TASK 5. “ETHICS” - Theoretical part
Aula Virtual: We use this tool almost every day to do many things such as: read the instructions of the projects that we have to send, send messages to teachers, see the contents of each subject…
Not only are we forced by Linda to use this tool but we are also forced by all the teachers and subjects of our degree so we have already become familiar and it is not difficult to use. Something quite useful and remarkable of this tool is the notice board that appears when you open the app, where the most important things come out such as delivery of tasks, marks of exams or something important the teacher wants to say.
Blogger: we are using this tool to create our blog. We update this blog every week, we include the task for that week, photos, the work of each role in our group, we recommend other colleagues' blogs, we answer questions about the tasks…
There are many platforms on which you can create your own blog, such as WordPress but some of the advantages that we have found in this tool after having used it for a few weeks are: comfort, reliability, and, above all, simplicity for people like us who are not experts in blogs or Web design. We think it is very useful since the teacher or our classmates can have a look at it if they want to know anything more about us or about our group. In addition, having a blog helps you to reflect on your tasks and your questions, since you know that your tasks and what you are doing will be seen by others on the Internet. You can also see your progress through all the blog posts and how you started at the beginning of the course and your improvement and skills at the end of it. We wouldn't have done a blog maybe never but now in our opinion, it’s a very useful tool to be attentive and concentrated in class and in what your classmates say, so that you can add interesting information to the blog. It works as a development portfolio.
PBworks: we used this tool to create our online wikipedia. With this tool you can work online in your own wiki entries or files, insert information on interesting topics, including photos, text and organize the information as you prefer. It is quite easy to use since, using the same password and username, the whole group can get inside and add information, which allows students to learn about ICT and about the subject they are working at.
TOOLS WE DISCOVERED IN THIS COURSE:
ArcGIS Story Maps: We discovered this storyboard tool doing our last ICT task and people who did the activity used it to create a digital story map, where you can include photos, videos, text, or different designs.
It was very useful and easy to use. Story maps are usually made in class with a printed template in which students create their story manually, but we liked this web a lot because it can be done digitally and children can develop their technological skills and learn to use the computer, looking for videos, photos and is more dynamic. We definitely would use it again if necessary.
Miró: we use this tool every week to complete the conceptual map of the role of the curator. In Miro we have created the map with all of the information, web pages, and resources used for our tasks.There are many websites where conceptual maps can be made digitally, but this one seems very comfortable to us as it can be shared and you can add your group members to continue the map the following week. In addition, there are many designs and all the information is very clear, organized and aesthetically beautiful.
DeepL: this tool is, in our opinion, one of the most important and useful tools that we have discovered this year. It was recommended by our ICT and school organization teacher Linda.
All of our group members try to use this app frequently to correct and make sure everything is spelled correctly in our tasks.
Nowadays, it is one of the most grammatically correct translators to use, you can download it on your mobile phone or your laptop and the way it works is quite easy. Writing correctly and without spelling errors is something that seems especially important to us since we are studying in the Bilingual group. We must take advantage of all the opportunities that exist today on the Internet to learn how to speak and write correctly.
Do you feel comfortable using them? Are they useful? please explain *
At the very beginning, it seemed a bit strange to us to use them, because we were not into them and we were reluctant to use them. However, after using them, we gradually start enjoying them, and, furthermore, seeing them as useful yet important tools. For example, DeepL translator has seemed to us another way of writing in English and we saw it as one of the most useful tools when developing a task.
Apart from DeepL, Miró has been an interesting tool discovered because of the possibility of carrying out a shared job, creating conceptual maps and schemas, while presenting it in a beautiful way, it’s something both comfortable and efficient. Finally, ArcGis Story Maps was great to because we believe faithfully that using technological tools in the educational field have many advantages and not only the typical ones such as that motivates more students or that is more fun for them, but this topic is much deeper than that. Society changes and the ways of educating should be in line with that change so we can not get stuck in the tradition or what has always been done. We have to risk innovating so that children when they grow up also do it.
At first, we probably had a little resistance to this working method and so many digital tools but we have already studied this as a normal situation in a class, as we read in a text from Starkey, L. ,in School organization course, about Connections and Relationships. In this chapter of Connections within the learning context, the book explains that teachers influence students but students also shape classes because they can be not in favor of the strategies used by the teacher. To sum up, at first not being familiar made us feel not very comfortable but with the time and use of them finally, we find them very useful and knowing different tools seems to us something very important for the future.
TOOLS USED BEFORE RICT INTEGRATED AS CRUCIAL:
Canva: Canva is the tool that we are using the most. All of us knew about it before and we thought that for presentations and for the tasks it would be a very useful tool because it's easy to create, change, include elements and experiment. In addition, it is simple to use because we have used it for all the tasks done until today, and we will use it for all the future tasks in which we think Canva would be helpful. We have given use to Canva to create conceptual maps, oral presentations and for nearly completing all of the assignments of this course.
Google Documents: this tool has been used for all of us during our entire academic life. It works like Word, but as not everyone knows how to put it on their laptop or mobile phone, Google Documents is easier to access and it allows you to share and edit the information with more than one person at the same time, which is a good thing because if you cannot meet to do the tasks together, in this way all of the members of the group can work together and at the same time but in the distance, especially now with COVID-19. We are very aware of the importance of collaboration and effort in group tasks, everyone has to participate, work and contribute ideas so this tool seems ideal to achieve all that, with Google Documents there are no excuses, everyone can work at any time from home, read what the other members wrote and complete the task.
WhatsApp: WhatsApp is one of the most used apps in the world, especially by young people like us but nowadays everyone uses it. Before starting this course, all of us used WhatsApp on a daily basis, and it has a really important role in our lives regarding the social aspect of them. However, the role of WhatsApp during this course has become a crucial part of our working environment and process. Through this tool, we communicate with each other; we have a WhatsApp group where we share all the documents and information needed for accomplishing a task, we also discuss many decisions about it, we answer general questions that one member could have about the task or his/her role, we talk about how is the task going and what we need to complete among many other things.
Do you feel comfortable using them? Are they useful? please explain *
We feel pretty comfortable using them since it was not the first time we used them. Now, we have given a different use to these tools because, for example, WhatsApp is a social app to chat, but during this course, it has been a very useful tool to being in touch with our team colleagues. WhatsApp has been of incredible help to conduct everyday teamwork.
WhatsApp allows us to be in contact with our colleagues, and for us, communicating when doing group work is the most important thing and it is necessary to distribute the work equally, express the expectations we have about our peers, the failures we detect in the task…
Moreover, Google documents is a very useful tool because you can see how everyone is working at the moment and you can motivate yourself by seeing how each one is working. It helps us to cooperate and advance in the task in a cooperative way, not individually.
Finally, Canva is one of the most useful tools we use when doing the tasks, and we have integrated it as an essential part of our work because it allows us to do our presentations and we have learned to use it in an effective way. Before, all of us were used to using PowerPoint but we all agree that it’s already a little obsolete and that technological tools change over time and you have to know how to be up to date with new tools and resources for providing better learning and teaching experience to our future students. Canva in comparison, makes the presentations more customizable, the designs are more professional and there are a variety of frames, stickers, templates... you can make your presentation much more visually attractive and as we have studied before, we know that we acquire knowledge much better if we use various channels such as visual, with photos, conceptual maps and schemes and auditory, including videos for example.
After seeing the two videos that appeared in the task instructions on how to protect the privacy of students, we are very aware of the risks that students are exposed on the Internet and because we want to avoid any problems, in all the activities that we have planned we have created the accounts of the websites and apps that we use so that they don't have to create an email or account as for example we did it with Canva and in ArcGIS Story Maps in the last task.
RUBRICS:
https://teaching.uwo.ca/pdf/elearning/Rubric-for-eLearning-Tool-Evaluation.pdf
Rubric for WhatsApp
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