PhET Simulation as ICT Tool in Teaching and Learning

The name "PhET" was originally an acronym for "Physics Education Technology." However, the PhET site now includes simulations about many other subjects besides physics, so the acronym is too limited. PhET is a suite of research-based interactive computer simulations for teaching and learning physics, chemistry, math, and other sciences. They emphasize the connections between real-life phenomena and the underlying science, and help make the visual and conceptual models of expert scientists accessible to students.

PhET provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. These tests include student interviews and observation of simulation use in classrooms. To help students engage in science and mathematics through inquiry, PhET simulations are developed using the following design principles:

·         Encourage scientific inquiry

·         Provide interactivity

·         Make the invisible visible

·         Show visual mental models

·         Include multiple representations (e.g., object motion, graphs, numbers, etc.)

·         Use real-world connections

·         Give users implicit guidance (e.g., by limiting controls) in productive exploration

·         Create a simulation that can be flexibly used in many educational situations

( https://phet.colorado.edu/ ) This is the link from which you can access to various PhET simulations like Physics, Chemistry, Math, Earth Science and Biology. There are ready made simulations which can reduce the workload of teacher and increase the understanding of the the learners. 

Here, I have used simulation on Balloon and Static electricity. This topic is learnt in class V science subject. This link will take you to the balloon and static electricity simulation. ( https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/balloons-and-static-electricity )  You can download the required simulation and let students use it for exploration and experimentation. After downloading that simulation I can tell children to take the balloon near wall and the sweater and write what they notice (observation). The image below is how balloon and sweater will look like in the simulation. 

The main objectives of this activity are to make children;

·  describe and draw models for common static electricity concepts.

·  write what is static electricity in their own words.

·  understand what will happen to the charge when they take a balloon near the sweater and wall.

 

Activity:

Look at the balloon. What can you say about its charge? (Hint: count both types of charges)

Look at the sweater. What can you say about its charge? (Hint: count both types of charges)

 Use the set up and explore playing with the balloons. Notice the charges at first and after the experiment.

·         Take the balloon near the sweater and write what you have observed.

·         Now take the balloon near the wall and write the observation.

After the activity let student answer the following questions in their book. 

·    What is the indication that the charges at first on sweater, balloon and walls are neutral?

·         What do you think will happen when the balloon is moved closer to the wall?

·         When the balloon is rubbed on the sweater what might happen?

·         What do you think is static electricity?

 

This activity I can use it after explaining the concept of static electricity and for hands on learning this simulation is best for them to understand the concept of static electricity as they can see the reaction of charges and they will know the reason of charges changing it's position.

 

 Therefore, I highly recommend this PhET simulation in teaching and learning of the child and it's one way of integrating ICT. 

Camtasia as Teaching and Learning

 Working in Camtasia 8

Picture Courtesy. Click here

There are certain advantages of using Camtasia. (Capturing options) Camtasia can be used to capture screen recordings from the specific area on screens, a specific window, the whole screen, or from programs such as PowerPoint. all the materials within Camtasia are divided into a timeline. Developers can insert a Camtasia recording file into the timeline by selecting and dragging it from the clip bin, which contains the sorted files. the various types of media are separated into tracks within the timeline.
It can different features like quizzing, transition, audio, and many more. It is like the miracle that changes our normal work into a beautiful one. 

I am a person who is fond of making visual arts. Working with Camtasia equipped me with a variety of skills that will be very essential for the future. To integrate ICT in teaching and learning, using Camtasia is the most important method to teach our students any lesson. Through Camtasia, I learned numerous animation, transition techniques and I could know various features to make the video a comprehensive one.
However, I faced lots of challenges while using Camtasia as it was my first time using a hand on experience. Sometimes, it just wastes my time as I need to redo the whole edition again. I felt like puking as it is a challenging technology for me as a beginner.
But at last, I knew how to use all the features given in Camtasia and I can also create a simple video now. 

There are certain steps while working with Camtasia.

1.  To  Capture ready-made PowerPoint

2.      1.  Open Camtasia studio

3.      2. Record screen/PowerPoint

4.      3. Open PowerPoint (view the slideshow)

5.      4. Adjustment

6.      5.  Start recording

7.      6. Click save and edit

8.      7.  Publish

Steps to record voice narration and record live video

1.      1. Add menu

2.      2. Click voice narration and webcam

3.      3. Start recording

4.      4. After you are done with recording, press f10 to stop

5.      5. Save the file

 I did video tutorial about the " Vocabulary related to their immediate surrounding" for the grade PP English. I used simple language to deliver the content. I used power point and did live recording in Camtasia. I used pictures and words to describe each vocabulary words.  Children will be able to use those words every day while speaking and writing. They will also learn to say the new vocabulary and add up their knowledge. I will show this video tutorial to kids after I introduced them the topic. Right after  introducing the topic and talk about it a little, then I will let children watch the video tutorial. After watching they can practice saying the word and copy the names of each word in their book. The video below is the sample or outcome from Camtasia studio. If you have trouble loading the video click on this link; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I7ZgnT1aVt_Pap1ihgnjt4gJtIuo0MNt/view?usp=sharing

Camtasia is an effective tool for teaching and learning. It is one of the successful tool for integrating ICT in the classroom. 

 

If you still have doubt regarding Camtasia, click

1. How to use Camtasia Studio 8

2. How to edit in Camtasia Studio 8

3. Camtasia Studio overview and tutorial

Canva as ICT Tool in Teaching and Learning.

I have already talked about Powerpoint in my earlier post. Now here, I will talk about how I designed my teaching and learning material using Canva. I designed in Powerpoint first and later edited the video in Canva.  Canva is a graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. This app includes templates for users to use. Designs in Canva include text, icons, photos or illustrations. All of these need to be combined in a way that is visually appealing. 

The material here I designed using Canva is on parts of flowers, science subject of class IV.  It will be used in the teaching process after introducing the topic and when introducing and explaining the parts of the flower. Each child will be able to see the labeled parts clearly and correctly shown. They can also understand it well because it is said that students learn the most from graphics, visuals and sounds.  It can also be used when giving students activity to draw flowers and labeling the parts.  

After teaching, in my case I would let children copy the diagram in their book and label the parts of the flower correctly in their book. In the process of copying, they can notice each part and help in adding up to their knowledge. 

If you want to add a photo to your design, using one of Canva’s frames, you can find these under ‘’elements’’ in the side panel. Canva can help us to create compelling visual content.  If you face difficulty in designing, try playing with size, color, and placement in order to see what works best in Canva.  Canva brings your ideas to life in a minute. It provides many features and also saves time.

 

Power Point as a means of effective Teaching and Learning.

Animations in Power Point as a technique for students learning and engagement.

Multimedia software has become an essential part of today's teaching and learning process. While many interactive multimedia software programs certainly exist, PowerPoint is one the most widely available and used programs today. In the late 1990s, several studies indicated that students found PowerPoint-based lectures more interesting than traditional lectures. Whether used for teacher-led presentations or student-led projects such as digital storytelling, reports, or instructional gaming, presentation software can help organize and enhance the delivery of content across curriculum areas while accommodating students of various ages, cultures, and learning styles. PowerPoint format is easy to edit and can be adapted to any student population. Most people, however, don't use the program's features beyond creating basic slides with text, transitions, clip art or pictures, and hyperlinks. They do not take advantage of the many other capabilities, such as Custom Animation, in designing their presentations. This article explores how creating custom animations can support teaching goals and further engage students in a presentation. Illustrated are some step-by-step animation techniques and design considerations for creating effective presentations. Video below demonstrates an animated, interactive English story telling through animation.

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEbhVYhF87zeISLciXQFP4NEscjkODB8/view?usp=sharing

Animations Can Engage Student Interest

The use of animations is becoming increasingly widespread in many educational presentations. Animations when designed properly can attract and maintain interest in a presentation and gaining learners attention. Compared with static graphics, animated graphics can be:

•  More informative
• Closer to the characteristics of the subject matter
• More explicit
• More explanatory
• Clearer

However, animated graphics are not intrinsically superior to static graphics. Without proper educational design, animations can be inferior to static graphics. And it's very important for educators to design and use appropriate animations for educational purpose.

 

PowerPoint Custom Animations

 Designing an animation in PowerPoint to contain a number of multimedia elements, including text, graphics, and sound, can add interest and excitement for students learning a particular concept. The Custom Animation feature in PowerPoint provides a list of effects that users can apply to objects such as pictures, text, and other graphics to animate them during a slide show. We can also add effects to picture and texts and design like how we want it to appear. Whether the user adds a music soundtrack to create a certain mood or different sound effects to reinforce key points, they will further capture the audience's attention and reinforce the message. 

The material which I have designed here is of class VI Social Studies subject on the topic Moon. The material which I have designed here is of class VI Social Studies subject on the topic Moon. I designed in Power Point using various features. As soon as students watch this video they will have a sense of how sun, moon and earth appears in the space and they will have better understanding of rotation and day and night as well. After watching this video, teacher can assign them to explain rotation of moon around earth in their own words. The audios and graphics can gain their attention and listen to it more. After  designing any animation you can go to file button, click on Save as and select the file type as Window media video. Then it will appear as video and use it. 

 

There are many ways we can use Power Point for students learning. English teacher can design animi to narrate stories, Science teachers can explain water cycle and Math can teach calculations and etc. Even though creating these designs is a tough job, teachers are the main source from which students will learn and teacher’s effort counts in students learning. Not only we can teach children, we can update ourselves with new knowledge of using various features provided by Power Point. 

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEbhVYhF87zeISLciXQFP4NEscjkODB8/view?usp=sharing

The link provided above is a draft from which I have designed and animation in PPT. You will see the magic of ICT and how you can extend the knowledge of ICT in teaching and learning. We can use various shapes and effects to make anything lively. The elephants, the backgrounds, tortoise, trees and rooster are all made from shapes and effects. 

This article explored how PowerPoint animations can serve as an effective teaching tool. Using animations in teaching can increase student interest and motivation while illustrating concepts and procedures in a more easily understood way. Students have many learning styles, thus animations provide another modality to actively engage the learner. Although poorly designed animations can be distractions in a presentation, properly designed animations can reinforce and enhance the ideas and concepts being taught. When tied to lesson objectives, animations have the potential to create high-quality learning environments that actively engage the learner, thereby promoting deep learning.

 

 

 

Thank You...…

 

Simulation in PowerPoint

Simulation.

Simulation is one way of involving child in active learning and participation. Simulation making requires ICT skills to make the picture beautiful and it imitates a situation or process to make others understand its meaning. It can be designed using many ICT tools one of which the effective one is using PowerPoint. It does requires skillful knowledge of ICT techniques but we can learn it easily. All we need to do is use the effects, shapes, colors, and adding sounds in PPT and the final output will come awesome.

Here I have designed one simulation on the 'Specialty of my locality'. I can teach this topic in Social Studies class V and English subject class VI, topic 'Celebration'. Not only celebration I can teach children using this simulation in many other subject like in English stories, History, science and Geography. I can create other simulations related to the content subject. Designing simulation is not only an option to teach children but if a teacher teaches only the text and reading it will be a monotonous environment. Therefore, if a teacher take some steps in designing a simulation to activate child's background knowledge and if it helps their learning, teachers' role will get fulfilled.

The video below is the simulation of specialty of my locality of Bumthang. It explains about the celebration of Mewang (blessing from a fire) and it is celebrated by lighting a big fire. I designed this simulation using shapes and effects. Added audio for understanding and even from the animated effects it is understandable. Like I have used here, we can design creative and attractive pictures to make children's learning interesting and watchable.  After I finished designing this simulation in PPT I saved it as windows media video and the output came as a video. 

I will use this video to introduce and recapitulate children's knowledge on celebration. I will tell them that this is my specialty in my locality and I will show them how I designed the simulation. Then I will let children design their own simulation showing their own specialty in their locality. I can take them to computer lab and help each children design their creativity. I can show them how to use shapes and effects to make their content lively. I will teach them how to record and add audio and many ICT tools. This activity will not only help children understand different celebrations in different places but also give them ICT skills which will be useful in their daily life. Likewise, ICT is not just a subject and it can be integrated in other subject as well.   

About Myself.

Hello to all the readers. I am Phurpa Wangmo and I am 23 years old. I am from Zhemgang, khomshar. I am the eldest from five and currently I am pursuing Bachelors of Education in Paro Collage, final year. I finished my early education in Thimphu, Chamgang Lower Secondary School (current name: Yangchen Gatshel MSS). After that did my high school in Bumthang, Jakar HSS. I like reading novels and short stories. I also like to spend my time watching movies and quality time with family and friends. I weigh about 45 Kg and I am about 158 cm tall. 

Now about my family, my mother's name is Tshering Tshomo and she's from Zhemgang. My father late Pema Wangdi from Trashigang. I have four younger siblings, three sisters and one brother. Because of my mother being khengpa and father sharshop, I can speak both language. I am married and his name is Om Nath Biswa. He's from Dagana, Goshi. And of course I learnt nepali language as well. We don't have kids now but we might have in future. 

I like reading novels and watching movies. Mostly I prefer adventurous and romantic ones. I like watching k-drama and it helps me to improve my vocabulary when watching and reading subtitles simultaneously. I also like to write short stories and poems during my leisure time. I used to reflect on my life and create related stories. I also like trekking with family and friends. Eating meat and delicious food is my hobby. I loves to eat healthy food and doing some home exercises.    

So, I created this blog for educational purpose and I will be mostly focusing on integration of ICT in 21st Century and ICT in teaching ad learning. I would talk about benefits of ICT in this new generation and new ideas about ICT. I hope that information I post here would be very helpful and informative to all the readers. As a future teacher, I think we should also make importance of ICT and use positively in everyday life for better result. 

Lastly but not the least, I would like to thank all the readers for visiting my blog and and I hope my post was very useful to you all. I wish you all better future and happiness in life. What I want to convey is education is important in our life and as saying goes, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." (Aristotle) A learner should never ceases to learn and after learning we should make good implication of it. All the best. 

Thank You.