Audio Visual

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SYc6WhlfJ1g&feature=share 

https://youtu.be/wyQ2_KRzffU

https://youtu.be/_r9pWWYjBFw

The above shared links are a few samples of audio visuals that I use in my grade 4 classroom as part of ‘Listening and Speaking’ activity. The language class comprises of four strands Listening and Speaking, Reading, Writing and Language. Out of these, more focus is on L&S, which takes up a major chunk (15 marks) of the Continuous Assessment. To bring in variety and to provide more avenues for listening and speaking, I tried using the above listening comprehension in my language class. I found the following pros of using audio visual as part of ICT integration;

1. It was user friendly and portable. 

2. Required only minimal effort and resources. 

3. Aided in classroom management as children were excited to try out something new and they followed the instructions well.

4. The children were motivated, encouraged and engaged by the activity.

In my initial days of teaching, I considered integration of ICT challenging which requires a lot of time, energy, effort and resources. I always dreaded using ICT. However, after trying out various integration techniques and strategies, I am confident and motivated to try and integrate ICT in my daily teaching learning processes. The multiple pros over shadowed the few cons of integrating and making ICT part of my teaching and my students’ learning. Therefore, I am immensely grateful for these opportunities and strategies which helped me upscale my teaching methods. 

Using printouts as a method of ICT integration.

 Taking printouts 

I found taking printouts and making multiple copies of reading materials to be the most accessible and useful integration of ICT in my class. I have been printing out worksheets, test papers and reading materials to bring some varieties to the otherwise monotonous teaching and learning using chalk and chalkboard. I reaped the following benefits of using printouts in my lessons.

I found my students actively engaged and everyone was taking ownership of their learning.

This method helped my children understand difficult concepts with the help of pictures and illustrations. My children were motivated and it helped my children develop interest in learning. The printouts were extremely portable and they can be used anywhere and any time. 

Once you print out and make multiple copies, it was readily available and accessible. 

The printed materials helped me manage time well and I had ample of time for other activities as I need not write on the board. Hence, it proved to be time efficient.

The printouts were comfortable to use and it 

catered to different learning styles, pace and needs of children. I could print out varieties of materials, of different levels to meet the learning needs of the children. Children can choose a reading material of their choice unlike the text book, where everyone will have to read the same story, essay and poetry. However, everything comes with two sides and this method also had it’s share of challenge.

Scarcity of resources like printers and papers in the school hinders printing of enough copies for all the children. However, it is not impossible when you have supportive parents.

PowerPoint Presentation

 Classes - 7ABCD and 8AB

Subject - Career Education

Aims

1. To make children aware of various study skills

2. To help children study better using one of the most relevant study skills.

The students of classes 7 and 8 were presented with various study skills, strategies and benefits of using these study skills. I prepared PowerPoint Presentation to present the ideas to the children. I found the following pros and cons of preparing and implementing ppt.

1. Time Efficient 

The presentation took less time compared to my usual teaching process. I needn’t prepare lost if teaching learning materials. Use of ppt was also resource efficient. 

2. An alternative to traditional method of teaching. The students are more friendly with tech devices and they are digital native, therefore, visual tools are impactful and effective. Use of ppt could spark curiosity in the mind of the students. 

3. Easy and friendly

Varieties of fonts, diagrams, animations and formatting can happen on the click of a mouse. Teaching using ppt is flexible. We can alter and modify contents immediately to suit the learner’s learning style, pace and readiness. Therefore, it helps make learning meaningful and relevant.

However, availability of resources is a huge question. I understand the immense benefits we could reap of integrating ICT into my daily teaching and learning. In spite of many advantages, I always tend to resort to traditional methods of teaching owing to constraints of resources. 

I have to wait for the IT rooms to be available to present my ppt as we have only limited numbers of projectors. The availability of IT lab and my classes don’t always click and these challenges hinder my plan of integrating ICT in my lesson.

Video lesson

 Creating and recording video lessons was deemed the most appropriate and suitable to reach out to our learners during the pandemic. Educators had to resort to teaching children with the aid of ICT, however the teachers faced a lot of challenges due to accessibility and for not having the required knowledge on ICT. The teachers had to learn how to blend or incorporate ICT and had  to use ICT as an alternate to contact teaching. I learnt that there are various ICT tools to reach out to my students. However, I experienced issues as a portion of my children didn’t have the access to internet or the gadgets. The only forum applicable to all my students in general was the ‘WeChat’ and ‘Telegram’. Therefore, I had to make use of the most appropriate and accessible tool. I recorded short videos on my phone and shared them through Wechat and Telegram. This served the purpose of teaching out to all the students but I am yet to find out the effectiveness and helpfulness of these videos. 

PowerPoint presentation

 Class 4                 Subject English

Competency

Use handwriting and IT effectively, making appropriate choices of presentation to prepare writing for publication.

The children of 4A were reading a short story - ‘The Monkey and the Crocodile’ and they were interested to carry out a story mapping to publish their understanding of the story. Therefore, they made use of ICT and prepared ppt for presentation. PowerPoint was used as the mode of presentation to fulfill the above stated competency and the children also enjoyed the task.

I made the following observations from the class;

1. Children enjoyed and everyone was engaged.
2. Children who were weak in writing also took interest in the activity as they could replace writing with pictures.
3. Children utilized their leisure time in IT room preparing slides. 
4. Children had the opportunity to showcase their creativity and innovations.
5. Children were punctual to the class- came before time and stayed back even after the bell.

I used the following rubrics to assess their story mapping and ppt. 

Use of Smart Board to teach ‘Simile’ and ‘Metaphor’

 I used the ‘Smart Board’ to teach figures of speech on Thursday 21/07/2022 in my language class. The Instructional Guide suggested video lessons to teach simile and metaphor. Therefore, I chose the smart board to integrate video lesson and my explanation.  I and my children experienced the following benefits of using the smart board;

1. Interactive Instructional tool.

2. Create more interest amongst the learners.

3. The children were motivated to learn.

4. Relevant, attractive and interesting graphics were displayed.

5. Blended lecture with audio-visual teaching, bringing life to the otherwise monotonous teaching and learning process.

6. Could cater to different learning styles and pace. 

Despite all these advantages, I also had to experience some minor challenges. The smart board in my school isn’t the interactive board, therefore I couldn’t explain the concepts along with the video. I could carry out only one particular activity. I was actually prepared to write, draw and infer by showing the video. However, I had to completely put off the video to provide some examples and to test their understanding of the concept. The second issue that I encountered was the accessibility of the board. The board is placed in our science laboratory and we had to make adjustments with the science experiments and fit in.

Nevertheless, the benefits I reaped overruled the challenges I encountered. Further,

I am motivated and inspired to make use of all the available technologies to enhance my teaching learning process.

 

Challenges of incorporating ICT in my classroom

 Incorporating ICT in my daily teaching and learning has been crucial and has become the need of the hour. However, it is easier said then done. Incorporating ICT has been and is a huge challenge to me owing to quite a number of factors. 

1. Availability of resources is the highest hindrance to me and my classroom. I teach in a school where we lack infrastructures and technologies and the limited number we have isn’t enough to cater to the huge number of children we have.

2. Time- With too many demands from different agencies and with various programs, teaching has no option than becoming monotonous. 

3. Readiness of children.                                                  Maximum of the children in my class come from families where the parents are English illiterate and the children lack guidance and support with resources and other relevant supports.

However, I am encouraged and motivated try and incorporate ICT in my lesson after the mid term. I have already made arrangements with the IT teachers to incorporate ICT in my lessons.

Use of Google Classroom

Google Classroom has been my life savior when we had to close down schools due to the pandemic. Google Classroom was helpful and flexible as we had our classroom teaching and learning happening on our finger tips.

 The tool was utilized to send emails, post videos, posting announcements, provide class summaries, assign work and grade work. Google Classroom was advantageous as it could be accessed from anywhere, anytime. It was flexible and can cater to everyone. However, it also had its drawbacks like, inaccessibility to gadgets, internet package and most of our parents being literacy and technology illiterate.