ICT as communicative tool

My understanding on ICT as a communicative tool.

In the above picture, we can see a tiny line connecting every small things, and it depicts on how ICT connects our lives and how it helps in communication in every corner of the world. ICT is not only used as a informative tool, it can be used for different purposes. Now lets see how ICT is used as a communicative tool. 

ICT is used as a communicative tool which enhance easy communication between tutors and learners, learners to learners and learners to community. To me, I consider ICT as a light in the darkness which lightens the life of people. In olden days, it takes several days just to reach the message, “how are you” to other person, but now we no longer need to walk to the other side of the school ground to ask our colleague a quick question, we can simply message them and get response almost immediately with the help of ICT. Cell phones (text messages and voicemail), E-mail, Instant messaging, Electronic newsletters (e-newsletters), Class and school web pages, and Social networks are some of the communicative tools used every day.

Fig: examples of communicative tools.

We have learned two types of communication. Synchronous or real time communication and asynchronous communication which both helps in communication.  As we all know the situation, we are in nowadays and above-mentioned tools are the main source that facilitate our learning.  Our learning and communication take place through email, Wechat, vle forum, google meet, zoom, video conferencing, messaging and messenger between tutor to learners, learners to learners and learners to tutors. Every passerby was equipped with cell phones, a great means of communication. Simple text message can remind individual about their plan and schedules.

As a teacher, Effective communication is essential to create strong school-home partnership and to increase parental involvement in teaching and learning process. Teachers being skilled in the art of teaching isn’t enough rather they require knowledge and skills to communicate effectively. Therefore, teachers should strive to use a variety of effective strategies to make communication as informative and interactive as possible, incorporating new communication methods. As done by our ICT tutor Mr. Ugyen Wangchuk while teaching on how to create and work in google doc through google meet. Even though we were apart by long distances, we could able to learn very well on how to create and work in google doc and were able to have collaborative session, jointly between tutors and students. 
let watch a video by our tutor Mr. Ugyen Wangchuk in which he had use google meet to teach us on how to create and work in google doc. 

click here to view on how ict helps in communication

ICT as an informative tool

                          My understanding on ICT as an informative tool

To me, Information and communication technology was just a search tool until I was taken aback by the lesson on ICT as an informative tool. Then only I came to know that, ICT is an application that can afford profound information in various formats such as sound, text, video and graphics and it is considered as an inert source of information. I should say that life of people has changed drastically over a few years. The only source of information in the past are books and to have concrete information, one has to go through whole book. But in this technology world, information can be found easily in a short period of time.

ICT does not really do anything, rather it is considered as huge, passive repositories of information, upon reading the above statement, I came to know that, we shouldn’t just depend fully on the information we get from internet. We should know how to evaluate the resources from the web whether it is authentic, reliable, current and objective. As a learner we should know to analyze, synthesize and come up something new on our own. 

There are different search tools to be used for searching information and we can get information on any topics be it academic or non academic.
for example: we have google, internet, chrome, google scholar and ........


                                                 fig 1.2: example of  search tool 

                                       
As a teacher we should teach students on how to use the information, which can include reliability, plagiarism, right search engines and ethical and unethical practices. Taking them through internet web evaluation that contains five criteria’s: Accuracy, Authority, Objectivity, Currency, Coverage, would be the best way to let students learn on their own to analyze the information from the web.

For example: We were asked to design presentation on Doklam Standoff and to give our stand at the end of the presentation. To do that, i had to search information from internet and there were many information related to Dokam crisis. It really made me to analyze and synthesize the information to come up with my own presentation. That's how we as a teacher should tech our students to use internet resources. 

Follow the following link to have a look on how i have designed a presentation on Doklam crisis using information from internet. 

click here for Doklam presentation

We can retrieve different types of  daily information through ICT in a short period of time. We get to know more information about other countries, their education system, their policies and their view towards world. for example: we get daily information on the Covid-19 cases through media. Therefore, i should say that, ICT is a repositories of vast information. 

                                           Daily information retrieve from media 

Different types of media to get reliable information in our daily lives. 
1. BBS
2. Facebook 

3. radio 

Life before and after ICT introduction

Education in the past wasn’t easy and it is only for the wealthy people. No electronics were there to facilitate their learning, and due to not much electricity, studying under candles and lamp was their culture. Reading books, novels and helping house chores was only the way to kill their leisure time. Book is the only source of information for their studies and research exploration. I would say that life without ICT was somewhat miserable. But, learning now has become more easier due to integration of ICT in the education. Students were provided with invaluable and up to date notes for their studies. Technology today has driven to more competitive and equipped learners.

Being a digital emigrant, it’s very difficult for me to cope with the integration of ICT studies that we are undergoing as one of the modules. But I found it very useful and effective for both the learners and teachers. So, I think I have got a great opportunity to learn ICT integration even though I was brought up without technologies.