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

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