Phet simulation as a situating tool

Phet simulation is the name of a website developed and maintained by the University of Colorado, we can visit the website through https://phet.colorado.edu/ This website provides educational simulations which provide virtual learning. we can either search our topic and select our subject from physics, chemistry, maths, biology, and earth science.

I am lucky to have known this website where I can download or play the simulation on the website, this will help me let my students explore on the topic and learn virtually. Here I can provide a link to my students and let them learn through this simulation. 

For example: To teach my students about circuit construction, I can provide the link https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/circuit-construction-kit-dc-virtual-lab/latest/circuit-construction-kit-dc-virtual-lab_en.html, students click on this link and do their experiment there. 

Students have the authority to use and explore the materials inside the simulation to construct the right circuit.

Benefits of using phet simulations are:

1. Engages students in deep learning- apart from in-class activities, students will be curious to try out the simulation. This will let them explore and focus on the simulation where they will learn better. 
2. Practical view: students will get the feeling of reality when they learn through simulations
3. Improve retention: Students will remember for a longer time when they do it on your own. Playing with simulation lets them learn through play and will help them remember for a longer period of time. 

There are tons of simulations on this website and I suggest my readers try these simulations. 

My experience with google classroom as constructive tool.

Google Classroom, for me, was the most suited application to be used between teachers and students. My experience was solely developed from the activity that I have done. The activity was on creating a classroom in google classroom.



Creating a classroom: before creating a classroom, I logged in with my google account and opened the google classroom app. Then I clicked on + sign and I am given the option to join a class or create a class. Then, I am required to fill-up the class name, section, subject and room. Inside the virtual, I have four taps:

• Stream- Here stream acts as a social platform, whatever happens in the classroom is notified. It will show the latest news about happenings in the google classroom. For, if a teacher posts an announcement, it will be shown under the stream tab or even when a teacher uploads anything a reading material or a video, it will be notified. The teacher can even use this tab to post an announcement. I have posted an announcement in my class to let the students know that I have uploaded some materials for students to read. 
• Classwork: Under the classwork tab, I can create assignment, quiz, upload material and I can even reuse my previous posts. I have uploaded a pdf reading file, a youtube video link and a web link for students to go through under the materials tab. I even uploaded an assignment task under which I used a pdf file, a video link and a web link for students to go through before doing their assignments. I even prepared an online quiz for the students to do. This was prepared as a second assignment. Inside the quiz, I have used five different question types for students to attempt. 
• People: Under this tab, I can even invite a co-tutor or students from there using their e-mail. To invite someone I can even give them the google classroom code from my profile. 
• Grades: under grades, I can view the marks of students for their assessments. 

Making of a promotional video: This was a challenging task as I had to firstly, record the video and then I had to edit it and finalize and uploaded under materials for students to go through.

Here is my promotional video. 

I would suggest my readers try out google classroom as it provides plenty of features to use to make teaching and learning easier and fun. 

Reflection: ICT as a situating tool

The modern technologies can play a very vital role in our day to day life. These technologies can also act as a situating tool. I can define situating in ICT to locate or situate places, measuring distance, and learning in a virtual environment.
For me, even though I have an android gadget and applications that can help me to situate information and locate places, I rarely used it.
Let me share my understanding and some of the features that Google Maps provides.

1. Measuring distance: I am in disbelief when my tutor said that we can measure the distance between two places. These for me was new learning. I always wanted to know the distance between Paro Dzong and Paro College where I take about 20 minutes to walk. I directly used my google account and checked in google maps. There I found, the distance between was  1.33km.
2. Calculating time: here, to calculate the time we can easily find out the longitude of a place and direction, whether the place is east or west of Greenwich. Here, we can use the longitude and direction of the place to Greenwich and calculate time.
   
3. Measuring area: I am also able to find the area of any land. Here, I can easily calculate the area of any place I want. As a test, I have measured the area of my college football pitch. I got the area 7315.05 square centimetre. 
4. Street view: This is the feature I liked the most about google map as we can view like as if we are at that place. It provides 3D images which makes it more realistic. 

So, to my readers, I suggest you all try out google maps to the features in it. There are tons of things you can do with google map and makes our work easier.

Reflection: ICT as a co-constructive tool

I have understood that applications that provides the learners to construct knowledge through shared understanding with other learners is referred to as a co-constructive tool in ICT. Reflecting upon myself about the use of co-constructive tools, I was familiar with some of these tools such as Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and wechat.

VLE provided me with the platform where I can put up my doubts and ask questions to my tutor as well as my classmates. It also gave me an opportunity to respond and share my views on a certain topic. This helped with an opportunity to learn together with tutor and other friends even though we are not physically together.

Wechat, on the other hand helped me to discuss about assignments and work collaboratively with my assignment partners. It also helped me to discuss with the use of audio messages, where I can elaborate and explain my opinions in detail. 

My experience with the use of google doc will be shared in my upcoming posts. 

My experience with google doc as a co-constructive tool

"Google docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs." -unknown


It was a good experience to learn and use google doc in ICT in teaching and learning module. I get to explore the smart features and advantages of google doc. This application helped me to work with my friends to develop an assignment. I used google doc to plan an ICT integrated lesson as per the instruction provided by my module tutor.

In a group of three, my friend started google doc by opening google doc application and invited us with the right to edit. We also invited our module tutor by giving the right to comment. We started to develop our lesson by discussing through the comments section. We discussed about the subject and topic to plan our lesson. 

We even used most of the microsoft word features in google doc, starting from different fonts and fonts sizes, inserting table, adding images, and paragraphs as well. 


Using this application, I have realized that online discussions can be effective, group task can be done on the same document through online and we can also keep track of our work. 
To sum up, I really loved the features present in google doc and I suggest all the readers to try using it. 

My experience with facebook as an informative and communicative tool

Facebook is an amazing application where we can share our memories and view others post, check what they are up to. It's running my fifth year using Facebook. I am able to view my posts from 2015 and I can always share those with my families and friends.

This year I have used Facebook as an application to share a video lesson. The video lesson is shared on a Facebook page, where my classmates have also posted a video. This page was an effective informative app, students who are in class 5 can easily visit the page and watch it to understand the topic.

I am also able to get the right information during times like covid19, where many users post false information through unreliable sources. I am get to read the right information thropugh reliable sources such as, Prime Minister's Office - PMO, Bhutan, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Ministry of Health, Royal Government of Bhutan. 

Reflection- ICT as a constructive tool

Constructivist approach to teaching and learning believes that students need to construct their own understanding of a subject through critical thinking and active engagement as independent learners. This provides students to learn in absence of teacher by using wide range of resources from the net.

ICT based constructive tools can help learners to manipulate information, visualize ones understanding, and construct one’s own knowledge.

Some examples of constructive ICT applications can be;

1.     Concept map; this allows the learner to brainstorm and visualize their understanding of relationship among a collection of concepts. There are plenty of applications that can help learners to connect ideas, organize information, and to incorporate new learning to their prior understanding of a subject. Some concept mapping apps are; MindMeister, Popplet, SimpleMind, and Inkflow Visual Notebook.

2.     Desktop publishing; these programs allows learners to organize and present their ideas in attractive format. These helps the learners to make an enhancement to their documents with an element of fun. Some applications include; Adobe Spark, Twixl, and PDFelement.

3.     Word, Spread Sheet and PowerPoint; these applications helps to organize, record, manipulate and present their ideas in an attractive in the form of memos, reports, letters, presentations and record routine information.