My Computer Class (ICT Class) for class V

    My ICT class with class V was all about how to operate the computer. Students are touching the computer for the first time and they have no idea how to put on and switch off the computer. I was fully engaged with these innocent minds. They were so excited as well as afraid to handle computer in the first class. However they started to learn and now they can at least operate on and off without my help.

Class V students learning to open and close window 

Girls working themselves in group to handle computer. 

Benefits of ICT Integrated Lesson Plan

ICT Integrated Lesson Plan

Topic: Distillation

Subject: Science

Class:VI

Date: 9-12/9/17

Teaching Strategy: Integration of ICT

GNH values: Culture

Teaching Learning Materials: PowerPoint animation, website materials, video, images,

Lesson Objectives:

By the end of the lesson, each student will be able to;

1.      define distillation in their own words correctly after teacher’s demonstration.

2.      describe the process of distillation correctly after teacher’s presentation.

Lesson Introduction

Attention Grabber: Heart to Heart… ready to Start.

Lesson will begin with a video clip about preparation of alcohol.

Video

After watching the video, teacher will ask students to tell some of the take away from the video.

They will be specially asked to tell about some of the processes involved in clip.

Expected answer: evaporation and condensation. Teacher will then explain that the main process involved in preparation is called distillation. Thus the topic will be introduced.

Lesson Development

Attention Grabber: Ready to Rock……..Ready to Roll

Teacher will provide the definition of distillation.

Distillation is a process of separating two liquids. It is applicable only if two liquids change its state to a gas at different temperature.

For better understanding of the concept the teacher will show a power point animation on preparation of alcohol in our own context which involves process of distillation.

After showing the power point animation teacher will explain how the process works.

Preparation of alcohol through distillation process

Distillation.ppsx

Power point presentation

1.      Firstly, the grain is cooked and made to cool down.

2.      On that yeast is added. Yeast causes the grain to ferment.

3.      Then it should be covered with one cloth very tightly so that no air can get inside. After 1-2 days a pleasant smell will arise from the fermented grain. Then put it in a container and keep it for a month or more. The strength will be determined by the duration of grain stored in the container.

4.      Alcohol is separated from grain by distillation method. To do that fermented grains should be mixed with water and set up as shown in figure 1.

5.      Then it should be heated gently (the heat should be limited because if the mixture is overheated, it will overflow and water will get out from the container which will result in the burning of the grain) since alcohol has low boiling point as compared to water it will evaporate fast.

6.      Then the water in the bowl will condense the vapour. The bowl should be filled with cold water so it will help the vapour to condense fast. When water in bowl gets warm, it should be changed.

7.      Finally, the vapour is cooled and collected in a container as alcohol.

Activity

Following are the instruction for the group activity;

1.      Students will form a group with 5 members each.

2.      In group students will answer to the following questions.

3.      All the questions should be put on power point slide and make a presentation.

4.      The total time allocated for this activity will be 15 minutes.

5.      After completing the work one person from each group will be asked to present the group's answers.

       The teacher will provide the website link as a reference to answer the following questions.

Questions

1.      Why do you think yeast is added on cooked grains?         

Expected Answer: The water in the bowl should be cold so that it will help the vapour to condense fast.

     2. Why water in the bowl should be cold?

    Expected Answer: When water in the bowl gets warm it should be changed.

     3. What will happen if the fire gets too big and hot?

Expected Answer: If the fire is too big and hot, mixture will over flow and water will get out from       the container which will result in burning of the grains.

Monitoring of Activity

Teacher will visit each group to verify all members are actively participating or not and help the group if necessary.

Follow up

Teacher will ask the students to number themselves and then teacher will call out the number randomly to select the presenter. The presenter should be done with good explanation and teacher will supplement in missed out points.

If the groups have done good presentation they will be given a cheer and feedbacks will be given to those who fail to do good presentation.

Values

The topic is related to alcohol, so it is quite sensitive for children that school curriculum is encouraging it. In this case teacher will teach the values about problem lead by consumption of alcohol. The following images will be shown on screen to sensitize the children on risk involved with alcohol.

Lesson closure

Attention Grabber

Teacher will ask student to write the summary of the lesson using STOP strategy in a Microsoft word and share to their friends and teacher through mail.

S We started the lesson … With video clip on processes involved in making alcohol.

T The topic was … How can we prepare alcohol?

O Our opportunity for the practice was… Hand on experience of the distillation process,  (Mindful during the experiment)

P The purpose of learning was that … To acquire knowledge about distillation process.

Benefits of ICT Integrated Lesson Plan 

The lesson I taught was on “Distillation” in class VI and it was taught as a extended lesson on the same topic. On 11th September I taught the topic without integrating ICT however the same topic with ICT integration was unexpectedly different in terms of participation and learning on 12 September 2017.  It was one of the most exciting lesson ever attended by the students of class VI. This is because the lesson was full of ICT integrated. Mostly our teachers go to class with lesson plan and teaching learning materials prepared out of hard papers and occasionally live materials. I will not write on how my lesson was so successful in achieving lesson goals but rather analyze how students were engaged  in my lesson.

Students were found very active and energetic throughout my lesson. They are overwhelmed when they see the power point on how we prepare alcohol using distillation process. The classroom was lively as students see the process of distillation via video and it is a rare event for them to see video to teach concept. Hence at the end of the lesson when I ask questions students were able to remember better. As such I started to believe that ICT really plays a role in making our lesson better and achievable.

  

Classroom Teaching with Integrated ICT.

Use of Camtesia in teaching science

Use of camtesia in teaching science is very effective. In fact it is very useful in all the subjects. This strategy helps to reach to the students with visual learning styles. I personally felt that this strategy works more effective in introduction part of the lesson. it gives clear picture on what to do in the experimental part of the lesson.     

Advantages of Power Point in Teaching

Advantages of Power Point in Teaching

PowerPoint is a presentation program created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin in 1987. It was initially designed to provide visuals for group presentations within business organizations but has come to be very widely used in many other fields among which the education found it a blessing.

Within a nutshell, PowerPoint is an application program of presentation that is found in Microsoft Office. It is a well known, versatile and easy tool to use. In is now very much common in schools, colleges and universities…

It captures the learner’s attentions and helps keep students in and with the lesson.

PowerPoint encourages and supports teaching learning process by facilitating the material presentation.

It performs varieties of manipulations, such as editing text before printing it out, and the teacher can add new slides for adding new materials.

This program is also advantages in the sense that the icons used are very simple because they are similar with those in the Microsoft Word. In this way, the users can create an instruction of language without studying this program previously.

PowerPoint is also fun to be applied and fun to watch. It is not hard to learn in. PowerPoint allows the teacher to reflect on a lesson and make any changes, and which can create the good lessons and are being able to print them out. Our students love watching power point presentation in class. moreover they learn better with this tool. Now a days its not necessary to get real experiment with lots of materials in small classroom rather a power point can do all these in one show.

As a result using PowerPoint improve the students’ learning motivation, increasing authentic materials for study, encouraging interaction between the teacher and the student.

Teacher can create interactive presentations containing text, art, animation, and audio and video elements through PowerPoint.  It is probably the best known presentation graphics program available.

Old-school visual aids such as chalkboards and hand drawn illustrations would be time consuming while PowerPoint presentation can be used with ease and faster. Therefore, change for better and effective gadgets. 

Date: 13/9/17  

Use of mobiles in schools in remote schools

 Use of mobiles in schools in remote settings

The mobile as a gadget has come far and beyond. The liability of use of mobiles in schools has come as debatable issue over the year. The fast growing trend of owing a cell phone by an individual is no more a new issue.The education trend in Bhutan has rapidly moved from blackboard teaching to media teaching where in the use of gadget has come as a rapid progress over a year. The meetings the officials attend to are all in the favor of using the cell phones for any kind of information recording and fast track keeping of information with just a click of a picture.The schools though are subtle with the idea of allowing cell phones into school given to the distracting aspect it consist, the use of mobile in school has better advantages in the learning aspect. But it comes with a cost.

The policy of the school:

The school policy is an important factor that contributes to restricted use of mobile in school. The policy given with guide line in the proper management and use of cell phones can make a difference in learning in student’s life. The guide line that is properly channeled and is oriented to students gives students a regulated genre that would not just boost learning but have an intimidating impact.

Child centered learning:

The schools across Bhutan cater to child centered learning which require students finding information and presenting the thought on the given topic. This calls for grasping information from different sources and this said, the need to use cell phones for browsing purposes takes care of the problem. Though the school library consists of books but the required materials for the particular subject ends up to zilch result due to lack of availability of resources on the particular topic thus the result in learning falls to no commendable measure.

Attitude change:

The means of cell phone use in today’s generation is adapted to the notion of sending messages and calling to a friend or family. This is the attitude the children at present have. This can be changed through orientation and strict policy guide line. The use of mobile limited to talk and messaging can be bifurcated to higher order use for academic purposes that would link the use of cell phones for information browsing thus bring about changes in the how people see cell phone as. 

Photo: Logchina LSS students(Cl VIII) 

Importance of computer lab in remote school

In the modern era of rapid technological growth, we see the world more connected “Global World”.  The technological growth has reached to the far flung areas in the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The journey of education in ICT has seen a fair number of transformations over the years. The computer lab introduced under the initiative of Chigphen Rigphel Project across the schools in the country had perceived enormous changes to the students and teachers.

However, having computer lab in remote schools has been a tale to many innocent faces. The children develops ICT phobia, leads to handicapped teaching and learning, limits exposure, isolates from rest of world and many more in absence of computer laboratory in remote schools.  

The computer laboratories instituted in remote schools will have an immense importance and impact to many innocent lives.

i.                    Enhance opportunity on how to use computer and prepare for better future.

ii.                  Access to information and expose to new ways of thinking: creativity and critical thinking.

iii.                Expose to rest of the world (end self isolation).

iv.                Gain self esteem and confidence. (Eliminate ICT phobia).

v.                  Enhance teaching and learning in the classroom.

vi.                Improve students’ academic performance.

vii.              Instill sense of responsibility and build citizenship contributing towards green society.

Thus, the computer laboratory established in remote schools would prepare young minds to evolving 21^st century ICT world.   

Use of Laptop in Classroom

   Use of Laptop in Classroom

The use of laptop in the classroom has made the teaching learning more effective and easier. In the remote school like ours, if students see a teacher coming to the class with a laptop then the entire students jump out of excitement. It has been one of the best ways to gain attention.

Laptops have served the purpose of screening movies mostly. Teachers also make power point presentation in the classroom. In addition, a number of documents like assessment, anecdotal reports and others related to teaching and learning can be stored in it.

These days desktop have been replaced by laptops and smart phones have served the purpose of laptops. Still laptops are preferred over smart phone and desktop due to a number of reliability reasons.

The time when teachers were preparing their teaching learning material all with their hands and papers is now the easiest job of the teachers. It takes very short time to prepare lots of teaching learning materials of attractive styles.

However, there are some disadvantages of relaying too much on electronic gadgets. Our student’s daily life depends on the availability of the electricity power. If it is not available then teachers can’t use their laptops and other gadgets in the classes thus classes remain free.   

 

Coming of Computer Lab and Internet in Logchina LSS after 25 Years

According to Crede and Mansell(1998), ICTs are crucially important for sustainable development in developing countries. Until other bio technology, energy or major technological breakthrough in the area of new materials happens this ICT will continue to have great impact to the human lives.  We can feel the expand of human capacity, build up, nourishment and liberation by getting ourselves access to tools and technologies with the education and training to use effectively. 

On 24^th May 2017, Logchina Lower Secondary School, Chhukha, the school I work for is connected by radio internet facility with speed of 1Mbps with the help of Bhutan Telecom Ltd.  In fact it was so beautiful to see internet equipment after 25 years of school establishment. No wonder the community was cut off from all modern amenities like road, electricity, mobile and internet until recent years. Ministry of Education urges all schools throughout Bhutan should build by 2024, an information society in which every teacher, student and office has secured, affordable and reliable access to the use of computers and telecommunication media.   Therefore development and installation of such facility improves the quality of teaching and learning process. When they finished installing the facilities immediately every teacher were talking about ways to development materials and improve teaching strategies in their own classroom using internet. We were all thoroughly engaged with our own mobile phones when internet wireless was set for test. Some even thanks Bhutan telecom personnel for their service. That was the climax of our much awaited facility in remote schools. Teachers now feel the pinch of relaxation with the development of teaching materials which was indeed very challenging without internet

Use of computers are now commonly put to writing letters, and reports, printing teaching Learning materials(TLM) , news papers, and magazine, drawing pictures and diagrams, mathematics , music and video etc…  by our students and it’s an opening for remote schools into the world of technology. With internet connection students can easily find solution to problems, information exchange and do educational research without actually getting physical contact. Though our students here are not use to internet and computer. We see their faces with lots of energy and enthusiasm to get involved into ICT world immediately. These two days of internet installation was like a local festival for our students. They are all looking around observing each and every move of the teachers in the computer Lab. 

  Thanks to Royal government of Bhutan. 

Wonders ICT in remote schools

Hi,
I am a teacher working in one of the remote schools. Guess!! what my students would look like when our school is equipped with just one computer. Of course we are blessed with mobile network and students and teachers are fully using this gadgets for all sort of acquiring knowledge.

Happy reading.