Due to the United Kingdom still in a state of ‘Lockdown’ due to the coronavirus, this session was again started via Moodle. I said ‘Hello’ and waited for further instruction regarding the session while Mark replied and welcomed everybody individually.
While we waited for the instruction from Mark, I set aside some time to reflect upon my personal experience with virtual learning so far:
I have been really struggling with the virtual teaching. My husband has a job which required him to work and therefore I am at home with my three children. While they would usually be in childcare while I attend university, all of their childcare provisions have closed. I am struggling with balancing my home-life, parenting, home schooling and managing my time effectively to complete my own assessments in readiness to finish year one. All of my university sessions are now being run through ‘Zoom’ the online video conference system. While this system is extremely practical for some users, I have been finding it extremely stressful. I have been finding it hard to engage within the sessions as my microphone needs to be turned off due to my children attempting their classwork or playing in the background and I have also found that sitting at the laptop for long periods of time while also caring for my children has not been working well for me and I have left numerous sessions feeling extremely upset, deflated and worried. While I understand that some of the information is uploaded onto Moodle for us, I find that without being able to engage within the session properly is having a negative effect on my learning. I have found that I am struggling more with understanding the work which is also effecting my ability to complete assignments.
Research team task and poster
Todays session is based on technology and how it is being used within the classroom. We were each given a number between 1 & 4 which represented a subject which we would need to research in small groups before promoting through the individual development of an A3 poster. The subjects were as follows:
1. Virtual reality and immersive learning
2. Adaptive learning software
3. Gamification
4. Artificial Intelligence
I was given the number 3 which meant that I had to research Gamification.
I believe that giving random numbers effected my work as some members of the group are extremely shy and are unwilling to participate within the group. We also had issues with one member of the group who’s microphone and camera doesn’t work and so she couldn’t participate fully either. During group work I find that I am usually extremely vocal, however, due to having my children at home and therefore could not have my microphone on at all times I decided to put the idea forward to use a chat type platform such as google hangout or WhatsApp. This would allow all members of the group to participate well together.
We decided to use WhatsApp as we agreed as a group that this would work best for each of us. Once that chat had been set up, we split the subject of gameification into three. What is it in general, how it can be used in education and what we think it will help with in the future.
I decided to look further into how it can be used within education. Once we had researched these ideas further, we then met back on Zoom to discuss how to use the software ‘In Design’. Due to the current situation, Mark could only give us a very limited demonstration through the Zoom share screen facility. I made notes throughout in order to help when I had installed the software.
Unfortunately, on installing the software I met with numerous problems due to my student log in which resulted in my having to use Microsoft Publisher to create my poster. While I was frustrated because I did want to try and attempt to use a new software, I found the use of publisher extremely simple due to using it numerous times as part of a previous job role.
I am really pleased with the ‘Gamification’ poster which I was able to create using Publisher. I found it really easy to add images, text and also move these around to where I wanted them to be. I believe that I was able to make this poster in a much shorter time scale due to knowing how to use the software quite comfortably.
Rebecca
Rebecca's Educational Blog 