Use of ICT in Classroom Teaching

5^th REFLECTION ON TEACHING USING ICT

(First post for the month of October)

Information:
Class: V
Subject: Science
Topic: Protecting Habitat
Period: 3rd and 4th
Date: 2nd October 2019 (Wednesday)

Working with children and the internet for the past few months, I have learnt that internet can be helpful as well as harmful too. When children access the internet on large, publicly visible screens in safe and public surroundings, the net can be their most beneficial friend. Children can learn almost anything by themselves, using the internet. But if a child is alone with the internet, the web can be a deadly, subversive, filthy and perverse place. Therefore, we need to caution while children use the net.

I had lesson with class V students on 2^nd October on the topic “protecting habitats.” My lesson objectives were: (a) Define habitat, (b) explain how we can protect habitat and (c) explain the consequences if the habitats of plants and animals are destroyed.

To go with the topic, the class used the smartphones. All the phones were connected to the Wireless Inferred Firewalled Internet (Wi-Fi). The class was divided into 6 groups of four members and each group was provided with smartphones. We discussed on “Disappearing forest,” which was taught earlier to make connection to what they are going to learn. Then we switched on to the topic “Protecting habitats.” The teaching was focused on student centered learning whereby students are instructed to explore from the net to learn the topic. To guide the activity, the following questions were posted to the class:

1.      What is a habitat?

2.      Why is it important to protect habitat?

3.      What would be the consequences if the habitats of plants and animals are destroyed?

Although my school have net facilities but we have shortage of computers. After seeking permission from the school administration, I asked those children who can manage smartphones to bring it to the school for classroom use. Children were already trained how to fetch educational information from the google and how to use google classroom account during the substitution periods several times. Taking an advantage, I directly asked children to find the detail information for the above questions from the google using their smartphones. They were given 30 minutes to carry out the activity. After the activity, I instructed them to post the information in the google classroom forum to share their information with other group members.

Google Classroom Account

Owing to many benefits, as a free online learning platform, with lots of sweat, recently I created Google Classroom account with class VI and V students which took me about a month. I couldn’t create account for all the students as their parents don’t have smartphones. For trail, I have created account for those students who can manage the phones.  I ask those children to bring their phones whenever necessary because I seek consensus with those parents to use their phones. There phones will be use in the class in group to learn the basic tips on ict use, during teaching and learning process. The objectives of creating this account was to share simple learning activities such as like how to post, view the friend’s work and comment the work in the classroom. This will help them to build basic foundation of ict usage in learning process.

Observation

Children were fully engaged and they learned in their own pace. I found all the group has done their job agreeably and they were able to tell about the “Habitats” satisfactorily. However, I found that most of the information posted by group in the forum were directly copied from the net. So, have to intermediate and rephrase the sentences to their level. It indicates that, my instructions to them were not clear. So, I have to provide clear direction before they carry out the activity in future.

Being first time google classroom user, students were confused, as there are several buttons with icons familiar only to Google users. That was the frustrating part I ever had. Searching for information was not a problem but how to post and viewing friend’s post and making comment to the post in the forum was the challenging part of the session. The duration of my teaching was 45 minutes however it took another 45 minutes to complete the above task. I should have use projector to guide their work, so that it saves time. Henceforth, I am going to use projector along with the smartphones. I wish and hope that, by and by children might get adapt to it as learning progresses.