one, I just realized that the usage of computers and having computer knowledge really adds value to our work. At that time if we were asked to prepare a handmade brochure, then we would have had a tough time drawing, painting, writing and so on. Fortunately, we were asked to prepare it using a computer which really eased our work and gave us an opportunity to explore and experiment more on the usage of computers. There are lots of benefits while using technologies in our daily lives.

Thank you!!!

SECOND REFLECTION

In this world of technology, ICT has been developing rapidly. It has become a vital responsibility for each and every one of us to outfit ourselves with the basic knowledge of technology. Here are some benefits of using technology; it improves engagement of learning, improves knowledge retention of learners; encourages collaborative learning and it also help teachers in teaching.

Well, integrating ICT in teaching and learning made our students learn through fun. In this 21^st century, integration of ICT became the medium of instruction between teachers and students. That is why; our government has started encouraging teachers to integrate ICT in the lesson.

ICT in education has been associated with the growing shift in the quality of people’s lives by improving teaching and learning. This is why a number of schools are progressively integrating ICT in their primary school education system. Through this exceptional teaching method, students gain authentic learning experience, collaboratively constructing their own knowledge and applying their learning in a real world context. In the near future to help my students, I am competent to use power point feature in the classroom, which I feel that makes my students more eagerness and retain knowledge. This will make my students learn more efficiently, because they will be excited to learn something in different way.

 

Power point would improve student learning for every lesson because it will allow them to be able to see the relationship of everyday objects with what teacher is teaching in the class. In most of the case, real life objects are not always readily available for teachers to help enhance student’s learning. So, pictures in the slide could substitute for the lack of the actual object. Power point can be an effective tool to present material in the classroom and encourage student learning. Power point can be used to project visuals which would otherwise be difficult to bring to class. For example, in germination lesson, a single power point presentation could project the images of germination and a video on germination that provides students with information.

Using power point can address student’s learning preferences through the projection of, color, images, video and shapes for visual learners. Sound and music for auditory learners, and interactive slides which ask students to do something, for kinesthetic learners.

Using power point in classroom saves time and energy because once the presentation has been produced, it is easy to revise and can make any changes if needed. Power point is portable and can be easily shared with students so that they can refer during their free time. We can also put images, video, audio and animation to make the lesson interesting because power point supports multimedia. Lastly, I just realized that usage of computers and having computer knowledge really adds value to our work. By now I am sure to say that I have acquired some knowledge about the use of technologies, yet there are many more exciting and interesting things to learn.

Thank you!

FIRST REFLECTION

The educational system in our country is adopting new technologies to incorporate ICT in the teaching and learning process, to set up students with the comprehension and skills they need in their subject matter. In this way, the teaching profession can promote the shift to a learner-centered environment. Even the use of ICT into the learning environment has made a greater focus on the teamwork among students, increase learning motivations and engagement.  And I believe that the use of ICT in the classroom is very prominent as it provides opportunities for both mentor and students to access, to manipulate and retrieve information. Moreover, it also encourages independent and active learning.

Technologies (computers, laptops, mobile phones, etc) can be used effectively in a series of different ways to advance teaching and learning. ICT can help to widen one's thinking in a range of various ways including reasoning, understanding, and creativity. They also have the potential to transform the nature of education where and how learning takes place and the roles of students and teachers in the learning process. Though ICT plays a vital role in shaping students learning, the assistance and support from the teacher should remain constant. In a way, it creates a conducive learning environment.

Though it has got a huge positive and negative impact on teaching and learning yet more importantly learning through ICT is always fun, easier to comprehend, and foster internal and external collaboration. ICT caters the needs of everyone, everywhere if we use it positively. Use of ICT in teaching and learning makes lessons interesting and livelier. And tools like social networking site (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs) offer opportunities for people to express our creativity, showcase our works and makes it available to the large audience.

During our school days, our teachers use the traditional way of teaching. There was little opportunity for us to explore but, now technology has developed so fast and it has a great impact on teaching and learning. For instance, if we have to look for information, we need not have to depend on teachers but we can always browse through the net and get any information we want. This has made the learners to get the relevant information and learn on their own making teaching and learning much easier. The use of ICT in the classroom helps to make teaching and learning interesting through the use of PowerPoint presentations, video clips, google classroom, wechat discussion forum, vle forum and many more.