Situating Tools

Situating Tools

Situating tools are systems which situate users in an environment where they may experience the context and happenings. Examples of situating tools include simulations, virtual reality. By means of virtual reality (RS) extension systems, the computer can create 3-D images on display to give the user the feeling that is situated in a virtual environment.  The advantages of using situating tools are that we can guide the students learning and at the same time students also get the supportive services from the ICT.

Our tutor has introduced us some of the situating application through various activities such as simulation on pH scale, circuit construction Kit, exploring information on Google map. From that lesson I have got lots of takeaway and I am amazed to see and experience such new ideas where with the help of ICT tools the learners are being experienced to the real situation and it made the teaching and learning very comfortable and easier.  It has got different benefits for teacher and students as its open up all sensory of a child/ teacher. On top of that I felt that with the help of situating tools it can ease the barriers for teacher and make learning more realistic as it’s helpful for teacher to deliver his/ her lessons even without materials. Its pursuit user to situate him/her in the environment, best strategies to comprehend every concept through process and steps of different subject given in the simulation and it can really give hands on learning experiences. It motivated us to teach creatively for students using simulation and it also help students to build up their sense of creativeness in learning for various subjects.

Another exciting experience that I gained from the lesson was about the Google map. Before that I have no idea that Google maps can be that beneficial. I thought that the use of Google maps is just to refer the locations. But we can use Google maps beyond that. Especially for the Geography and social studies subjects rather than manually calculating the areas and time it can really give real experiences for students calculate time, distance and areas. 

Graphing was another thing that simulated my interest to learn mathematics. While sir was taking us through the graphing concepts I really found useful and it excited me to know more as it made the learning easier. Before knowing the concepts about graphing I had very hard time calculating the coordinates to graph a simple linear equation. But the way we did using ICT tools was thought capturing as I can easily compare, identify and plot a graph easily. Like that of my experience I am also sure that students can also fine it really interesting and easy to capture the concepts easily in a creative way.

Co-constructive tools

ICT as co-constructive tool

The co-constructive tool is a applications that support the construction of knowledge through a shared understating (collaboratively consolidate the ideas. Learners use co- constructive tools to work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge. It gives lots of opportunities for learners to make learning choices. Examples; Google docs, electronic white board, blogs and a discussion forum. The co-constructive tool enables students to develop the skills and confident to become highly effective independent learners, taking ownership of their own learning.

I really liked the idea of integrating co-constructive tool in educational purpose because it links students in different geographic locations exceeding the boundary of class to work on same topic.   And the way learners are engaged in very productive work, as they get the ownership of editing, commenting and make any type of changes on others work and the learners even get to learn different and creative ideas from their friends as well.

When we were working on Google docs for our assignment I felt like it’s a wonderful way for us to collaborate on assignments. Instead of us turning in a rough draft of a paper and waiting several days to get the draft back.  Co-constructive tools are very convenient tool where we can get immediate feedback on our works which makes learning more immediate. These tools provide impulsive information sharing, constructing knowledge and stimulate personal growth.  

The co-constructive tools shared a lot of advantages for both educator and learners as it helps in developing creative partnership within the friends and teacher. It helps learner to become highly effective independent learners as they take ownership of their learning. Integrating co-constructive tools in teaching and learning would be very helpful since it’s very engaging and very exciting to teach and learn differently apart from classroom teaching and learning experiences.

Reflection on ICT as constructive tool

ICT as constructive tools

Constructivism seeks to connect theory to practice and views students as “thinker, creator and constructor” of his own knowledge. Constructive tools are a general purpose tool that can be used to manipulate information, construct their own knowledge or visualize students understanding. Constructive  tools such as Microsoft Word or Power Point has a strong impact in the educational environment. This tool is based on the idea of constructivist believe that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous knowledge and this prior knowledge influences what new or modified knowledge and individual will construct from new learning experience.  Adding constructive activities to the lesson will be great way to make more active learning experiences, promote student agency, and develop advanced skills such as critical thinking, analysis, evaluation and creation.

This tool is a way ahead of facilitating effective teaching and learning. Integration of constructive tool is also one of the teaching pedagogy. Teacher can use these tools to deliver the contents in the form of PowerPoint and any other tools making it more creative and attractive. It provides opportunity to students, to use technology in conventional ways to build knowledge and experiences. For example, activation of former learning activities such as KWL chart erects a structure upon which information can be built are also effective but when this activities are done on computers, there is more opportunity for individual construction and reflection and capacity for inserting tables and graphics may add to promote visual retention for the learner. Additionally, ability to store these individual constructions on computer enhances the probability that they will be reused and reviewed.

PowerPoint is a widely used constructive tool where we can use graphics, add animation and any other multimedia features and it is very advantageous in the context of increasing creativity among students. When we are given the activity to create the simulation advertisement of our locality, despite having knowledge of my locality it gave an opportunities to explore more about the locality and to create simulation. By getting lots of knowledge on this content it helped me to come up with the unique simulation. I got the skill-based training for authoring the tools and fundamental concepts of incorporating multimedia design process. In addition, this tool provides impulsive information sharing, constructing knowledge and stimulated personal growth.   

I found out that constructive tool is very engaging where students get expose to different sources and information to construct their own knowledge. Unlike teaching in traditional classes we can always keep our students engaged through the integration of constructive tool in our lesson to have interactive session, or to have students centered sessions. It always helps learner to learn in absence of teacher and allows learners to participate actively in learning. 

Communicative tools

ICT as communicative tool

Communicative tool is an application which allows easy communication between two or more people. In school these communicative tools enables interaction between teacher and the students, among students. Examples: use of emails, we chat, messenger, telegram and all. These tools allow interaction among learners and a teacher despite physical barriers. With the advent of education technology, a wealth of brilliant new tools presents themselves to the educator to stay effectively connected to students at all time and in an exciting different ways. Communicative tools allow students to communicate with each other through emails, chat room, and discussion board to share information effectively. This allows for an extensive community of learners all worthy for specific goal. 

There are two types of communicative tools:

1.      Synchronous

Synchronous tools enable real time communication and collaboration in a “same time- different place” mode. Any learning tools that is in real time such as instant messaging that allows students and teacher to ask and answer questions immediately is   synchronous. Students can interact with other students and their teacher during the lesson rather than learning on their own.  Synchronous communication enables students to avoid feeling of isolation. However synchronous learning is not as flexible in terms of time.

2.  Asynchronous

Asynchronous enable communication and collaboration over a period of time, through a “different –time- different place” mode. Asynchronous communication can be carried out even when the students or teacher is offline.  Asynchronous e-learning includes course work and communications delivered via web, email, and message posted on community forums. Asynchronous tools are useful for sustaining dialogue and collaboration over a period of time and follow the curriculum at their own space without having to worry about scheduling conflict.

Apart from the many communicative tools blogging is one of the convenient tools where students can write blog posts and create digital portfolios under teacher’s supervision. Blogging can give students a real life application to communication.  Ideally for effective teaching and learning it should include both synchronous and asynchronous communication. This allows students and teacher to benefit from the different delivery formats regardless of their schedule or preferred learning methods.

Informative tools

Reflection on ICT as informative tool.

What do we know about the ICT as informative tools?What do we know about the usefulness and appropriateness of informative tools for educational purpose? What are the advantages of using ICT as informative tools?

ICT plays a vital role and contributes to universal access to education, equity in education and the delivery of quality teaching and learning.  Technology has been supported in various ways to teach and learn. It is important to acknowledge that students are already interested and engaged in using technology because it gives amazing opportunities for teacher and students to improve their knowledge retention, encourage individual learning, collaboration and acquire many important skills. The integration of ICT tools such as informative, communicative, constructive, co-constructive and situating tools can take us through the different stage of teaching and learning. For now I will reflect on what an informative tool is and how it helps in effective teaching and learning process.

Informative tools are applications that provide various information in different format such as video, audio, text, internet and graphics. ICT has made our teaching and learning more convenient and effective. And I believe that with the rapid changes in education system demands hands-on-experience and the use of ICT. Learning from different informative tool is much better than learning from normal lecture as we get to explore lots of information from different sources. Through this we are learning effectively, provided with the creative idea to reshape our existing knowledge.   

Among the informative tools internet is one of the most appropriate and most preferred informative tool used in educational purposes. Let me reflect on how internet serves educational purposes. The development of internet technologies has raised the education system. Nowadays students are engaged through e-learning to continue their learning and it has changed the way students are being taught. Internet application responds to student’s question in real –time. As we can see multiple information uploaded on the internet, it helps the learning process as it simplifies the knowledge and visualizes what is being taught. Through the session on informative tools I learned that in order to have effective teaching and learning the teacher needs to provide the information / references/ content for the student in the beginning, during or after the activity. When we use ICT as informative tools we get to learn how to integrate relevant ideas, analyze the information and develop web evaluation skills. 

The informative tools have been crucial in the evaluation of education system in various ways. Hence it should be used for good purposes. It has had a great impact on imparting education to the children. This informative tools make content more enjoyable and leads to higher order thinking skills and students can gain genuine learning experience , collaboratively constructing their own knowledge and applying their learning’s in real-world context.