My learning journey with ICT...

Hello my friends!

Today I’m feeling glad and sad at the same time. “How is it possible?” you may ask… Well, on the one hand, I’m glad to share with you my last ICT challenge; but, on the other hand, I’m sad because this crazy journey with ICT is almost over!

Here you have the last mission: we were asked to create a multimedia presentation in order to describe the learning journey throughout this course.

In order to do it, and among all the tools provided, I used the one called “Capzles”.

Why “Capzles”? Because it is a great free online tool which allows you to create very visual presentations using a timeline template. As it is an online tool, we need to “log in” (as we did in previous challenges with other tools). After that, you are more than ready to create your presentation!

With Capzles it is possible to include your own materials: pictures, videos, music, podcasts and so on. Thanks to that, you can personalise your presentations according to your needs.

The only drawback that it has, from my point of view, is the fact that you cannot insert pictures or videos directly from the web, for example, from YouTube. You have to download it and then, add it.

If you click here or on the picture above, you’ll have all the information about this great web tool.

In this presentation, as you will see, I used many pictures of my previous challenges -that you already know since you have read my blog- to make it clearer and easier to follow. I also added a podcast describing and reflecting about each mission according to the images.
Click here to check out my Capzles, or visit the following link if you prefer: http://www.capzles.com/2212038f-42e0-497c-a0a4-524ab6b9d160

Thanks to this last challenge I could reflect about my learning process throughout this course. We have spent so many time so as to create our artifacts, investigating the new tools, comparing them… that I cannot believe that it is about to finish!

If I look back, I can still remember my first days in this course. I could not imagine that I would be able to create all the artifacts and projects that I did! That’s rewarding. 

Related with that, I have to confess that the challenge I enjoyed the most was the choco-talk. I have never done anything like this before, and it was great! With this task we learnt not only to work in groups, but also to have fun discussing CLIL methodology in a completely different way while developing the ICT skills at the same time! Do you remember our choco-talk? Click here or on the picture if you don’t!

About the tool I liked the most, it was Aurasma (click here to know more about this tool). I have never heard about it before and I was amazed when I discovered it. It is incredible the fact that with this app, a simple picture can be brought back to live! Don’t you think so?

Finally, I would like to say thank you to my teacher, Mª Jesús and to my classmates from #ictclil_urjc as well for having given me the chance of becoming aware of the importance and usefulness of ICT for supporting us, as teachers. I realize the necessity of being always up to date, besides trying to innovate. There are no excuses: our pupils are the future, so we have to be ready and adapt out teaching methodologies to their new e-needs!

And that’s all my friends. I hope you have learnt as much as I did while enjoying my blog. I look forward to hearing from you, so do not hesitate on commenting!

Thank you for reading,

Raquel

Rubric to evaluate my e-project!

Hello blogger friends!

Here is my new challenge: evaluation of my e-project.

As you know, my classmates and I have created an e-project (click here to know more about it) as I told you in the previous posts. For this mission I have to create a rubric of evaluation in order to assess this e-project.

First of all, and after having been investigating different web tools to create the rubric, I finally chose the one called “Quick Rubric”. As it is a web tool, you will need first to create an account by clicking on “log in”, and then, on “I’m a new user”. After that, you fill in the gaps provided using your personal data and that’s all, you are ready to create your evaluation rubric!
Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Quick Rubric provides you with a template of a rubric, so you only have to fill it with the information or criteria that you will use for your evaluation. You can also modify the number and the order of the columns and the rows that you will use, so it is possible to personalise it however you want according to your ideas.

All the options appear directly in the screen, so it is very intuitive: you only have read! 

I have highlighted using different shapes and colours for you to visualize them easier.
Click on the picture to make it bigger. 

  

Furthermore, you can title the rubric and include a description of it in order to clarify what your rubric is about. About the score rating, Quick Rubric allows you to change it and adapt it to your own criteria. Once you finish, save it and you will get an URL to share the rubric. The web tool will send it to the e-mail account that you provided when creating the account. You also have the option to print it directly from the web page.  
Click on the picture to make it bigger.

What is more, if you then decide to change something, you can edit your rubric and share it again. And, of course, everything for free!

Related with that, I have to say that it could be a drawback due to it is not possible to share the rubric online directly from the tool. Furthermore, the number of columns and rows is limited, so you have to take into account the number of elements that you are going to assess if you use this tool.

Despite the disadvantages mentioned above, I recommend you to use it because of its simplicity and intuitive use as you could see. It is a very simple tool which allows you to create evaluation rubrics very quickly and personalising it according to your evaluation criteria and to your own needs.

Just click here to have a look at my rubric of evaluation, or visit the following link: https://www.quickrubric.com/r#/qr/raqueldial/evaluation-of-e-projects2

You are more than welcome to use it in order to evaluate my e-project! Let me know my mark!




To sum up, I would like to share with you that after doing this challenge, I realised the importance of the assessment and even more, the self assessment. When you create a project, an artifact, or simply do a task, you always try to do your best in order to reach a nice outcome. Once we finish, in general, we forget about it and move on to a new thing. However, as a rule, we do not think about it twice; and the fact is that it can always be improved! This way we can be aware of our own mistakes and avoid them in our future projects. Don’t you think so?

Thanks for reading!

Raquel

Creating a collaborative slideshow that supports learners!

Good afternoon bloggers!

I would like to present you our last group mission. In this case, we created a collaborative slideshow about a CLIL aim related with our common e-project that supports learners. How did we do that? Keep reading!

As you know, Natalia, Celia, Patricia and I created a common CLIL e-project about the body and the senses (click here to refresh the memory).

In our project, pupils have to create a poster about the body and the senses using Canva. For this reason, we decided to create a tutorial for our children in order to explain how to use Canva, because they might need help with it.

We all agreed to use the web tool “Genial.ly” to create our tutorial because is a free online tool which allows you to make original presentations. We would recommend it as it provides lots of images, frames and templates to create them. In addition, Genial.ly allows you to link many other sources such as YouTube or Soundcloud as well as including your own images, which is great. There are many templates available which are attractive and useful depending on the topic you are going to work with. However, we found a drawback the fact that you need Internet connection if you want to change or show your creation, although you can download it. But, in general terms, we believe that it is a great resource to be introduced in our classroom both for teachers and students. For all these reasons we will highly recommend it!

Here you can find our tutorial, and also in the following link: http://www.genial.ly/View/Index/5712001b1561e807349c6fa0

What's more, this is going to be part of the "AporTICs" nationwide collaborative project, which means that our artifact will be posted in their blog! Do you want to know more about the project? Click here or on the picture to get all the information! 

They even gave us an award for having participated! Here it is:

Related with the challenge we were asked for, I would like to say that I found it very interesting and useful. When I do not know how to use a tool, web tool or whatever, I always try to look for tutorials in order to clarify my doubts. So now, it was my turn to create one so as to help others, my pupils in this case. Thanks to that I realised the importance and usefulness of tutorials that we, as teachers, should take into account when introducing new tools to our students. They can even create them! This way we will be dealing with ICT and peer teaching-learning at the same time.

If you have any question, please, contact us! 

Thank you for reading! Do not hesitate to comment my blog.

Raquel

My CLIL e-Project Prototype

Hi bloggers!

Here is my new challenge! We are creating a CLIL e-Project, and here you have my prototype. After thinking about a suitable topic for my e-Project, I finally chose “The parts of the body” since it is a topic learnt during the whole Primary Education, and it would be useful for my future as a teacher.

You can find the prototype of my e-Project in the following link in Google Docs, where I explain my unit, objectives, outcomes, resources, tasks…
The link is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ec4TeHa2uwRklMWGZ1NVVMdEk/view?usp=sharing

My outline is based on the template that María Jesús (our teacher) gave to us. I used it in order to avoid missing any part.

In order to do my clip to present my prototype I used the tool called Powtoon. After having a look to the other tools, I finally chose this one because it is very visual and it offers many possibilities. You can add sounds, videos, pictures, and even your own ones! Thanks to that you can create a complete personalised presentation according to your interests. Moreover it is also possible to add characters, making the presentation more interactive, which allows to catch better our attention. Here you have the link to my presentation: https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/e6N3j5Nzw04/?mode=movie#/

Thanks for reading!

Raquel

Evaluating CLIL e-projects

Hello everyone, I'm here again! Now I am talking about evaluating CLIL e-projects. 

After considering the different list of eprojects provided by our teacher, I finally chose the one called “Our Amazing Body” which outcome is to help students find out interesting facts about our body. It is available in http://learningaboutouramazingbody.weebly.com/students.html.

First of all, I would like to say that I finally decided to choose this one because I think it is a good and a different way to increase the knowledge of our body investigating interactively.

Now, about the e-project, it is clearly structured and easy to follow thanks to the table of contents included in the home page. Furthermore, all the parts share the same structure: they all include a title, an introduction and then, examples to facilitate the understanding. All the contents are coherent and licenced.

Moreover, all the information included has a real-world context, which makes possible to promote critical thinking. Thanks to that, children will be motivated since the topic is linked to their interests. They are also motivated since they have to use different multimedia features in order to do their tasks. In addition, the project includes imaginative and original contents in an attractive and engaging way that catches students’ attention.

Related with the tasks, they all include a brief explanation and a real example of the goal answer. To accomplish them, children have to create their own materials or products to do them by using different webtools such as Voki, Cookit or SoundCloud. So, the use of online tools is an extra content included in the project. After that, they have to share their work in the class blog explaining the process they have followed to obtain this outcome, which is promoting collaborative work. Actually, this is what I liked the most of the e-project because all tasks require students to demonstrate what they learn by creating a product that is presented to their classmates.

However, it does not provide any processes to give and receive feedback for the students: there is not evaluation of the tasks. It does not either allow students to make choices about the products they have to create since children have to use the tool that the teacher gives to them. Besides, it does not take into account people with visual disabilities: the size of the letter is too small and light, which makes difficult to read it.

In order to improve this e-project I would include a rubric to evaluate each task. This would be also helpful for children as they will have clearer what they have to do. I would also provide more than one tool (with similar aims) to create the tasks so that children will know more tools and they will have to reflect about which one is better for them. Finally, related with the letters, I would change the colour and the size, and also underline the key words.

You can find my evaluation of the e-project described above here: http://prezi.com/at3n6sig2_fx/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

I used “Prezi” to create it. Some of my classmates had used it in their oral presentations in class, and I really liked it because it is visual and different from the typical “Power Point”. You can include videos, pictures, graphs, music or even documents. Thanks to that you will create attractive and original presentations.

Thanks for reading! 

Raquel

Pinterest and CLIL...

Good morning blogger-friends! 

I would like to share with you the board I created using Pinterest where I clasified materials and resources that I found interesting for my future projects using CLIL methodology. 

Thanks to that, I can have my useful resources well organised as well as easy to find! Isn't it a good idea?

Feel free to follow me and my board if you feel like it! You will find a wide range of materials and ideas to use with your students. 

See you!

Pinterest...

Hello bloggers! 

Have you ever heard about "Pinterest"? It is a great free social network where you can find many resources about whatever you can imagine! Not only about education or materials for the classroom, but also recipes, health and more things. It's very interesting, isn't it? 

My next challenge had to do with that. Me and my classmates (with our teacher too) share a bank of common knowledge in Pinterest. Our teacher created a common board using Pinterest, in which each of us posted six resources that we found useful for our career. We had to take into account that all these resources were free and without copyright. As you can see, that is also related with the previous post! 
What I liked the most about that it is that thanks to that, we gather all our ideas in a same place which is useful for us as teachers, not only now to increase our ideas, but also to carry them in our future with our own students. According to what I said about the copyright, this activity also made me aware of the importance that it has, and the necessity of checking the licence of all materials we share! Sometimes we do not realise the importance it has, but every work has an owner, and we should respect that as we want them to respect our work. 

These are the resources that I chose. You only have to click on the title to see them: 

1) Mixtures and solutions.

Learning about mixtures and solutions using easy experiments, because the best way to learn something is by doing it!

2) Projects.

Working with projects in Science about animals in danger! It is a great idea to link both Arts&Crafts with Science while learning at the same time. By: Raquel Diez Alonso.

3) CLIL resources. 

Free resources, information and examples of CLIL approach to carry out with our students.

4) Halloween.

Halloween time… here is an example of learning about culture and art at the same time! By: Raquel Diez Alonso.

5) Breakfast learningtime. 

Breakfast-learning time! With this idea we can learn about fractions in a funny and visual way while having breakfast. This webiste (Pircs4Learning) provides a safe and free digital library for education where you can find many pictures, photos, videos or projects to carry out with your students.

6) Fruit SolarSystem. 

Model making: solar system made up of fruit. This way we can reach a meaningful learning using such a funny, visual and healthy idea. Moreover, it can be linked to Science and the healthy diet or the food pyramid. By: Raquel Diez Alonso.

7) Water cycle.

Nice blog with CLIL resources where you can find many ideas, activities and tips to create a suitable CLIL lesson in your classroom to teach the water cycle.

I hope these resources are useful for you.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Creative Commons Licence...

Hi everyone!

Here is another challenge... Now we learnt about licences, their importance and relevance.

The licence I have chosen for my blog is called “Atribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International”. With this type of licence people can share the materials from my e-portfolio as well as they can copy and redistribute them in any medium or format. They are also allowed to adapt the materials, which mean that they can remix, transform and build upon the material.

But they have to take into account that:

• If they make any changes, they have to indicate it and retain an indication of previous modifications. That means “Attribution”.
• Moreover, they cannot use the material for commercial purposes. That means “NonCommercial”.
• Finally, if they remix, transform or build upon the material from my e-portfolio, they must share my contributions under the same licence as mine. This is the meaning of “ShareAlike”.

So now, at the bottom of  my blog you can see the following picture, showing that I am using this licence: 

All the terms and conditions of it are available in: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

You can also create your own licence with the conditions you think that are more suitable for you. Just click here: http://creativecommons.org/choose/?lang=en

This challenge made me think about the importance of that and also, become aware of the necessity to talk about that to our students and how to motivate them to take that into account. I have to say that in my opinion, sharing resources or materials is a great idea to learn from each other and to improve ourselves. Because of that, I believe that our students have to learn about the importance of copyright in order to find suitable materials for their projects or works, not only for the school, but also for their future. They should realise that some pictures or resources that they can find in different sources require permission to be used. In order to do that, I would suggest creating a project to deal with this topic and to make them aware that we must respect the work of other people as we want them to do the same with ours. For this reason we should encourage them to always tell the source where they found the information.

Thanks for reading! 

My PLE and PLN for CLIL...

Hello blogger friends!

Here we go with the third challenge: my PLE and PLN for CLIL.

I have to say that the first time I heard about CLIL was during my University Degree in Primary Education at León. I did the English mention and I had three subjects in which we studied it: main concepts, principles, methodology, how to use it, practical sessions… Then, I had the opportunity to learn more about it and to apply it during my placement in the schools. The first one was in Ireland, and they used this methodology. The second time I was in a MEC British Council school, and they do also use CLIL. Thanks to that I could see the theory I had learnt in a practical way. Then, I went further when I started this Master in Bilingualism, where I have learnt more about strategies, resources, activities… and see more examples of the use of this great methodology.

Both my PLE and my PLN are linked to each other, as you can see in my diagram:

https://www.novamind.com/cloud/doc/8363?nm_referrer=32595

Apart from that, I use more tools in order to learn more and find out new things about CLIL:

1)      To organise information:

- Dropbox: it is a tool to keep information in a very easy way. It offers the possibility of saving pictures, projects, tasks, videos… and to have them always with you even if you have not your computer.

- Google Drive: it offers almost the same things mentioned before in Dropbox, but also it allows to share a project with a group of people and to modify it in a real time.

2)      To share and communicate:

- Twitter, Facebook and Blogger: I often use them to share information and thoughts about CLIL, as well as to see other points of view and new ideas. They give you the possibility to follow many pages related with that.

- Gmail and Outlook: both of them are used to share my projects, tasks, lessons… with other people.

- WhatsApp and Skype: they are very useful to share opinions, ideas or to solve doubts related to CLIL immediately.

- Pinterest: it offers a great variety of displays, ideas and models which can be used in a CLIL lesson.

- Moodle URJC: it allows to share projects or tasks about CLIL with our classmates as well as to have a look to their projects at the same time.

3)      To learn more and look for information:

- Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox: both of them are useful to find information about CLIL, to solve doubts related with that, to search pictures or resources linked with it. 

- Word Reference: I use it in order to clarify my doubts when I do not know some words or expressions about CLIL explanations.

- YouTube: here it is possible to find so many songs, explanations… related with CLIL.

- BBC: it offers a huge range of resources to plan a CLIL lesson.

4)      To create new things:

- StoryJumper: I discovered it recently, and I use it to create stories.

- Paint: it is useful to create simple pictures, diagrams or to modify some other elements.

- Movie Maker: to create videos.

- Microsoft Office: I use it to create the activities or lessons with CLIL methodology.

- NovaMind: it offers the opportunity to create mind maps. It is very useful to arrange information.

In order to create my PLE and my PLN, I had a look at all the tools that our teacher suggested to us. There were great ones such as Coogle, Popplet or Easel.ly. Among all of them, I finally decided to make it using NovaMind because it is quite easy to understand and the outcomes are very attractive. It offers the opportunity to create your own mind map since the very first moment, so you do not have to choose a template and then modify it according to the theme. You can change the colours, the style, or insert different elements such as images, texts and adornments according to the aim of your diagram (if it is for children, for you, for other student…).

Thank you for your attention!

3, 2, 1 Introduction...

Hi everyone!

Here is my first challenge using ICTs: my 3, 2, 1 Introduction.

After trying different tools I finally decided to create it using StoryJumper. You may wonder why… I saw some of my classmates presentations from the master using it and I really liked it! I knew about Animoto or Powtoon, but I’ve never heard about StoryJumper. This tool offers the possibility of creating your own book easily using personal information. You can use different resources such as pictures, characters, cartoons, scenes… Even it is possible to include your own pictures, so the story you create would be completely personalised. For this reason I believe that it is a very useful tool not only to create a 3, 2, 1 Introduction, but also to create stories for our pupils for free. Depending on the topic they are studying, we can create a book to review vocabulary, verb tenses, expressions, or just a simple story, for example.  

My 3, 2, 1 Introduction is available in the following link: https://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/24569798/56c8440eb50b7

If you prefer, just click here. 

Read this free book made on StoryJumper

If you have any problems to watch it, please, let me know.

I hope you enjoy, and do not hesitate to comment my video!

Raquel

A beginner in this new world...

Hello bloggers!

My name is Raquel and I am an English Primary teacher. I am currently studying a master in Bilingual Education at Rey Juan Carlos University.

You should know that it is the first time that I create a blog, so please, do not take into account all the mistakes I will make... I am a beginner in this "new world", so I hope you help me, I have too many things to learn!

I have created this blog in order to share all the things that I am now learning related with ICTs such as tools, websites, new creations...

So I hope you enjoy it. Well, actually I hope we enjoy together and learn from each other!

Do not hesitate on commenting it, that would be great for me.

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Thank you!

Raquel