The first day of pedagogy began on November 12th, 2023, and the first module was ICT.
1st Week
The word ICT represents information and communication technology. I discovered that Moodle is a free learning management system that offers a platform for learning during the first week of our introduction to it. We may share everything we want on this wonderful platform, including photos and media; it’s a platform where we can add most of the tasks for the students so that they can enter Moodle easily via their username and password. To introduce ourselves to the other students, we all created a padlet and provided our names, bios, and personal photos also we now know how to enable two-step verification and secure our Google email accounts.
We began our next lesson with Google Apps, which I was already aware of from my previous job. The lecturer went over Google Drive, how to upload files, and how to make Google documents and Google Sheets by just using your Google account. In addition to how to make effective slides, it was simple. The next topic was creating a YouTube channel, I had a YouTube channel before but I was not sharing any video I was using it just for watching videos. For a YouTube channel, all you need is your Gmail account and you have a YouTube channel we also learnt how to upload any video to our YouTube channel.
2nd Week
In week 2 of the ICT module, we began using Zoom, personally, I had a Zoom account but for others, the lecturer taught them how to make a Zoom account and they taught us how to host meetings and share our screens. We were all familiar with Zoom because we used it during the pandemic. While zooming, the teacher mentioned some tips, such as having a full frame, keeping the eye level in the middle of the screen, and considering a good background and effective lighting. We have also learnt how to create a survey form by using Google Forms.
The next day of this week we learnt about Google Sites. Each of us made a Google site, which was not difficult. We created a Google site using our Google account. Simply go to the site and upload your picture, then add your title and site name. You can add as many pages and subpages as you want. You can also include the phone numbers for your social media accounts. We have also learnt how to make quiz forms by using Google Forms and changing the setting to quiz form.
3rd Week
In the third week, the teacher explained about the presentation tips, effective presentations and effective slides as we had a seminar and workshop for the next week. As we were all bored with the explanations the lecturer introduced us to a really enjoyable application which was Kahoot; Kahoot is an online application which allows you to make quizzes and ask questions to the participants funnily and enjoyably. The teacher prepared 5 questions we joined the application by a link or scanning a QR code and we answered the questions he chose the top three winners and luckily I was the second winner.
On the Next day, we discussed Google Scholar and how to create an account to publish our thesis or article. Google Scholar as we all know most of the published articles can be found in Google Scholar, so for others to find our published articles easily as well we created a Google Scholar profile and published our article there. Google Scholar. It searches the same types of scholarly books, articles, and documents as the Library's catalogue and databases. I discovered how to access the full-text documents in my search results. The teacher also taught us the Research Gate but because most of us didn’t have a university email we couldn’t log in to it. Finally, we have also learnt how to sign in to padlet account and create our padlet.
4th Week
In the last week, the teacher divided us into six groups, and each of us had a topic for a presentation, similar to a workshop presentation. From each presentation, I learned something.
Group 1 topic was how to send a professional email. I learned how to send an email with a signature which was new for me.
Group 2 topic was artificial intelligence AI. AI is important for its potential to change how we live, work and play. AI can perform tasks much better than humans.
Group 3 topic was Canva; is an online design tool that offers users the opportunity to create professional-looking posters, slideshows, images, event flyers, resumes, cards, certificates, etc.
We were group 4 and our topic was about Orcid, ORCID is a non-profit organization that provides researchers with a unique digital identifier. Thus the risk of confusing your identity with another researcher with the same name is eliminated.
Group 5 topic was Courser; Coursera partners with more than 275 leading universities and companies to bring flexible, affordable, job-relevant online learning to individuals and organizations worldwide.
Group 6 topic was about Prezi; I found Prezi interesting: which allows you to create and share dynamic designs and data visualizations with ease.
Finally, on the last day of the ICT module we learnt how to use Moodle as a teacher rather than a student, the lecturer explained how we can add assignments, quizzes, tasks, attendances even how to upload a video or file in moodle. We also learned how to set deadlines for the tasks that we give to students and how to grade marks.
The first module was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. And for sure I will use most of what I have learned in this module and the apps to teach in the future, and I will try to incorporate technology as much as possible.