ICT in History class

2^nd world war ( Documentary movie), 22nd  September,2016

History is a subject which is full of book and talk that led to monotony in teaching and learning process. It is least liked by our students and they many times land up saying “it’s a boring subject” and if one visits the history class you would find most students half sleep. Therefore, with the prior permission of the grade eight History teacher, I decided to take one of the History class in 8^th grade. The topic “world war II” was presented to students by using a movie in documentary version on world war II.The documentary consists of  six parts , however I used only the part I , other remaining parts will  also be presented to the students in other sessions.

I took all the students to the school IT lab and made them to sit in semi-circle facing the OHP screen. Students were instructed to make notes as they watch the movie which they will be presenting to the whole class in next session as a group.

The movie was played for two times in the Laptop and presented to them using OHP. They made notes individually as they watched the movie. At the end of the lesson I asked students about the days History lesson, their response was very positive where they shared that “why can’t we have lesson in movie form?” we can understand better when we can see, analyze and understand by making meaning rather than just reading the book and listen to the teachers passively. I am fortunate that I teach in an urban school which has the basic ICT facilities like OHP, IT lab and limited network package that supports in integrating ICT in our classroom teaching. However, most rural schools in our country don’t have the ICT facilities yet let’s make it possible to integrate ICT in our classroom teaching and learning as the 21^st century learners are IT savvy. The world today demands the usage of updated information which is easily available in webpages in internet. Let us make the students learn rather than the mere teaching of information from the book which is supposed to be a guide to help teachers with the basic information. Integration of ICT usage in our classroom teaching can reduce the burden for teachers and offers wide range of learning tools for the students that will boost their knowledge in the content area of study.

Note : The movie file was big therefore  could not upload it. Sorry.