A sweet CLIL discussion: our chocotalk!

Hi bloggers!

Today I am so proud of showing you a great summary of our new challenge: a chocotalk. Do you know what is it? After reading this blog you will know it! You can also click here to know everything about chocotalks.

Two weeks ago, the 7^th of April, my classmates and I did a chocotalk about “How CLIL can contribute to having happier bilingual learners”. In order to do that, we worked in groups: I was in the same as in the previous challenges described, with Patricia, Celia, and Natalia.

Each of us had a specific role in this mission:

• Patricia was the speaker in the chocotalk, giving opinions and proposals about the topics that appeared during the talk.
• Natalia was the “content curator”, responsible for writing a summary about the chocotalk, including the most important topics and ideas said in it.
• Celia and I were the “disseminators”. We had to pay attention to the chocotalk and write tweets about it in order to spread the word! We used the hashtags #chococharlas and #ictclil_urjc. So if you want to read something about our chocotalk, have a look at them!

The first thing we did in order to prepare our chocotalk was to find out about it. I have never heard about chocotalks, neither my classmates… So we read in “Tertulias con sabor a chocolate” everything we had to know about this new challenge.

After that, we made a draft about what Patricia (our speaker) would say during the chocotalk: the topics were related with CLIL, motivation, ideas for planning good lessons…

Then, during the chocotalk each of us did our role (the ones explained above). Personally, being a disseminator was quite hard and funny at the same time as I had to pay attention not only to the chocotalk to write tweets about them, but also to other people who were commenting about our chocotalk in order to answer their doubts or questions about it. The fact of seeing that other people (not only our classmates) were also interested in us (in our ideas, projects, proposals…) was rewarding. Thanks to this role, we made the chocotalk more interactive and participative since when there was a question about the topic that the speakers were dealing with, we had to ask it to them.   

Finally, to end up this new mission our team created a great and complete summary of the chocotalk using “Storify”. You can see it if you click here.

I would like to say that I did not know about this tool, Storify. I think it is very useful because it allows you to summarise everything which was said in Twitter and other social networks related to a specific topic (or more than one) in a very visual way. Its easy makes Storify a suitable tool that may be introduced in our classroom, dealing with ICT and learning new web tools.

About the challenge, I believe that it was a very interesting task that involved all the students: the fact of having specific roles ensure full participation, which was great. We all had fun at the same time we learnt new things: the use of new tools and the experience of having participated in a chocotalk!

If you want to watch the complete chocotalk, click hereor on the following video:

Thanks for reading! I am looking forward to hearing from you about this new challenge!

Raquel

Double mission: planning and recording a video challenge!

Hi friends!

Do you want to see our next challenge? Here it is!

Now we were asked to plan and create a video challenge for our collaborative CLIL e-project.

Again, as in the previous challenge, this was a teamwork, and we worked in the same group as we did before keeping also the same roles: Natalia, Celia, Patricia and I.

The first part of the challenge consisted of creating a storyboard for the video challenge (which was the second part of the mission) to include in our CLIL e-project.

As we were not sure about storyboards, we looked for some examples to clarify the concept. Thanks to that we realised that a storyboard consisted of drawings and notes in frames that represent a scene in our future video challenge. So it was a kind of “draft” for our video.

The next step was to choose the suitable tool for creating the storyboard. Among many possibilities such as Storyboard Generator, Storyboard Template for Google Drive, Storyboard Maker free Android app, we finally chose Storyboard That. You may ask why, right? Well, here I will explain our decision. The first think we liked was the huge range of possibilities that it provides: you can choose many different images, scenes, backgrounds, texts… It offers the option to develop your story in a school (as we did in our storyboard), outdoors, in castle… About the characters used, it is also possible to pesonalise them according to your needs. The only thing that it does not allow you to include sounds, and that would be nice to make the comic more interactive from our point of view. What I want to say is that you can choose, for example, their physical appearance and their face expression, but not the voice. Anyway, thanks to that you have the opportunity to use this app in order to reach many goals, since you can customise the story for your own aims. Furthermore, I find it very interesting to use with our students since it is very visual and original. Moreover, it can also be used for them to create their own stories related with a subject, task… since this web tool is not difficult at all to use. With it, they are dealing with communicative and writing skills in a different way as they are used to do it, practicing ICT at the same time, and that will be motivating!

If you click here you can find our storyboard, and also in the following link: https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/93_nat/the-senses


Made with Storyboard That

Once we finished the storyboard, we moved on to the second part of the mission: recording a video challenge based on the storyboard we made.

It was not difficult to start with it as our comic was a kind of “draft” of our video, so we knew more or less the outline of our video. As we did in our storyboard, we recorded the video in a classroom. In order to make it more engaging, we pretended being students carrying our e-project out. Our proposal, as you can see in our video challenge if you click here, is that children create a poster about the body and the senses using the web tool Canva. In the video we also explain the steps they have to follow to reach the final outcome and the way we will assess the task.

In order to record the clip, we used an smartphone, and then we edited it with Movie Maker (you can get it just clicking here). From our point of view, Movie Maker is a great free resource (in Windows) to edit and create your own videos: it offers the possibility to add videos, pictures, music, sounds... Moreover, in our opinion this app is very easy to use because you can see all the features the tool offers at a first sight and it is very intuitive. Another advantage is that you can also use it without Internet connection. However, we consider that the main problem about this tool is that users from other computer systems (as Linux or Mac) may face more problems to use it; since they might not find the chance to download it or they may pay for it as the tool cannot have all the features included in the Windows version.

I would like to say that I often used this tool for some of the lesson I have carried out during my internship in order to present new contents, clarify some ideas… Children love it since the explanations were very neat and visual. I also included videos and images of real examples, and also pictures of the children, making the learning more personalised. Thanks to that children were engaged to the explanation. Movie Maker makes possible to use it in many different ways in your classroom.

There you have our final video, just click here or visit the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vXWjrxl8E0

Moreover, both, our storyboard and the video challenge are going to be part of a nationwide educational collaborative project called The ESL Times (click here to know more about the project), which is very exciting! Our ideas are published in their blog! I believe that it is a great idea to include the use of ICT in our classrooms, making it motivating and meaningful, since all the tasks have a real purpose. Furthermore, ESL gave us an award for having participated in this collaborative project with them!

Thanks for reading!

Raquel

Creating an InfoEduGraphic!

Hello bloggers!

Here I am again with a new challenge: creating an InfoEduGraphic.

In order to design this digital artifact we worked in groups. We had not had the chance of working in groups before in this subject, and I want to say that this was a great idea despite having some difficulties such as the need to get an agreement, arrange our free time to meet... Some of these difficulties were overcome because each member of the group has a role, so as to do the best of us.

The fact of working in groups allows us to share ideas, see different points of view and learn from each other. Thanks to that we also realised the importance of responsibility and respect, which are basic values for our life.

Our teacher made the groups according to the topic of our CLIL e-project, and we (Natalia, Celia, Patricia and I) were allocated in the group called “Natural Science: body” since all of us had a topic related with that. Here we had to find the first arrangement as our CLIL e-projects’ topics were similar, but not the same. Natalia and Celia focused more on the senses; meanwhile Patricia and I dealt with the body parts.

In order to create our common e-project we decided to mix all of them (tasks, topics and outcomes) and finally made the one called “The body and the senses”, in which our third graders will have to connect both the body parts and the senses.

Once we had clear our e-project, it was the time to think about including it in InfoGraphic format. At first, we did not know what that was, so we had to figure it out. Do you know what is it? Infographics are visual representations of information (data, knowledge, contents…). If you want to learn more about them, just click here.

After that, we had to think about how to create a visual and engaging Infographic in order to present our collaborative e-project. The main goal of it is to provide our pupils with a visual support for the main task they have to do, in order to ease the understanding to achieve all the learning outcomes arranged.

Then next step was to create the Infographic. After considering many options, we finally decided to design it with the web tool called Piktochart because we believed that it is a great e-tool which allows us to create engaging InfoGraphics in order to present projects and other kinds of visual presentations. Moreover, it offers many features, backgrounds, icons, pictures and templates to personalise our work as the customization is much nicer and it provides a dynamic experience rather than using traditional resources. Furthermore, it is possible to upload your own images, video, maps and modify them. From our point of view, Piktochart is a great free resource, available online so everybody can use it only by signing up - freely, too. For these reasons, we highly recommend it due to its simplicity and usefulness not only for teachers, but also for students. It is a good way to include ICT skills in school lessons.

What’s more, we had the chance to participate in a nationwide collaborative project thanks to InfoEduGraphics. We sent our collaborative e-project to infoEDUgrafías in order to publish it in their blog. They gave us an award for having participated in this great project! 

If your click here you can find our InfoGraphic about the body and the senses, and also, in the following link: https://magic.piktochart.com/output/12954813-body-and-senses

I hope you like it!

If you have any questions, please, let me know. I will be delighted to help you.

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!

Learning by Twittering...

Hi bloggers!

My second challenge is related with CLIL. Do you know anything about this approach? During all my studies I have learnt many things about CLIL. You can find some in my Twitter @raqueldial. 

 

Here is an example:
https://twitter.com/raqueldial/status/699718229686616064

 

Thanks for reading me!