Situating tool

 Concept of the situating tool

-Reflection or write-up on the situating tool

Situating tool is defined as the involvement of placing digital tools within specific contexts or situations to enhance learning experiences. It’s about using technology in a way that aligns with the needs, goals, and environments of learners, ensuring that technology serves as a supportive element rather than a distraction. This approach considers the relevance, appropriateness, and effectiveness of technology within different learning contexts, ultimately facilitating meaningful and purposeful integration of ICT in education. Situating tool enables users in an environment to experience the context and happenings in a real situation and time. Situating tool includes the usage of simulations for farming, driving and VR environment in learning processes. Under the situating tool comes the simulation games like PhET simulations, graphCal, simcity, goggle earth etc. 

 Reflection of Situating Tool As per my understanding situating tool is defined as a tool of system or application which situate users in an environment where they can experience the context and happenings, or it is defined as a tool that provides students to conceptualize the ideas of the real world. Situating tools includes many aspects such as 3D computer simulated images, Google earth and software like GeoGebra. Under the situating tool we did 3 activities. Firstly, we played a simulation game where it was a virtual reality environment for us to experience and learn through interactive activities and it made the learning fun for us. Secondly, after the simulation game we logged in into Goggle Earth which is like google maps but was showing us images and location in a 3D manner which I felt was more engaging and effective compared to the google maps. Google earth was something very fun for me and I can see myself using this app for a longer period than the google maps I was using previously. Thirdly, we logged in a software which was very new for me called the GeoGebra where we learned to make shapes in a very accurate manner rather than just using the shapes icon in other software’s which are not accurate. GeoGebra situated the environment for us to comprehend and manipulate variables to communicate with other users online (online game) to foster creativity and visualization skills in us. I felt that GeoGebra is very effective in teaching maths concepts to the students as it is like hand on experience with simulation involved in it making the learning more fun and indirectly encouraging the students to have deeper learning and understanding. Furthermore, through situating tool I felt that we can go anywhere just from the place where you live and explore the world like in a real time situation. Through situating tool, I was able to experience Virtual Reality Environment using Google Earth as mentioned earlier and I knew a lot about our world and to calculate the distance of a place using Goggle Earth and the game we played made me feel the experience about the VR environment. Therefore, to engage students in the learning process and to connect learning with real physical world we should blend our teaching with the situating tool using ICT integration in schools as teachers.