SEVENTH REFLECTION

Camtasia

Camtasia Studio is ingenious piece of video software for PC and Mac users that allows to record on-screen activity, edit/modify content and then share the video on various platforms. Camtasia provides educators with the perfect solution to easily create videos that motivate students, inform parents and enhance learning.

It is convenient for creating video tutorials and presentations directly by screen cast or by a direct recording plug in to Microsoft PowerPoint. The screen area to be recorded can be freely chosen and audio or other multimedia recordings may be recorded at the same time. Some other reasons why we have to use Camtasia may be User-friendly, Easy to share, beneficial features and for informative videos.

Steps to create a video in Camtasia:

Step 1. Choose a topic / Start with a plan

If you want to learn how to make tutorial videos or other instructional videos it all begins with great planning. Decide what you will be including in your video, whether it will be a complication of videos or just photos.

Start by choosing a topic that is focused on a specific task or piece of content that your viewers need to learn. Consider the most common and critical tasks that they struggle with and start there. Then use that information to choose a tutorial topic that will best help your target group. Make sure your topic is narrowly focused. Videos with a single, focused topic are easier to create and often make for more successful instructional content.

Step 2. Create a storyboard and write a script

Once you have chosen a topic, create a storyboard to help visualize what you want to show. It’s also good idea to write a script or basic outline of what you’d like to teach. To make your script a smooth and natural feel, use words you’d use in everyday conversations.

Don't just tell viewers what’s going on, show them. Instead of simply saying what's happening on-screen, let those actions speak for themselves and use this time to add context with the voice over or narration.

Step 3. Capture your footage or record your computer screen

Collect any equipment props or tools you need for your video. Next, stage your recording space and make sure the area is well lit. When the scene is set, use your storyboard and script to guide you through each step. The Camtasia video editor makes it simple to record your voice over with built-in voice narration.

When you’re ready, record the script and make sure to speak slowly and clearly. If you make a mistake, don’t start over. Simply pause and start again right before you made the mistake. You can always remove mistakes when you’re finished.

Step 4. Start your project and import the footage

With your footage recorded, you’re ready to jump into Camtasia. Open Camtasia and create a new project. If you record your screen, Camtasia will automatically bring up a new project or add your recording to the existing project you’re working on. You can also transfer the media to your computer, and then import it by clicking the plus sign in the media bin and selecting import media. Then choose the files to add to your project.

Step 5. Arrange and edit your video

With all of your media in Camtasia, drag clips to the timeline and position them in the order you want to them to appear in the video. Trim excess portions of a clip by mousing over the edge and dragging. Cut from the middle of a clip by placing the playhead where the cut should begin, dragging the playhead to select the portion of the clip to remove, and then click the cut button.

Step 6. Add polish with an intro sequence /Sync your audio and video

With your audio narration on the timeline, use clip speed and extend frame to sync the pace of your video with your narration.

For example, if you need more time to explain a concept, split the clip and use extend frame to freeze the video. Or if you want to speed up a boring part of your recording, add clip speed, and then drag the handles to speed it up.

Step 7. Produce and share your video

When you have the video the way you like it, you’re ready to produce and share. And the last step in creating a tutorial is to save the video. Think about where you want this video to live and choose a share destination.  Click the share button and choose local file to export the video file to your computer.

We recommend sharing your video with a few people to get feedback. This is a great way to make sure your message is clear, and your video is accomplishing your goals.

SIXTH REFLECTION

Creating blog

A blog is an informational website available on the World Wide Web and it consists of often informal diary style text entries. Every time we get an access to internet or let’s say while logging in to face book, we do come across a lot of pages. Having said that every one of you might have came across some of the well-liked pages where people uphold a kind of daily journal or even narrates stories or so. This kind of journal is known as blogs.  Blogs can be maintained either on a daily basis or the other way around. Blogs are easily accessible to every one of us to convey their messages. Posts are classically displayed in reverse sequential order, so that the most recent post appears first.

I follow few blogs of some famous writers, but never really gave a thought of creating one. I was aware of blogs and I wish for those who take some time to scribble something in their blog.  I found some blogs are so inspiring and adapt to analyze the things they have written. I found that it was really helpful, as it ensured that I gained new information. Not all the information I got was relevant but noting what I found informative contributed to my ability to form an overview on re-reading. It could be even kept as a source of information where people can refer it for some academic purposes.

Being introduced to the ways of creating blogs and why should it be created, we learnt the process of creating our own blog. To create any kind of blogs we first need to have a google account by going through the website www.gmail.com which is a must. After that we had to go the blog address which is www.blogger.com and then create a title (world of technology for example). After that set address to that title. For example, worldoftechnology.blogspot.com.

We were then asked to change the theme and make the blog attractive. There were a lot of links one of them was ‘tags or labels’ which was for us to view the key point and also for the audience. We have the full control of who all can view our blogs and regarding the comments as well. I have created the blog and wrote reflections regarding the ICT module. This is one of the blogs and I hope it would be helpful to those reading my blog. With that I can express myself and share my thoughts, share knowledge and we can make a difference.

For additional information please visit the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-4d7Od8C283mrOCggOwQ7b4ROE0vu6Vf/view?usp=sharing

FIFTH REFLECTON

I got to believe that the usage of ICT has its own advantageous and disadvantages. Well-known phrases like a cliché, many affirm that coin has two sides. If the coin has two sides, why ICT won’t have the two sides? And I often heard people talking “if there is advantages in something, there has to be some disadvantages”. After joining this college, I was introduced to the world of ICT, observed and experienced immense things regarding the ICT. So, today I want to reflect upon it? Though the normal routine on reflecting and writing on the luggage of learning of ICT during my life of college, today I take a time to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of ICT that I have experienced since first semester of my college and till the moment.

I am intensely blessed that the college opened my eyes for the ICT world and I could learn and acquire infinite and immeasurable skills that I could competently use it to sustain in the world of technology. But I think I have become too much dependent on ICT. If we don’t know how to use, it is wastage of time, misusage of time. In distinction to the amendment ICT brought in me, a room of negative feelings over the too dependence on ICT. Recurrently, I find myself being over powered by the influence of ICT. Rather than using my mental cognition to answer to the questions or to solve any problems, I find myself only depending on the internet to be my source of answer. Critical thinking, analyzing power, the skills of high order thinking has corrupted over the years.

I agree that ICT makes our life easy and comfortably. We could get the information from anywhere but it also destroys the life of most of the people. I found many of my friends being taken towards the negative direction by the ICT. They meet online friends, spent hours and hours for the social media, letting the precious time travel to the valley of feebleness.

The mobile phones are another dependable tool that kills the concentration of learners in the class. Even in the presence of teacher in the class, few of my friends make the teacher as the invisible. Their eyes would be only with the phone and actually aren’t truly paying the concentration. Thus, it becomes another reason of resulting incompetent and incapable teacher. I feel we need to learn immensely on the usage of ICT appropriately. With right, responsibilities have to be taken account. So, I want say that in the wrong hands, this thing could be dangerous.

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.