Reflection on Integrated Lesson with Google Search Engine

Science, Class V

Topic: Habits

For the past decade, ICT has become an integral part of life in both home, offices and institutions. Its impact on teaching and learning field and particularly in classroom has been immense and very impactful. Many scholars worldwide believes that ICT in classroom has certainly helped in promoting and improving attainment in all subjects when used well. It’s quite evident because even for teachers, ICT has benefitted in such a way that teachers can teach the same thing in different way, which helps to disseminate and teach the students properly. In order to test the advantages and disadvantages of the ICT facilities in classroom, especially the advantage of google search engine in the daily classroom and to make the most of ICT in classroom, I have divided the class into 3 groups to carry out an activity using means of ICT to find out the definition of abitat. In order to carry out the activity, I have asked each group to bring a smartphone with internet connectivity in their phone and utilize it to carry out the assigned task, which is to do a study on the topic “What is habitat?”

As expected, when the groups turned up with smartphone and start studying about their topic, it was clear and evident that, using ICT certainly helps in getting wider range of information and the information of their choice. One group has come up with so many types of definition about habitat and they were able to understand what habitat means without me providing them any notes or lectures. This clearly shows how impactful ICT is. In another instance, one of the group has download a slideshow presentation and they were able to understand not only the mere definition of habitat but also the types of the habitats. However before that, I didn’t even mention them about any types of habitats, but after browsing through google, they were able to make up that there are 6 types of habitats. They have also noted the factors that affect the habitat. Another group has downloaded the different pictures of different types of habitat and have thus asked me to show it on projector for everyone in the class. From that, even the primary students have now realized and understood the advantages and benefit of using means of ICT in classroom. The ability to share resources among the peers, and its time saving and easy access has certainly helped the students and inspire them to do self-study through browsing the google search engine.

However, on the contrary, my school being in a rural area there are certain issues and challenges that certainly needs to be addressed. The first and foremost issue being the connectivity problem. All these modern gadgets, devices and technologies are of less use if there is no proper network connectivity. And this is a problem my school is facing. The network is very poor despite the service provider claiming it to be 3G. the lack of consistency in the network means, learning through google search engine is unreliable and a failure because at times the network connection just gets lost and cannot even send a message, forget about browsing information. Therefore the inconsistency in the network has caused quite an issue. Secondly, people in the rural area being farmer and mostly being illiterate and uneducated, they could neither know how to use a smartphone, nor afford one. Because of this reason some of them didn’t turn up with a smartphone because no one at their home owns one smartphone. So the smartphone brought by other students has to be shared and due to lack of individual smartphone, it took time to browse and learn from the google because they have to wait for their turn to use the smartphone for quite long.

To conclude, I have noticed that the advantages of ICT in classrooms are far and bigger than the issues faced and these petty issues shall not overshadow the advantage that the whole class and I gained. The problem of the connectivity and lack of smartphone user doesn’t mean searching information from google is also bad. As long as the connectivity and smartphone is there, ICT in classroom has always and will always be a better way of teaching and learning. The use of such advanced technology and modern equipment also sparked excitement and curiosity among the students in learning and thus they are able to take interest and passion in learning and studying. Always giving out lectures and teaching using graphs, chart papers and green board has been unfruitful at times so when we make themselves engage in an activity using means of ICT like google, it gave them exposure they need as well as less involvement for us. So therefore ICT in Classroom, if proper necessities are available, would be a huge success in education sector.    

  

By Tenzin Wangchuk DE III A
      06160372