Co-constructive tool

A co-construction tool is an approach, where it is an emphasis on collaboration, and partnership working. It also includes the interactional process such as cooperation and coordination. Co-construction is a concept that students can use to help them learn from others and expand their knowledge. It is also applications that support construction of knowledge through a shared understanding, shared ideas and thoughts collaborative and reconstruction of knowledge ideas from different users. 

The communication and dialogue between the teacher and learners that focuses on learning is one-way methods for co-construction. Through co-construction, the students will able to explore and share their views in term of learning.  They can able to build a relationship between society to have effective communication and learning.  The co-construction is important for developing creative partnerships within the classroom as well as societies.

Students can use constructive tools to work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge.  Co-Construction is a web-based custom builder and remodeler software that optimizes the day to day operations of builders, modelers and design-build firms. Students may also co-edit the same document from their homes using Google docs.

We also did an activity where we were divided into group and asked to make an ICT integrated lesson plan on Google docs. Each group had three members. Our group decided to make the lesson on science subject. Each of us discussed on how to make the plan and on what topic we should be focusing on. Then we slowly put our ideas on the document all the while editing and still discussing. This was an enriching activity.

Preparing a video tutorial using camtesia 

This was our second assignment on preparing a video lesson using camtesia. Each of us was given specific topic and subject to work on. Mine was mathematics, grade four and the topic was multiplying by tens and hundreds. The first thing I did was go through the teachers’ guide to check out how to teach my lesson. Then I prepared a PowerPoint presentation slide on the lesson. The next thing to do was to film myself teaching the lesson.

My video of teaching needed to synchronize with the presentation slides so I had to record my computer screen and my teaching lesson simultaneously. It was a challenge to use the software because we weren’t a native to it. There were so many features that were unfamiliar and each time I tried to use it, something went wrong with the video and it ended up me having to re-record it for several times. 

This activity falls under constructive tool; the video tutorial is an example of it. This activity helped me to combine both PowerPoint presentation tool and video to enhance the students’ enthusiasm in learning. It also added fun to learn the lesson since there was use of colorful images and animations. Although it is a little time consuming, this can be done once in a while to keep the learner’s engaged and the teacher upgraded.

Overall the experience of this task has been overwhelming and stressful. One needs to really get accustomed to using the software to function swiftly. It is a wonderful way to upgrade and turn away from the traditional style of teaching. It is one of the most needed skill in order to survive the 21^st century education system.

Constructive tool of ICT

It is s a general purpose tool that can be used to manipulate information, construct using students’ own knowledge or visualize their understanding. Constructive too such as Microsoft word or PowerPoint has a strong impact in the educational environment and is widely used in most organizations in the form of memos, reports, letters and presentations. This tool is based on the idea of constructivists believe in personal construction of meaning by learner through experience and that meaning is influenced by interaction of prior knowledge and new events.

This tool is away to generate new ways in teaching and learning through technology. The teachers can present their lesson using PowerPoint and this will make the students love the lesson. It will also decrease the memorization and route learning which was prevalent in most of the learning at school. It helps the learners to research using a wide range of resources on the internet and then enabling them to create their own knowledge using creativity.

Since there is a lot of information on the internet, the constructive tool triggers learning by helping learner to adopt, explore and practice. For example, Microsoft Word manages to help students to make correct sentences and texts as well as modern word processors include spelling check and dictionaries and grammar checkers. PowerPoint is advantageous in the context of increasing creativity among students and the Excel will expose students to learn design and statistical data.

We also designed a virtual tour guide of our hometown using simulation. We were asked to prepare it in one slide and that was a challenge until we figured out how it works. I made mine on Trashigang and talked about the district, the best places to visit and the kind of sports the people there play. We were asked to put audio in the form of music and recording and then submit the work.

How to blog

A blog is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject. Last session we learned how to create a blog so we could write our reflection on the five constructive tools. This time I am going to write down how we were asked to create a blog for ourselves. We were given a video tutorial and asked to follow the steps.

We created our blog on blogspots.com but to create any blog account an email account was necessary. Once we get into the new dashboard, we are to follow a series of steps before the final finish. We first need to choose a title for the blog. It should be something related to what we are going to write and blog about. Then we need to create a blogging address for a domain name. This address will help people find us on the internet. 

Next we have to choose a template for our blog and we were asked to choose ethereal theme for uniformity. After pressing the ‘create blog’ button, our blog is ready. We can edit our profile if we want to and then post articles related to the topic. I chose my title as integrating ICT in teaching and learning and my blog address is lhadenictastoolsforteaching.blogspot.com. This is my third post to the blog and to keep the readers engaged we need to keep up with the regularity of blogging.

Blogging for business, projects, or anything else that might bring money have a straightforward purpose. Another purpose of blogging is to connect to the world to relevant audience. The more frequent, the better the blog posts are.. Blogs also promote perfect reading engagement and a chance to comment and voice different concerns to the viewer. Therefore a blog is a strong communicative tool

ICT as communicative tool

Communicative tools are systems that allow easy communication between teachers and students or between students outside the physical barrier classroom. It is including e-mails, electronic bulletin boards, chat, teleconference and any more. Students email, blog, chat to discuss a topic, dissect an issue, dialogue and interpreting each others’ information. They use the tool to collaborate and to produce a product consolidated from individual contribution.

There are two types of communicative tools. The first one is called a synchronous communicative tool which included chat or video conferences enabling the users a real time communication. It is normally used for instructional activities that require a higher level of interaction to make the students understand. It also helps solve urgent problems or issues at a faster rate and with more convenience and without the need to wait for it.

 

This was the time when we had a google meet with our tutor and talked on the communicative tool.

The difficulties of this communicative tool are mainly of the multiple threads of discussions. This makes it hard to keep track of the discussions that are going on. Then if people are situated in places where the internet connectivity is very slow, it makes the learner lose their enthusiasm. Sometimes the one discussion may lead to many other side discussions and this will make the lesson diverge from its objectives. Also those learners who are slow at typing will take time to type their comments and this will lead to further frustration. 

The second is called an asynchronous communicative tool. This is a system in which exchange of messages between people are not ‘live’ but somehow delayed. This type of tool is most appropriate for activities requiring more time to think before responding. For example, the virtual learning environment is easy to use as it is primarily text-based system and the learners can take their own time at exploring the question and posting a good answer.

The difficulties with this tool are the frequency of participation from the learners is minimized because somehow having the time to think and post and read other learner’s comments makes one lose the count of task and forget it. Another is the amount of times one needs to check on the discussion done is an additional task. The learners need to maintain a consistency with their participation in the discussion and sometimes this leads to them losing interest in learning.