Use of Camtasia 

A vital equipment to be used in one of our projects was Camtasia Studio. It was very convenient and manageable tool actually. If teachers have the skills of handling it then it is really going to rock their teaching life. For teachers, in particular, we can use Camtasia to create tutorials and video lessons on any subject areas to help and guide our children. In the near future when our education services are well improved and developed many of the good lessons can be created and publish on the web. This is going to be great help to our learners because our children can always visit webs and browse them whenever they want. The internet facility is improving and I believe it is going to be a major change in our education system. Everything is getting digitized.

Camtasia Studio can be used to record videos.  And the plus point is that we can also record our voices with clarity. This is helpful if we ever want to explain things along with the videos. Another useful feature I found in this tool is the ability to edit captured video. We can edit our clips, the audio track, titles, and enhance video quality with transitions and captions. There are lot more features available but lack of skill and knowledge is hampering its usage.

However, I managed to pull up and down with trial and error method. I wished it was an individual activity so that I could work all alone on it. Being a group task made it challenging. Sharing and discussing with friends with poor internet access ate our brains. But at the end I realized that the task offered us a greater opportunity to explore more internet facility. We are now happy that we did some of the new things we have never done before. It gave us a greater satisfaction.

Wonder Share quiz creator 

It was a real wonder. Our group made use of wiki extensively for this project. The topic discussion took place there in wiki. We shared everything about our Quiz task there. In the process it made us expert in using the wiki facility. The job was not easy at the beginning though. The sharing was great. We worked on different questions individually. Then we posted in group wiki. I prepared one set of quiz questions and posted for reference. The others did the same. And in that journey we had a good laugh. One of our friends even posted Dzongkha quiz because she said that the language is not specified. That added variety but the group did not like it due to the fact that we are not very good in Dzongkha. And we thought it was not suitable for the subject as well.

The Wonder Quiz Share has a variety of question types. That made us easy to have a variety in question patterns too. Each time we handle something it was a new experience. I personally liked it very much though I felt some burden at the beginning. Our group members worked hard on this very cooperatively. We enjoyed working together. However, if we look at it generally, I felt that this kind of group task is not very favorable. This is because some people are not even accessible to internet facility. For majority, working in poor network areas does not allow them to work on such a strong work requiring high quality network. For some it becomes a frustration and hinders learning. I was lucky that I have the facility and enjoyed working.

Ten useful sites

One of the residential assignments was to explore ten useful educational websites for teachers. I was thoroughly confused. My effort in trying to get help from friends confused me more. Each gave me a different meaning. Some said URL is a website. Some clarified if there is .com at the end it is a website. I was asking the difference between webpage and website. Some even stated that web address is the web site. Finally I asked one of our tutors and he gave me a clear picture of it. Searching for a standard definition from the internet, it states that it is a group of World Wide Web pages usually containing hyperlinks to each other and made available online.

 This activity gave us an opportunity to explore useful educational sites. I was more than happy because I could get into websites not known to me. My focus was more on the teachers’ websites because deep down my conscience tells me those are going to help me. Most of them are related to my work and my subjects. From the various websites we can get inspiring and valuable ideas that are related to our profession. The materials are abundant and they are really going to save time. Knowing the right websites is more than important as it will lead us to the right thing we are looking for. Thus I must assure here that this activity was really enriching and I am going to share this little knowledge with other friends who do not know it. Looking for information from the trusted websites gives us authentic information. They take us to something we never know about it. Making use of them can really enhance our teaching and learning. Let us all make use of them, explore better websites and share with one another.  

Blog experiences

Maintaining a blog was another task that consumed a lot of energy and time. Writing a reflection required a good amount of time. From my personal blogging experiences, I have realized that there are armfuls of advantages. It promotes ones thinking and analytical skills. Constant blogging will also definitely promote our writing and reading habits. It requires a lot of quality writings. The writing process has to be practiced and yes we will be able to improve writing pieces. We can share our writings to the larger audience. And the great advantage is that the writings can be edited or commented. This is again helping in taking our writing quality to a greater height. Criticisms or comments will help us improve our writings.

At this hour we are simply learning how to maintain blogs. We are not really serious about our writings. We are just learning how to use blogs with the reflection. But in the future, once we are comfortable with using blogs, I think we can maintain a quality blog and have many people follow us. It can be used for professional as well as personal growth. Personal writings can be shared. This will keep us engaged and help us become good writers. Professional matters can be posted and get comments. There can be a great sharing on educational related topics. I foresee a greater benefit for the students as well. They can use blogs to share subject related concerns and interact with teachers. It is going to be a real fun! But for now, we are worried about the marks. I get no comments because the blog is not familiar. My close friends do not have facility – the internet.  The criteria are set and I am sure to lose 3 marks. But I am determined that I have learned a lot and would like to maintain my personal blog very soon. This keeps me going ahead!!! 

Creating Google Forms

A Google Form is used to gather information. One way of gathering information is through the survey. Surveys can be created and done online through google form. But, it is important that we know how to create them. I remember the steps in creating google forms from one of our sessions in the residential classes. They are as mentioned below:

a)     Go to docs.google.com and sign in using ID and password.

b)    Look for ‘create New’ button and select ‘Form’

c)     There will be two text boxes. Enter the title and a description for the form we are creating.

d)    Type the first question into the ‘Question Title’ box.

e)     Select question option from the ‘Question type’ drop- down menu. There are options like text, paragraph text, open ended question, multiple choice, true/false and rating questions.

f)      If we want all to respond to our questions click the checkbox ‘Make this a required question’ then click done.

g)     To add additional questions click the ‘Add item’ button.

h)    Click the "Theme" button to adjust the color scheme and appearance of our survey.

i)       Click "More Actions," then select "Edit Confirmation" to update the text that is displayed when a person completes our form.

j)       Click "More Actions" and select "Embed" to copy the HTML code needed to embed the form into our website.

k)    Click "See Responses," then select "Summary" or "Spreadsheet" to view data collected using the form.

Critical Analysis

Knowing the steps in creating a google form is critical. This is because if we do not know how to create, using the form is out of question. In the current world everything is transforming. The educational plans and the implementation strategies are transforming. With these changes, the requirements do change. Teachers’ qualification and the work ethics need change. That is why we see that up-gradation is the key core of all the developments.  We are encouraged to carry out action research on topics related to our work so that we perform better. Action research means a lot of data collection work. Therefore google forms can help us get the things done easily and faster. Therefore knowing how to create and make use of them is very vital. Distance Education is really serving the purpose of up gradation because it is taking us to the level where we should be in this fast developing environment. It is making us grow each day.

                               Google Docs

What are the components of google docs? The following are the important ones.

Ø Presentations – It is like a power point presentation. We can make power point presentations in many different ways as much as we want.

Ø Spreadsheets – It is an alternative to excel. Google excel does the same things that excel does. We can make use of them anytime and anywhere.

Ø Form – Google Forms is a tool that allows collecting information from users via a personalized survey or quiz. The information is then collected and automatically connected to a spreadsheet with the same name. Teachers need to develop lots of questionnaires for finding out information that is factual regarding teaching and learning. Google form can solve our problem. There are more than enough free templates to be used for the style as well. That is another plus point.

Ø Drawing – If we are looking for some simple drawings we may take help of google drawing. Google Drawings can be used to work together in creating, sharing, and editing images or drawings. It can be used for creating charts, diagrams, designs, and flow-charts.

Some Benefits of Google Docs

Google docs have ample benefits. The three top most benefits are shared under:

·        Browser-based – Google docs is a browser based. We can work on our task on any desktops, laptop, tablet or mobiles devices.

·        Google secure – sharing work on a network keeps the documents secure. We do not have to worry about losing or tampering them. We do not have to worry about updating or having strong antivirus.

·        Online collaboration – Many people can work on the same document. The writers can work on the same document at the same time and see each other working. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users.      

Wiki experiences

The residential classes in Samtse were joyful as always. ICT classes in particular were more preferred due to the fact that we were in front of the Desktop for practical lessons. And everything we were offered were all new for us. That increased our enthusiasm. Our tutor, highly respected by the DE candidates, was kind enough to give us group projects because that is something we can challenge.

One of the project tasks is creating our own wiki page. I followed the instructions and started to create the wiki page. The job was not that easy! I had to watch the video tutorial for a good number of times. I had to call my friends often. With much struggle I have done that part. Later I found it was very easy. It is just that when you do not know, everything seems to be such a big challenge. But once you know, you feel that is the easiest job in the whole wide world!

I had the next challenge. How do I make sure that my group members see my wiki page? I called my friends to check. They informed me that they can’t view my page. I asked how they did it. They had no answers for that. Then I had no other options. I explored and yes I was able to do it. My friends told me that they could see my page and edit it. And you may guess how relieved I was!!!

Next we took the step of quiz discussion. Sharing Quiz questions then became easy. We commented on the good things about our quiz and the changes to be made. We shared files too. This allowed us to use wiki page actively. Now we have acquired basic concepts on the functions of wiki page. This is a good achievement. We were able to create group quiz successfully and this gave me a great satisfaction personally.