reflection on integrating you tube in lesson

YouTube was created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim who were working at PayPal in 2005 (Turner, 2011). According to Turner (2011), the inspiration for you tube credited to two different events. The first was Karim’s inability to find footage online of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction,” and the second when Hurley and Chen were unable to share video footage of a dinner party due to email attachment limitation.

Although the very purpose for the creation of YouTube was to upload and watch videos, but now with developed technology, YouTube has become one of the most effective and prominent teaching and learning tool.

Most of the teachers and the lecturers prefer to use YouTube as teaching and learning materials. Through my teaching practicum experiences, I found integrating YouTube in the lesson makes the lesson more engaging, interactive, interesting and effective. Children enjoy watching videos related to the topic.

One of the interesting and effective usages of YouTube, I found in education is in teaching children rhymes and songs. We can easily get rhymes and songs on any topics from YouTube. Children enjoy watching and learning from it as the graphics are colorful, attractive and interesting. This, on the other hand, becomes challenging for teachers when they have to teach on their own.

I found learning math from YouTube easier to understand and interesting. Many video tutorials on math are available on YouTube. I came to realize the importance of YouTube in education only after reaching this college. Teachers do not necessarily have to conduct an extra class or remedial class if the children have a problem in understanding the concept. Teachers can upload the video tutorials or share the links on Google classroom or VLE. Students can watch the videos on their own, explore further and clarify the doubts immediately.

 However, the teachers have to give the exact links and websites clearly because the children might get out of track and chances of getting distracted by unnecessary things on YouTube. Also its time consuming and financially challenging for the teachers as well as the students since the teachers have to select the best videos from the thousands of videos online and have to use one’s own data in the absence of Wi-Fi.

Fig 1.some of the videos from you tube I used to watch to learn mathematics.

 

ICT integration

Information and communication technology in teaching and learning (EDN419) is one of the most effective teaching and learning tool. The children nowadays are born in the world of technologies where they spend their entire lives surrounded by technologies like computers, video games, cell phones and all other toys and tools of digital age, which we call it as “digital natives”. Our students being digital native, the teachers should be equipped with relevant pedagogical skills and ideas in using ICT in order to meet the learning experiences of the students.

After learning about the topic “ICT integration” I can now integrate ICT in the lesson. Using the ICT for the sake of using is not integrating ICT.It requires a lot of preparation, planning and follow up activities. ICT should be integrated in such a way that it adds values to the lesson. For instance like if you were to teach about water, the students should be able to compare and understand about the water problems in and around the world and make out the value of water henceforth. 

Reflecting up on my teaching practices, integrating ICT in the lesson made my lesson more effective, interesting and meaningful. Most often I have taken the students in the computer lap to show some videos, rhymes, songs and pictures which were related to the topics. With the help of those ICT I was able to give some practical examples on the current situation of other countries and add some values to the lesson which seems abstract when taught verbally. Through it I was able to take my students thinking out of the four walls of the classroom as well. 

 
However, integrating ICT in the lesson requires a lot of time and planning since we have to choose the most relevant ones out of thousands of information given. It is economically challenging on teachers as well since the wifi connections in the schools are too weak to download the information. Thus, most of the time, teachers have to use their personal hotspot.

fig.1 videos I have integrated in lesson

experiences from brochure

ICT has become the most important tools in 21^st century teaching and learning world. It makes our work easier, faster and effective. One of the most important and interesting implication of ICT I found is in making brochures. I have always wondered how the brochures are made whenever I come across any kind of brochures on health, politics awareness, business and so many others. However, I didn’t try making one unless I got an assignment on making brochures in the first year for the module ‘child development’. It was the most astonishing moment for me.

Since I was not too exposed to the ICT world, I couldn’t even think of exploring about it in the internet.  I tried asking help from the seniors but all I got was the verbal instruction which I couldn’t put it into action. hence, I drew three column tables in Microsoft word and inserted all the information in it and somehow made it captivating but I had to re arrange everything every time I open the folder. So I had to manually write everything at the last moment.

The same assignment I got in third year for the module ‘health and physical education’. We were asked to design a brochure on organ systems. It wasn’t as astonishing as before since I had little knowledge on what the brochure is and how it is made. Moreover I was way much more exposed to the ICT world. Immediately I typed “procedures to make a brochures” in the browser and it gave me hundreds of ways. That time I have chosen Microsoft publisher to make a brochure. It was way much easier compared to the Microsoft word. All I had to do was to choose the templates, insert the information and make it captivating.

So through these experiences I am confident enough to say that I can make any kind of brochures. Since brochure is one the effective way through which the children learn, I can guide children in making an effective brochure using publisher. 

                                                 picture of the brochure