I am going to write about three things that I have absolutely love about this Master's Degree Module and one thing that should be improved (from my point of view)
Positive aspects:
1- I have learnt to use the ICT in a competitive way.
2- I have enjoyed to get to know new tools to make creative works for students.
3- I have reflected about how ICT can be integrated in the classroom.
Should be improved:
1- This module should be given at the beginning of the master, because the amount of work is so huge and sometimes you feel that you don't have enough time to finish your work on time.
Ok, that's all about my 3x1 review.
Than you and I wish you good luck for your future!
Hello everyone, today in this post I am going to talk about my experience, participating in the live online conference Moodle Mooc 10.
First of all, what is Moodle Mooc 10? It is a series of online conferences with the purpose of connecting teachers (from any country) to share knowledge, experience, reflections on personal and professional development, social and collaborative leaning, ... This year, the MM10 will take place between 1 of May and 4 of June.
In our particular case, we participated in the conference Open Educational Digital Project for CLIL Primary Education. This conference took place at WizlQ (a cloud-based learning delivery platform with a suite of integrated features).
Once I read about the aims of the challenge and about the instructions I did the following:
1) I added my single support slide for the live class to the class collection (using Google Docs).
I have to admit that it was very simple. I added (on the slide) a photo of myself, my name and a screenshot of the layout of my blog, adding its URL.
2) I started thinking about my speech. It was very difficult, because I had lots of ideas in my head. Mainly I wanted to refer to my experience with ICT, the dynamic of the ICT classroom and my Open Education Digital Project. In particular I wanted to talk about why I chose it, its aim and about one of my supper learning missions (The sound of the European countries). Finally I wanted to include a personal reflexion.
3) I redacted a transcription of my speech.
4) A week before the conference (27th April), we did a simulacrum in order to check if everything worked properly (sound and image) and to practice. It was an excellent opportunity to improve my speech for the conference.
5) On Thursday, May 4 the conference took place and all of us talked about our projects. I was quite nervous, but listening to my classmates and seeing how well they did it, I kept calm. Maria Jesús introduced each one of us before talking and I was the number 20.
It was amazing, because at the same time we were participating in the conference, a people around the wold were listening to us and giving feedback through the conference chat. Moreover at the same time (while each one of us was talking), our mates were sharing information about our blog, twitter account, etc. using the hashtags #moodlemooc10.
The live conference was recorded and you can see the final outcome here.
Through this experience, I have had the opportunity to participate in my first educational conference. Although I was a little bit nervous at the beginning, I have to confess that it was amazing.
I have also learnt to organize the time of my speech, because although five minutes might not seem a long time, you still have to organize your ideas and put them in order.
I am of the opinion that this is the future of teacher. This means to be in touch with each other, share experiences, projects and ideas. I hope to have many more opportunities like this and to always offer something new.
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project.
Welcome again to my blog! This time I am going to show you the rubric that I have created to evaluate my Open Educational Digital Project.
This is the last step to complete my project. Maybe you have already seen in my previous post that I have created a rubric. This is because I didn't know the aim of this last challenge. This time, I have investigated deeply about what a rubric is and how it has to be designed. It has been necessary to look for examples and more information in order to do my best approach.
I have to confess that before going to University, I had never taken part in the assessment process. I mean, I knew that it was necessary to do my best in order to pass different tasks successfully, bit I didn't know that the teachers expected of my work.
Why should you design a rubric? What do you have to take in consideration? Here I will show you both aspects, summarizing the most important facts (I have used the online tool piktochart).
Once I had clear how a rubric should be, I planed one based on my Open Educational Project. I tried to do a useful and clear rubric (for me as teacher and for the students). Taking into account the previous aspects, I designed one. I have pondered deeply about what criteria I wanted to include and I wrote too many at the beginning. Then I though that ir would not be useful and reduced them to five. I haven't used any specific online tool to design my rubric, because I have already created different rubrics for my students on my computer. Therefore I preferred to save it in the same format than the rest of them. Here I present you my rubric.
As you can see, this is a clear rubric that makes the teaching-learning process easier. However, we can use other tools to evaluate. For example, it would be interesting to create a similar rubric for the students but with a more understandable language. We can also add the direct observation and the class diary as resources to assess.
As a conclusion, I can say that designing a rubric to evaluate my super learning missions, has not been as easy as I though. Above all, the most difficult was to describe each descriptor. The assessment process is something serious (it is the goal of our work). In this way we can improve as teachers and at the same time the students can see their progressions. When I created this rubric I have also reflected about the most important aspects of my super learning missions. This last challenge, gives meaning to the previous challenges and concludes hard work along 3 months. Moreover it demonstrates that the teacher's work is not easy but when you do your work properly you will be rewarded.
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project!
Hello again, how I already told you in my previous post, here you can see my second super learning mission (please, before reading this post, read my previous one to understand it better). Both missions are part of the same project and my motivation, ideas and feelings are the same than I expressed at the beginning of my previous post. This time I only changed the way in which I planed the activities. When I started to plan the second mission (sending a package) I believed that it would be difficult to create engaging activities. Then I remembered what I have learnt in the subject TIC. I started to think about online tools and creative ideas and finally I developed the second mission. The following points have been omitted: "Introduction" and "Before start". This is because they are part of the same project and they are correlatives.
MISSION 2: "Sending a package" (in groups)
How many times have you seen arriving a package at home? Sometimes, packages travel long distances around the world. In this case, we are going to plan an itinerary for some products. Imagine that you are a delivery man and you have to send packages from different countries in Europe to Madrid.
The following rubric will help you to create a good job.
At the end of this mission, you should be able to:
- Know the countries of the European continent.
- Know the neighboring countries of other European countries.
- Use tools to do presentations online.
- Compare different routes to move around Europe.
- Work in a collaborative way respecting the opinions of your partners.
Please pay attention to the instructions:
1) Look for 5 different objects made in Europe (at home or on the internet).
2) Use google maps and plan a route for each object to Madrid.
3) Take notes of the different countries the object will go, the capital and the main aspects of each country. You can follow this chart:
4) Now it is time to do a presentation about the route of each object. You have some online tools that you can use: Prezy, Genialy or Canva.
This is an example of the work that you will have to do with each object. You can be as creative as you want!
5) Once you have realized it, you can write a new post in the class blog writing about what you have learned. You can talk about which country you have liked the most and why (because of its monuments, food,...). Remember to share this presentation with your eTwinning partner (he will do the same!)
Summing up, I would like to say that most of the times, the best way to find out if something really works is just doing it. When creating this presentation with genialy I have noticed that it is motivating and really useful also for students. Of course you have to provide them with freedom to choose their favorite editing program and it is necessary to look for more than just one tool that can do the same functions.
It is really difficult to design and plan the two super learning mission. But now that it is done, the feeling of satisfaction is great. Nevertheless this work can be improved and adapted to the current situations whenever necessary.
This kind of challenges are also better to engage students because they learn through a significant way. Most of the times the way in which students learn is repetitive without motivation. This kind of projects and of course the teachers can help to create a true super mission: to change the school.
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project!
Hello again, this time you are going to read about the super learning mission that I have created.
I had a CLIL project which I had converted in a collaborative one, but now it was time to develop it in order to create two successful missions. Firstly I informed myself again about how to create a successful super learning mission an I consulted some websites (Edutopia)
After it was the momento to thing about how to make the activities more attractive and about the interactive tools I could use. It has also been an opportunity to create something real and useful to carry out in the future. I have to confess that at first I developed a really long mission and when I read it, I realized that it was too difficult to understand (Y used a complicated vocabulary and it was not clear for the students). Then, I tried to think like a student and redacted everything again. I embedded links and gave clear examples to clarify each one of the steps.
To create the activities was easy, because they already existed in my "prototype of a CLIL project". Now it was time to develop each one, create clear steps and search for the best online tools to be used by students. When it was possible, I gave examples (I created a soundcloud field and a genial.ly presentation). Most of the times, students need to follow a reference point to create their own ideas after.
Now, it is time so show you my super learning mission 1. It has been divided in: Introduction, Before start and Mission 1.
EUROPE: ITS CONNECTIONS AND ITS SOUND.
INTRODUCION:
Welcome to a new learning adventure in which you are going to improve your knowledge, your English and the use of new technologies! This project is about Europe and its sounds. Try to do your best and enjoy your learning process.
Along this resource you will work on different sounds of the nature around you and learn how the different countries in Europe are connected. You will be proposed two missions. You are also going to improve your English skills: writing (writing in the class blog), speaking (exchanging ideas with your partners) and listening (listening to your classmates, teachers and through videos).
This project will be worked in a collaborative way. There will be pair work, team work and individual work. This means that you will have to listen to your partners, respect them, listen to their ideas and work together to achieve the best result (but sometimes you will have to work alone). You also have to listen to the teacher's explanations to understand everything better.
To do your best, it is very important to follow the instructions given in each activity.
BEFORE START:
It is a petty if we don't share what we learn. Therefore we are going to write in our class blog all our reflections about the missions. But, Why do we do that?
Because we are going to take part of the eTwinning community. Through eTwinning, the schools create projects and we are going to create a project together with a German school. Our partner school is going to see our project, and we are also going to see their project. Then, we have to be creative and work knowing that our ideas will be read by other students.
The following rubric will help you to create a good job:
MISSION 1: "The sound of the European countries" (in pairs)
At the end of this mission, you should be able to:
- Edit your own recordings.
- Upload you recordings in a collaborative sound map website.
- Know the sounds of the nature around you and Europe.
- Work in a collaborative way respecting the opinions of your partners.
- Use online tools in order to achieve your objetives.
Here you are going to listen about what a sound map is. Please, pay attention:
As you can see, a sound map puts emphasis on the sound representation of a specific location. The objetive of sounds maps is to represent a specific environment using its soundscape as primary references as opposed to visual cues. Sound maps encourage the participants to listen carefully.
Now it is time to work on something real. We are going to participate in the sound map project naturesoundmap. Please pay attention to the instructions:
1. Visit this links of the website naturesoundmap to know the project better:
2. Look for an interesting place in the nature close to you that you would like to record. Record it and remember to take a picture of the place.
3. Now, you can upload the field to the web naturesoundmap (visit again the link).
As it is said in submissions, you have to use soundcloud. Here you have an example about how your final result should be: example.
To use soundcloud you need to have a gmail account, with the help of an adult create a gmail account and then you will be ready tu use soundcloud.
4. Share your sounds. As it has been said, you are going to take part in the project eTwinning. Copy the link of your sound and share it with you student partner in Germany. He will share his sound also with you.
5. Write a new entry in the class blog, explaining briefly what you have done. Here you have some ideas about what can you write:
a) Talk about the place chosen to record.
b) The sounds that you listened.
c) How did you feel while you were there?
d) What have you learned in this work?
Summing up, I have to confess that it has been a little bit difficult to create a super learning mission because all the steps had to be very clear. I thought: If I were a student and I had to do this challenge alone, could I have done it by myself? I think that I have achieved a good approach. However, I think that the connexion with my collaborative project could have been better. In my previous post I looked for a partner: "twima project" but I noticed after that Twima is coming to an end on 1 May. Then (following the recommendations) I have connected it with eTwining. I know how eTwining works but not enough (it would be necessary to take part in this project in a real way to know more about it or to complete a course). Then I hope to learn about eTwining soon to improve this super learning mission.
I have also learned how to use soundcloud, it is a really easy online tool, and it gives you the opportunity to upload your music creation and share it around the world easily. I think that children would enjoy using this tool, and it has a perfect connection with music lessons. Students can record their creations and share it (if the learning process continues outside of the class, it is so much more motivating).
In my following post, you can see my MISSION 2: Sending a package"
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project!
Hello everyone, here I present an interesting new entry. As you remember, in previous posts, we created a prototype of a CLIL Educational Digital Project and later we enrich it turning it into a collaborative one. Now it is time to enhance the quality of this project looking for partners and finding collaborative running projects where ours may fit in.
"Business"Photograph by TeroVesalainen. CC0 Public Domain
Firstly I reviewed so many collaborative projects to find the most appropriate. It was not easy because although most of them were so attractive none of them fit with my project.
Nevertheless here I am going to mention some of them (the most attractive from my point of view) in case it could be useful for someone:
- The ESL Times: it is an online collaborative project with the aim of publishing an English digital magazine to promote TICs, language skills, collaborative work and reading in English.
- Tertulias con sabor a chocolate: it is an educational blog where any institution with educational purposes can participate. The idea is to share projects to promote quality education.
Finally I decided to join the Twima project but, what is Twima?
Twima is a project, which aim is to compile a collaborative iBook. Twima begins with the question: "What would happen if one classroom form every state and country in the world came together to write an publish an eBook?". I believe that it is an amazing project because it is open to everybody and students can public their project (which is a motivating aspect). All students can also work to find patterns in their wold, regardless of their age, level, location, or interest. Patterns can be found in music, math, art, writing, science, computer, history and beyond.
The Twima project is in connexion with my project of creating a sound map of nature. We share two on the main aspects of this project: the students are the protagonists and they work collaboratively with students from other countries.
But, how can I persuade them to take part in this project? As you can see below, I have crated an elevator pitch video. An elevator pitch is a metaphor that tries to answer the following question: How would you present a project to a potencial customer to convince him in just 20 seconds?
Basically an elevator pith is a brief, persuasive speech that you use to spark interest in a project, idea, or product or in yourself. They should be interesting, memorable and succinct. They also need to explain what makes you (or your organization, product, or idea) unique.
Here you can see me elevator pitch:
As you can image, it was difficult to do such a short video with the aim of persuading somebody. I followed the next steps:
1. I saw examples of elevator pitch videos on the internet.
2. I wrote down the points I wanted to talk about in a mind map :
To start with an engaging question.
To talk about what I have created and how it can be useful.
To explain why I need his / her help.
To give information about me in order to be contacted.
3. I redacted a draft.
4. When I was secure of my speech, I recorded the video.
5. It was time to edit it. Then using iMovie I created the video (if you want know more about
iMovie, you can see it on my previous post, where I have talked about it).
I would like to finish by doing a reflection about what I have learned through this challenge. First of all I have known different collaborative projects and maybe in a future some of them will be useful to take part into a collaborative / international project. Also, my prototype of a CLIL Education Digital Project has evolved notoriously from my latest posts till here. I am so proud of it and I think that this step has been the goal that I have been looking for.
It has been so funny to do an elevator pitch. I thought that this kind of videos was more typical for futures businessman but somehow a teacher has to be an entrepreneur too. Also it has served to convince myself about how good my collaborative project was. Anyway I will need more attempts to do my best in an elevator pitch although this has been a good attempt.
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project!
In my last post, I designed a project focused on the European continent, it's countries, relief and the music. It helped me so much, because it gave me the opportunity to design a useful project to put into practice in a future. However my project still was not perfect because it was not a collaborative one.
In this post you are going to see how I am going to turn my open educational digital project into a collaborative one. Learning should be a social experience, that is why I am going to connect my previous project with a collaborative project.
First of all, I started reading the different kind of collaborative currents to find the most interesting one for my personal project:
Finally I decided to convert my project in a collaboration out of the classroom. As you will remember, the title of my prototyped educational project was: The European continent. Now it is time to make it more attractive. I have been challenged to design an online visual metaphor to turn my educational project into a collaborative one. So, let's get to work!
"Molino". Photograph by hschmider. CCO Public Domain.
All European countries have aspects that make them different from each other: landscape, relief, cities, monuments, music... Bur in every place we can also find different sounds, which make it unique. For example, the sounds of a forest in the mountains of Madrid are totally different from the sounds we can find near of Scotties cliff.
Piktochart: I like to discover tools like pixabay that help you to create infographics, presentations and printable in a professional way. I also have to mention that it works very intuitively (with an easy interface) and in a short time anyone is able to manage the program effectively. However it is true that the payment version includes certain advantages (better image quality, export your presentations to SlideShare...).
Naturesoundmap: is a collaborative project whose aim is to create a worldwide's natural sound map. This project is done by professional nature recordists although anyone can participate. People share photos, profiles or tweets... I thing that a sound map is something more interesting that also helps to create an awareness of respect about the planet. It is very easy to use and everything that uploads is verified.
eTwinning: is a community of schools in Europe. It offers a platform for European schools, to communicate, collaborate and develop projects between them. I thing it's an interesting way to get enriching projects. In this way, a project carried out in a class can become more dynamic and motivating. In addition, friendships between schools in different countries are strengthened.
I would like to carry out this collaborative project next year and above all I am happy to know the web eTwining. Also I have learned the different ways in which teachers can transform project into collaborative ones. Taking into account the global world in which we live, I think it is a very important aspect.
I will be pleased to receive ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project.
In the previous post, we saw the analysis of a CLIL project. Thanks to that work, I learnt about the most important aspects when carrying out a project.
Now in this post, you are going to see a prototype of my CLIL project. For me it was difficult to chose a topic. Finally I decided to investigate about a social science topic: the European continent. I will try to explain carefully all the steps I followed and also my learning experience concerning this matter.
I want to clarify that this work is a first approach to the project and therefore, changes can be made later on (depending on the real needs that I may find in a class).
Firstly I want to show you the template used to design my prototype. It has been very useful for organizing all my ideas and shaping the project. I used the tool issuu. This template shows the main features of this educational project.
As you can see, this project has been designed for the social science subject and it has a link with the music subject (cross-curricular link). It has also been designed with the propose to achieve the following aims: to locate Europe in a map; to recognize the limits of the European continent; to know the different landforms of the European continent; to identify on a map the main landforms of the European contienen; to identify some European countries; to develop habits of responsibility, effort and teamwork and to know some examples of music in Europe. The project has been designed for 8 sessions. In the session there are 2 missions (challenges) included and a final project to be done in groups. Through the seasons some skills such as communication skills, digital skills, learn to learn or social and civic skills will be developed.
I am going to show you a video to summarize the whole information. I was not sure about which tool to use to do a video. I knew how to use some online tools, and then I decided to do it myself. Using Keynote (it is a slideshow presentation software developed by Apple), I created my own animated presentation. Then I recorded my presentation on video using QuickTime and after iMovie (a video editing software application sold by Apple). I did my own video and uploaded it on YoTube, so it was easy to link it to this post. Here you have the result:
To conclude, I would like to do a reflection of my own work. This challenge task (Prototype your open CLIL educational digital project), has made me reflect, plan and structure a prototype project like never before. The template was very useful and helped me to remember all the important aspects. Now that I have done my template, I can develop and use it in the future. After, the video presentation has allowed me to do my own work without using online tools. I think that this aspect is important, because some times you don't have access to the net, and this is an easy way to do something by yourself.
I will be pleased to received ideas to improve my work. Together we can do an awesome project.
My town is a project designed for 1st grades of Secondary Education. Through different challenges (5 missions) students will have to carry out a final activity that will consist of creating a video clip in which they are going to promote their city.
The objectives of this project are:
To know and to use the vocabulary regarding to the city.
To be able to ask and answer about how to get to a place in a city.
To make comparisons.
To produce a video clip about the good sides of a city.
In order to do a deep analysis of this project, firstly I have read the moodle instructions carefully and secondly I have read the project in depth contrasting the information with the following checklist.
After I have done a draft taking into account the principal ideas of the checklist “Essential Project Design Elements Checklist” found on moodle.
Here you can see the analysis and at the end of this entry you will see a presentation that will help you to understand the analysis.
1. KEY KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, AND SUCCESS SKILLS
The project is focused on teaching students key knowledge and understanding derived from standards, and success skills including critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.
The aim of this project is to guide students in the use of english language focusing on development skills such as listening, writing, speaking, carrying out investigation, cooperating with others, reviewing work, creativity, organizing information etc. Some of these skills are implicitly cited as we can see in the picture below.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
As well as each of the proposed activities, has clear standards to make the work of the students easier.
Example 4
2. CHALLENGING PROBLEM OR QUESTION
The project is focused on making a final work going through several missions. Each mission has established steps but students are free to exploit their creativity. In the case of the final activity, they have to create a videoclip about their city. But they are free to write whatever they want in each part of the video.
Of course the theme is engaging because it starts from a reality that they know (the cities) in connexion with something that they love (new technologies).
3. SUSTAINED INQUIRY
As it is said at the beginning of the project, the knowledge will be created not only by the teacher's explanation, but also as a self investigation and interaction among the partners. This makes the process of learning more enriching because students will learn by generating questions, sharing and contrasting informations with others and using resources. We can find one example of this in the activity number one:
Example 5
4. AUTHENTICITY
From the start it is made patent how the project is connected with the real word-context. On television or on the internet it is very common to see videos promoting cities, culture or products. With this project, the students will have the opportunity to do something similar. Also, along the activities, students will use tools such us WeVideo, Storyboard That, Google Document, Poster My Wall, Youtube, Vimeo or twitter.
Their work will also have a real impact because they will upload their video on YouTube where everybody can see it.
With this project the students will feel interested and identified because they have used tools to which they are accustomed. In addition their work will remain in the time (which is a motivating aspect).
5. STUDENT VOICE & CHOICE
In the whole project the students are never obligated to use a specific tool. These tools are suggestions and in the instruction they are redacted in this way “You may use an online tool such as…” . Sometimes the student is also offered the opportunity to choose the tool he wants.
Example 6
6. REFLECTION
The project provides opportunities for students to reflect on what and how they are learning, and on the project’s design and implementation.
Before the project, students have to reflect about the topic that they will work on in the following sessions.
Example 7
Along the project students are constantly doing reflexions about what they are learning. For example, in the project some advices are given to make the student reflect.
Example 8
In this case, the students have to put in practice what they have learned.
Example 9
At the end of the project students have to reflect about their experience with this project. This reflection is useful for students and the teacher (to solve or change all the aspects that might not work properly).
Example 10
It is interesting, that at the end of the project, there is a didactic guideline, where the students can see the structure of the project.
7. CRITIQUE & REVISION
This project is designed to be done in groups, so that the students can give each other feedback. Also the checklist of each missions is useful because the student can image how his evaluation will be. I imagine that during the sessions the students will also receive a feedback from their teacher. In the last sessions, the teacher will assess students and he will do a collaborative assessment.
8. PUBLIC PRODUCT
With this project, students create a main product: a video clip in which they are going to promote their city and also they are going to upload their video on YouTube.
Besides, they will create a blog where they present the works and activities that they have done.
Blogs and youtube are two digital spaces where everybody has access to, which means that their work will have a global diffusion. CONCLUSION Doing this work I have learned tow thing that I consider fundamenta: learn to analyze a project and the use of a new tool like Genial.ly I have to admit that I have enjoyed and suffered at the same time doing this work. But the reward was worth it. Thank you!
Following you can see the presentation that I hace created using Genial.ly:
This is an interview with Irene Peña, who is studying a master in bilingual education in the university Rey Juan Carlos. Irene is going to give us some advices about how to be a good teacher and we will know some secrets about how she enjoys her free time.
This interview emulates a remote interview. If you want to know how I have done this amazing video, subsequently I will give you some advices to do something similar:
1- Find a partner.
2- Design an interview (write an introduction and think about the questions you want to use).
3- Record the interview: in my case Irene sent me a whatsapp with the questions that I should ask her. After I recorded the questions using Audacity (an open source, cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing).
Making this video, I have learned how to use my youtube channel. The most difficult thing has been to edit a video using free pictures and music because the result has not been as attractive as I thought. Anyway I am happy with the payoff and I have new ideas for future projects.
Tuesday 21 February 2017
Here you have an interesting resource to use in music lessons: Incredibox
It is a free musical website in which you can easily create a mix by running a band of beatboxers. Increibox has a flashy interface and a it is easy to use. Incredibox offers to students a simple way to see how different melodies and rhythms fit. Also Incredibox is a good tool to motivate students to do their own creations.
