Reflection on Communicative tool

Communication tool

Teacher can use ICT in the classroom as various tools such as informative, communicative, constructive, co-constructive and situating tool. Here I will more reflect on ICT as communicative tools in the classroom. Communicative tools are ICT application which enables teachers and students with easy communication. Teacher can give the task with the instruction through mail, call, video conferencing, wechat and VLE discussion. Moreover it is easy for students to summit the task and clarify the doubts. Therefore, teacher can use ICT to communicate with the students easily through various forms.

Fig: Using VLE to communicate between students and teacher

As a teacher, if we use ICT in the classroom as a communicative tool it has lots of benefits to both students and the teachers. For example, teacher can post the questions in the VLE discussion forum and all the students respond to it. Then the teacher can read and give immediate feedback where we can save time and the resources of both learner and the teacher. Moreover, students will get lots of information from the peers. It also minimizes the teacher’s workload. For students, it helps to solve the urgent issues or problems through call and video conference.  In addition, it focuses on all the language skills; reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Fig: Clearing doubt through wechat

Despite of having all the benefits of using ICT as communicative tool, there are still some limitations. Students who are with little knowledge will misuse the ICT in the classroom. For example; instead of using ICT in learning, they might use in playing game, chatting and watching videos. Moreover, ICT application consumes lots of data charge and students with poor background might fail to effort in learning through chat, audio and video conferencing. 

There are two types of communication tools. Those are asynchronous tool where people are not required to be logged in at the same time. It can be applied to those activities that requires more time in thinking before responding. Other one is synchronous where people need to be online at the same time. It provides immediate response from the peers and teacher. So, I would prefer asynchronous tool where students and teacher need not have to be online at the same time. They can respond at anytime and anywhere. It also helps student to analysis the information before responding.

Example of communication tool