Situating Tool

From the discussion, I learned that situating tool is an application that helps to situate learners in an environment to experience the context and happenings. Some examples of situating tools are; simulation (flight, farming, surgery, environment, driving, History City, SimCity, play Station), Visual reality and CD-ROM.

Google Calc

The first situating tool that I have learned is ‘Graph Calc’. It is an application which is capable of plotting graphs, solving simultaneous equations, and performing other tasks with variables. I found that Graph Calc is a very interesting application where the teacher can use to teach graph concept to the children. I am motivated to use this application to teach graph concepts in the near future as using this application with children will be engaging, will make learning fun and learners can clearly understand the correlation between the graphs.

Google Map

                                               

                                                  view of Paro College of Education

Google map is another situating tool that I have learned. It is a web mapping service developed by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, real time traffic conditions, and route planning for travelling by foot, car, bicycle and air, or public transportation. We as a teacher can use Google map to teach the concept of time, location and distance in subjects like social studies and mathematics. Using Google maps can give children real life experiences as it will take them through the 2D and 3D views of the places they wanted to learn or explore.

                                                                    PhET Simulation

I also learned about simulation as a situating tool. After learning about the PhET simulation I learned that the use of simulation to teach concept like PH scales will provide experimental learning to the children which will encourage them in higher-order learning and promotes critical thinking. If the teacher wants his/her children to understand better about the topic, teaching using simulation is one of the best ways.

Google docs and social media(Facebook group) as co-constructive tools

Goggle docs as co-constructive tool

We were divided into groups of three people and asked to prepare ICT integrated lesson plan using Google docs. Before we prepared our lesson plan, my friends and I made comments in comment forum sharing each of our views on which subject and topic to choose for our lesson plan. We supplement as well as gave feedback on each other’s ideas. After our long discussion we came up with the interesting topic where we can integrate ICT in a meaningful way.

After using Google docs to plan ICT integrated lesson in groups, I understood better about how ICT can be use as co- constructive tool and the benefits. one of the benefits of using Google docs as co-constructive tool is we (students) can lean without teaching. Because in Google docs we can discuss on particular topic in groups and learn together by sharing ideas among us.

Here is evidence of using Google docs as co-constructive tool

Social media (Face book) as co-constructive tools

I have been using social media especially face book and involved in discussion in many groups for almost eight years by now but till now I never realized that I have been using it as co-constructive tool. After learning about co-constructive tool, I knew that the comments and views that we share among friends over a post is co-construction because we had been using face book to construct something meaningful through discussion and feedback.

Our tutor created a face book group and asked us to upload our camtasia video in it. Then we were asked to give comments in each video. The feedback given by my friend on my video help me to reflect on quality of my video and to bring improvements.

Here are comments given by my friends on my video.