Saint Patricks Day

Hello girls!

In this entry I’m going to show some resources that I used with my pupils to work Saint Patrick's day.

I created a power point slide collected some of the resources that can be used to work Saint Patrick's in Primary 5.

First of all, this celebration can be introduced by a video about a Leprechaun, helping the teacher to create good atmosphere to start talking about Saint Patrick. Then I thought it could be good to show another video explaining briefly the legend.

It’s always important to work vocabulary and there’re some webpages that have flashcards and images that would be good to use to work Saint Patrick's day.

Also if we want to create our flashcards I highly recommend to use Bitsboard and play games in groups with the iPads.

Furthermore, to learn vocabulary in a more attractive way they can be playing games, such as memory, and every time they turn over a card they have to say the name of the image. (This would be a LOTS Bloom’s taxonomy activity). 

Also, learn more about the legend they can search on the Internet some webpages explaining it.

Moreover, a good and HOTS activity (linking with Blooms Taxonomy) we can tell the students to choose 6 clue words about the legend, so they will have to analyse the previous text that they have searched, and decide which words they want to use to create a crossword puzzle, introducing the word and making the definitions.

Although, it can be very creative to look for some Saint Patricks crafts, and a very useful and recommended application is Pinterest. 

Additionally, I founded lots of very interest presentations about the legend of Saint Patrick's that can be used in class without any problem, and we can edit and adapt to our needs.

Last but not least, I want to comment that before doing this subject I was interested in new technologies but after doing I have opened a lot my mind and now I have more skills and more resources to use in class, and also I’m more oriented on how to use it in a correct way and try to squeeze it to take advantage of all the digital resources.

Thank you so much!

Apps in Primary school

Even I couldn't assist to the last session of this subject, I have been very interested in the sessions focused on the Ipads because it is a topic that our school does not work very hard at the moment.

Having Ipads in the classroom is a wide chance of resources where learning is integrated and the process of teaching and learning becomes more effective. 

As I said before, I do not work with ipads at the moment in the classroom but there were some special situations during the year where students have had the opportunity to use the ipad for final projects. 

One of these situations was the second trip of our project Erasmus +. Every year, students have the opportunity to visit a partnerschool in a different country and spend a week with native English speakers sharing culture and language besides adventures and experiences. 

When we were back from the trip, students wanted to show to the rest of the students what they visited, what they learnt, their new friends, the place where they stayed... 

Imovie was an amazing tool because students could create their own project and share it with everybody via several platforms. 

The main idea was to choose what they wanted to share, organize it, illustrate it, design, write... and Imovie was an appropriate resource for our aims. 

  

Certainly, fhe fact of using Imovie was the right choice because it was easy for the students to understand how it works, to use it and to achieve the aims teachers decided.

Regarding to Bloom's Taxonomy, this activity is related to Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) where students have to analyse, evaluate and create a final outcome taking into consideration their own experience and their feelings. The fact to show the final product to the rest of class and to their families and friends, made the project interesting and motivating. 

On the other hand, I would like to consider iDoceo as a very useful tool for teachers. 

Instead of carrying a notebook, iDoceo makes it easy to assess pupils and have access to a register of all the notes, labels and marks. Apart, iDoceo has different options with different purposes useful for teachers as summary (look for students, personal details, diary annotations, notes, comments, resources...), gradebook (assessment), a diary, notes, a setting plan and a pinboard. 

                   

I have been using iDoceo this year and I have seen a big change. The fact that I like the most is that children can help me during the assessment because they love iPads and they love using them.

Our Kandinsky Story

My name is Mireia Cuxart and I’m presenting you an activity that I applied in my class related to the ICT class.

The activity is planned for a 4 years old class with 100% English immersion program during Infant Education. Kandinsky is one of the painters for the Arts and Crafts sessions where the students don’t have any previous knowledge. For this reason, the objectives are to have the chance to observe an abstract author and visualize his art. Moreover, students will describe the piece of art that they want in one word and take a picture to place it in the iMovie app in order to create the story.  For these three activities, students will be discovering art on their own and taking pictures individually. Afterwards, as a group activity, they will create the story with the words chosen for each picture and place it in iMovie individually. As you can see, students will be aware of cultural arts as well as using their oral and ICT skills to participate during the activity. It is appropriate to use ICT resources because it is a way to introduce little students to new technology that are useful in class. It is something you can use in your daily life to create new projects and use different materials for the topic that are planned for the year. ICT resources contribute in letting them use new skills that they won’t use without new devices like iPads.

Like in every lesson plan, you need to know that there are some problems that may happen during the session. The ones that I think are more typical are classroom management problems; in this case iPads can be very useful but also really distracting for the students and for the same reason, a guide access is done with the students so they can only use their cameras to do the activity. Regarding the assessment for this unit, the final result will be the most important part for the activity. As the kids will be taking pictures with their own devices and creating the story with the iMovie, the final project presented to the parents will be useful to see if the kids did participate on the sessions and were able to make a reasonable sentence as their collaboration for the story. Parents will need to give their own opinion for the Open Door’s Day so the students can have a feedback on their work.

Storyjumper

Hi girls!

Today I would like to share with you a web application that we learnt with Yolanda at the beginning of the subject. This is www.storyjumper.com and it’s a web page that allows you to create illustrated books with very easy tools.

Storyjumper is a tool for developing writing stories and creativity and it also allows you to publish the stories that you have created. For creating a book we have an easy menu where there are text tools, images (props), a set of templates to create the first pages of the stories and a tab that lets you upload images from your computer.

This web application has even the option of creating a book cover and a dedication for the story so it gives you the opportunity to personalize totally your creation. 

This activity can be used for children of primary and by using this web application, children would be working more on HOTS (High order thinking skills) activities since they can create a new story and evaluate and analyze the final product.  

This kind of activities promotes children to use some skills such as reading and writing. Moreover, students could also work on other skills like speaking and listening if the stories are represented afterwards. 

CREATE A SPECIAL GIFT!

Hello girls!

Here is my last blog entry! This time, I’m going to present one activity that I’ve designed with one of the resources we discovered at the beginning of the subject with Yolanda Scott-Tennent. In those sessions, in order to do some research on interesting ICT resources & tools and to re-think the way we use them we were asked to do a task. It consisted in choosing a content topic of the English Classroom and presenting some resources explaining how they could be used. I chose “Describing people” as my topic and I shared with my classmates some ideas of how to use different tools such a video, an online board game, a Snake and ladders board creator, a video quiz with Educaplay.com and a Hot Potatoes activity. But the one I’m going to share with you in this entry is a WORLD CLOUD CREATOR named TAGUL. Below is the explanation of the activity, which I’ve entitled as “Create a special gift!”

We are in Year 5, it is a group of 24 students who have quite a good level of English. They do two hours of English per week plus another hour of Science (CLIL).

Christmas is getting closer and we have been working on the topic “Describing people” during the previous sessions. We have worked the basic structures to describe (“He/She is” & “He/she has got”), vocabulary related to physical appearance and to personality and comparatives and superlatives. But with this activity, the goal is to expand this vocabulary in a more meaningful and motivating way for the students.

The activity basically consists in creating a world cloud with adjectives. It would be the closing activity of the unit. As a Christmas present students will have to choose someone they love, to look for different adjectives to describe this person and create a special and personalized word cloud. 

First, students will have to create each one a list of adjectives to describe the person they choose, they should use some of the words they already now and also they must add some new using the dictionary. Then, after each student has its list, all together we will share and pool the new words that they have come up with creating a Popplet with the IWB of the classroom (interacting and creating it in a collaborative way). So we are creating a vocabulary bank to which everybody can have access. 
This is a good way to expand vocabulary because it comes from the students'need. Moreover, when asking them to share the new words they have learnt they are creating something together that can be useful to everybody, which adds a meaning to the whole process. If we want it the Popplet could be printed and hung on the wall of the class. 

This could be an example of the Popplet: 

Then, using the computers room of the school, students will have to create a world cloud with their adjectives with the tool Tagul. They can choose the shape and colours which best represent the person they are describing. Finally, they will have to send it by email to that person, writing a short Christmas greeting.
With this activity we are taking into account the affective part of our students, since they are creating something for someone they love. In addition, presenting them the creation of this world cloud as a final result makes all the process of looking for the words more motivating.

These could be some examples of the world clouds:

Finally, each student will present briefly its creation with the help of some scaffold language (i.e. “My _________ is ________ because__________” / I love my ________ because he/she always ___________. He/she is very ______________). This oral part will be also used to assess the students. To assess the oral presentation we can use a rubric. 

Regarding Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, the activity can be classified primarily as a LOT, but also includes a small creative process, so you could say it is too a HOT. Firstly, when listing the vocabulary and creating the mindmap all together they are remembering and understanding, and they are also applying their ICT skills both when using Popplet and Tagul. And secondly, as the world cloud is a personal creation that they have to design, it inlcudes some creation.  

Why is it approppiate to use these ICT resources and what ICT contributes to the activity?

Well, first I must say that I strongly believe that the use of ICT make the children more involved and increase effectiveness of learning. In this case, the use of Popplet makes everyone feel involved and participant of the learning of all the group, so it can increase students' confidence and motivation. Then, the use of Tagul makes children assume greater responsability for their own learning and makes the outcome of they effort appear in a funny, visual and beautiful way. The combination of the two activities, also enables us to work both collaboratively (creating Popplet with the participation of all) as well as individually.

Useful advice

Unfortunately I haven't been able to realize this activity in a real context, but if you would like to carry out it, you should take into account some possible problems you may encounter. 
For instance, one possibility could be that when you ask them to share the new words, there are many that are repeated. In that case, you could ask questions about their family and friends, prompting new adjectives to look for the meaning.
Also you should bear in mind that you will have to give them some basic instructions before starting using Tagul. It's true that they are digital natives and some of them can get how to use it in few minutes, but it is always better to provide the informtacion needed and make clear what you expect from them.


Now you are ready to go to your classrooms and carry out this activity! I hope you like it and do not hesitate to ask if you have any doubt or want some more specific information.

It has been a pleasure to share ideas and learn form all of you.
Thank you!!!

XXX

Andrea Malagarriga

Goldilocks and the three bears

In this blog entry I am presenting one of the activities I created in this subject related to one of my favourite stories: Goldilocks and the three bears. 

As you all know, the subject has been divided into two different parts with two different teachers. Yolanda Scott-Tennent was the teacher the first part of the term and Maribel Benito has been the teacher the last part of the term.

One of the activities I created with Yolanda in the first part of the term was related to HOTS (creating) and LOTS (understanding and identifying) and it was adapted to Primary 1.

The activities I created are focused on a story and the development of different skills from the story, specially writing and speaking through descriptions of the characters, ordering the parts of the story and revision of the main vocabulary.

The story chosen was Goldilocks and the three bears because children really enjoy that story and because it is easy to work on the structures, vocabulary and sequences. 

All the activities in the planning are in a powerpoint and the unit is introduced by telling the story in two different formats (story with pictures and a video).

Story with pictures (http://www.education.com/games/goldilock-three-bears/) 

Video (http://wn.com/goldilocks_the_three_bears).

Later on, other type of activities are introduced. If you clic on the following image, you will be directly linked to TES IBOARD, a website where you can find several resources related to any topic. In that case, the activity is related to the story we were working on (Goldilocks and the three bears) and it gives you the opportunity to create different scenes from the story and talk about them using the same structures and vocabulary that are used in the original story. So the main objective is the learning of the structures and vocabulary through repetition with visual support and through ICT resources.

In this slide, you will also find a variety of activities (flashcards, matching activities, revision of vocabulary...).

Once all the activities are done, it is time to create a story. The main idea is to create the story Goldilocks and the three bears but remembering the sequence, the vocabulary and the structres. Although it is a repetition of the story, children are allowed to make it personal by choosing the background, adding pictures and audio files.  

When I discovered this website, my first thought was related to Primary 6 because of the competences and authonomy, but checking the reality in our classrooms nowadays I am definitely sure that our Primary 1 students will be able to use this website. Maybe they will need more help and time but the final result will be great.

Finally, in the last slide of the ppt, there are different activities related to drama. You can find one song, one script of the story and some examples of masks of the different characters. I found them in the British Council website and I would like to highlight that this website is full of useful resources and they are adapted to the interests of the children.

  

Hope you find the activity interesting and that it is adapted to the needs of your groups. 

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLONAIRE

Hello ICT girls!

This is my last blog entry! This time I am going to present an activity I designed during my practices in the School. It consists on a Quiz from the TV program called “Who wants to be a millionaire?”

One day, my tutor from the school asked me to prepare an activity for her fifth graders students. She wanted something for practicing comparatives and superlatives and make sure they knew the rules about how to make these words from adjectives.

After thinking a lot, I decided to create a quiz because I wanted a motivating activity, different from the ones they were used to do in class. I have also chosen this tool because during the first semester of the Master, Imma Piquer introduced it to us and we really enjoyed it! It is like a gameshow; a competition that engages children a lot. 

When we played it in class they loved it! I divided children in small groups (four students in each group approximately) and each group had to decide one child to be the spokesperson and another one to write down, in a piece of paper the answer of the questions. After that, I explained them the rules of the game and we started playing.

Questions were projected on the whiteboard with its four possible answers, a, b, c or d. I read the questions and the four answers aloud and each group had to discuss and choose one of the answers. Once they had chosen the answer, the writer had to write it down in a piece of paper. After 30 seconds, I rang a bell and they had to put the pencils down and, in order, they had to say the option they had chosen. Then, I showed them the correct answer and, if it was right, I gave them a “lacasito”.

If you do a quiz with your students I recommend you to specify some rules to control the class because when doing this activity, students become more and more excited and they start speaking too loud and it can be a little chaotic. So you need a good strategy to calm them down when this situation come. Mine was the following one: If when I speak or when I ask you to be quiet, you don’t listen to me, I will take your “lacasitos” away. It worked really well.

Another recommendation to make the activity even more motivating for children is to get dressed or wear some funny complement related to quizzes, such as some glasses.

For creating this quiz I downloaded a Power Point template in this page where you can find other ones.  Of course there are other sites where you can find it and download it for free.

Related to Bloom’s Taxonomy, this activity fosters remembering, understanding and applying. It is an activity we can use for practicing or reviewing content, where children have to apply what they learnt during the previous sessions. In this case, it is a LOTS activity. However, we can turn it into a HOTS activity. After the quiz, in the same groups, students can create their own quiz, so they have to think all the questions, the possible answers and they also have to know the correct answer.

Finally, we can also use this activity as an evaluating activity. We can make it a little bit more serious and ask children to discuss and select one of the four answers and justify the decision. 

PREZI PRESENTATION

Hello everybody, I'm Gemma Artola and I will show you and explain an activity done by Prezi.

In one of the ICT classes of Yolanda, she showed us a lot of resources and one was Prezi.

What is prezi?
Prezi is a presentation resource which is classified as a creating tool into the Bloom's Taxonomy.
It can be used by teachers and students to collaborate on presentations with multiple users having acces and the ability to edit the same presentation. It allow students to construct beatiful and useful presentations.
Prezi provides you different kind of templates which you can use it to create your presentation. You have a wide range of templates with different designs and for this reason I recommend you to choose one of this and start creating the presentation, whereas, constructing your own presentation without a template it means that it will bring you a lot time and the result is not much better.

Taking into account the knowledge and the abilities that you need to create a prezi presentation, I think that it could be appropiate for children up to 10 years old.

To know more about it I created a prezi presentation which was suitable for me, as a director of a school summercamp (Jesuïtes de Gràcia - col·legi Kostka), to present and explain the parents all the information about the organisation and the activities for this summer.

Here you have the presentation, you can get a glimpse to it!

GLOGSTER ACTIVITY

Hi, I'm Gemma Artola presenting an activity that I created with Glogster tool.

What is Glogster?
Glogster is an application for presentations and interactive learning. It allows you to combine different kinds of media to create a multimedia poster which you can add to a blog, print it, send it, etc... Noways there are many people from all over the world that use glogster application and it is sensational to have a look on glogster page where you can find lots of ideas, templates and posters which you can get.

In my case, this kind of poster has two ways to implementing the activity:
On one hand, I think that it could be useful and interesting for students up to 9 or 10 years old using glogster to create a poster engaging education content. Referring to the Bloom's Taxonomy, this activity would be HOTS because the children are creating which mean that they are designing, planning and constructing the poster.
On the other hand, I believe that is very curious and also interesting for those children who don't have the age to create it in their own, using glogster as a way to indroduce content. Referring to the Bloom's Taxonomy, this activity would be LOTS because the children are remembering which mean that they are identifying, recognising and naming the content that they are learning.

Two weeks ago I was researching on Yolanda's resources and I found Glogster. Then I explored and I came up with the idea to create one poster to put on practice with my students of 8 years old.
With this tool I explained a whole unit of science content, concretely the ages of the history.
I sticked in the poster one video for each period and some images too to complement the theory from the book.

That poster was useful to the children to compare and connect the videos and the images to the text book content.

I encourage you to try it, you will love it!

Gemma

KNOWLEDGE KILLS FEAR –A post to work on racism, segregation and multiculturalism through the integration of ICT and the promotion of Bloom’s Taxonomy Thinking Skills

INTRODUCTION

During the first part of this Master’s Degree ICT subject, we explored a variety of tools to work on the different Bloom’s Taxonomy Thinking Skills through the use of new technologies in the class. These tools were presented to us by Yolanda Scott Tennent,  ICT expert and director of the Tarragona (Spain) EOI (Escola Oficial d’Idiomes).

In order to put into practice some of the ideas and tools introduced by Yolanda, I have created a mini-project on multiculturalism, racism and segregation. The name of this mini-project is “Knowledge kills fear”. And it is designed to be implemented with sixth graders. The project starts by prompting some thinking about the topic. Goes over different activities that help understand racism and appreciate multiculturalism. And ends with the creation of a final product that intends to reflect on what students had learned. 

In this post, I first briefly present some of the things that can be done with ICT around this theme, and then I develop in greater depth one of the activities that can be done to create the final product of this project or unit. The following activities don’t necessarily need to be implemented in the order in which they are presented in this blog entry.  And as not to overuse new technologies, I strongly recommend to  select some of the following ideas and include them in your own unit, or alternate them with other activities no ICT-related. Remember, the good use of ICT in the class remains within the ability to introduce them in the right moment and weighing the added value when doing it.

 QUICK OVERVIEW ABOUT WHAT 
CAN ICT DO FOR THE TOPIC  

1.  “Let’s prompt some thinking!!”: 

Nowadays, we have access to a rich variety of media resources, and these are powerful enough to engage students and open a debate. Using photos, videos and ideas from different blogs I intend to make students think about the concept of racism and segregation. Moreover, with this activity we can find out about their previous knowledge on the topic. 

1.1. An example of photos which could be used. 

1.2. An example of videos which could be used.

Father of White Girl Rejects Black Boyfriend | "What Would You Do?"

This Will Change The Way You Think (Racism Experiment)

*After the presentation of these resources (both photos and videos) we can debate or brainstorm. We can also show a short video and stop it at some point and make students write predictions about what is going to happen next. What do you think is going to happen? What do you think is happening?Who do you think these people are? Why?

1.3. Ideas from blogs.

If we were working with younger children I would recommend doing this experiment/ demonstration extract from this blog. You take two eggs, one white, and one brown. Ask them how they think they are going to be inside, the same or different and why. You gave them the structure to make predictions “I think they are going to be the same/different because…” I have done this experiment/ demonstration in P5 and it was a success. They love it, and it really makes them think. 

By presenting this idea in an ICT blog, I mean to show how blogs from fellow educators, and platforms like Pinterest and Krokotac can inspire and help teachers do creative and simple things in their classes.

2. “Brainstorming 

What do you think racism is?”: To make a brainstorming, we could use a platform like Tagxedo. Here you can find other tools to online brainstorm with your class “15 tools for solo brainstorming”.

3. “Movies”

Movies and videos are a powerful resource. They take us back to other times and make us walk in other people’s shoes. They are the perfect resource to create empathy among the students and the topic. In this case, by presenting shortcuts from different movies we can prompt reflection, approach this reality to the student, ignite intrigue and work upon the history of slavery and racism.

Kieran Donaghy, one of the speakers of the 2015 APAC (Associació de Professors i Professores d'Anglès de Catalunya) ELT Convention, has on his website, some great ideas about how to exploit short video segments in the ESL class.

To create these shortcuts from a longer existing movie, the teacher needs to use programs like Movie Maker or Pinacle. These tools do also allowed the addition of subtitles. Highly recommended if the level of the students is not too high. Click here to download to shortcuts from the movie The Help (2011).

4. “Real Experts. Research”.

After introducing the topic, checking previous knowledge and reflecting upon the phenomenon, children are now ready to make some research. This research can be done to answer their existing questions around the topic. Questions that may have been evoked by the presentation of the previous videos, photos, and activities. 

Since the network is too big, to help them research, we could narrow the search to a few websites. Some ideal websites to research on the topic of racism throughout history are the BBC history for kids website (interesting sites in this web Schools Primary History, Genocide, Martin Luther King  and The Nazi Germany ). This web page includes plenty of information, videos, and games. Moreover, they could also find some information in the website History for Kids and the YouTube channel Crash Course.

One the other hand, nowadays, children are exposed to a constant bombardment of information. That is why it is so important for them to learn how to discriminate reliable sources from no reliable ones. We could encourage them to do free searching. Nevertheless, to guide them in this apprenticeship the teacher could create and give them a Chart or Checklist to verify the reliability of the source.  Angela Bunyi,  and her post “Identifying Reliable Sources and Citing Them”, can give us some ideas on how to create this Chart or Checklist and how to address this topic with children.

5. “Timeline. Synthesize & gather all the info”.

Children could do a timeline as to synthesize, gather and display all the found information around the topic of racism throughout history in a clear and appealing way. To do so I have chosen the web page Read Write Think, because it is easy to use and allows the introduction of pictures. However, many great different tools can be found to create timelines with your class. For more ideas, check the post “8 excellent free timeline creation tools for teachers”. 

6. “Knowledge kills fear”. 

Ones the students know about racism and segregation throughout history, it is time to learn about multiculturalism and the richness of cultural diversity.

To do so they can learn about different cultures and countries in the outstanding National Geographic Kids website, they can use Google maps to travel around the world (6 Sites To Get Kids Excited About Google Maps) or they can learn about the gastronomy of different countries (International Gourmet Recipes for Kids).

 OPTIONS FOR THE FINAL PRODUCT  

7. “Create. What have we learned?” 

To create a final product in this project or unit, I have chosen 3 different tools. They could all be offered as an option. Letting children be the ones choosing the one best fitting their abilities and interest. Or we could choose the one that better fits our project or class. In this blog entry, I am going to develop in depth the activity 7.3. Create a Podcast.

7.1. Create a Digital Storytelling.
7.2. Create a Comic.
7.3. Create a Podcast.

The activity:

Create a Podcast on racism, multiculturalism and segregation.

Bloom’s Taxonomy:

Level VI: Creating (create new products or points of view): This activity gives the students an opportunity to plan, design, invent and produce a podcast which integrates the knowledge they have acquired during the Project/ Unit.

Grade/ target users/ level:

6th grade/ Senior level (5th and 6th grade).

English level, between A2 and B1.

Context:

Semiprivate school, Barcelona. Upper middle class families.

Four hours of English a week + 3 hours of Science in English (CLIL)

Context topic:

Racism, segregation and multiculturalism.

Unit/ Project:

This activity is conceived as the final product of a PBL (Project Based Learning) or unit on racism, segregation, and multiculturalism. The name of the unit/ project is “Knowledge Kills Fear”. The Project arises from the idea of educating the student in the idea of seeing cultural diversity as something rich and beautiful. 

* Why this topic? This is a school with a great cultural and race variety because of the neighborhood and the services the school provides. However, the school doesn’t work on this topic. Due to some conflicts and comments the English teacher decides to create this Project as an opportunity to reflect upon this topic, give the students a space to share their family culture and address multiculturalism in a positive way.

Possible link with other subjects:

History, Geography, Ethics/Religion.

Skills:

Listening, speaking, writing and reading

Audio podcasts are a piece of recorded audio about a specific topic. To create these pieces of audio, our students will have first to listen and read some examples (to have a model to imitate). It is important to choose examples adequate to their English level. If the podcast language is above their level we can give them the script, go over it beforehand and them listen and read the podcast at the same time. Doing this, we can also go over the characteristics, format and structure of the podcast.  It would be ideal if the podcasts use as models are related to the topic, if not we should look for podcasts of the students’ interest.

Then, they will have to write the script of their podcast and recorded. To write the podcasts, they will need the teacher guidance, language scaffolding (maybe a series of preset sentences). To encourage autonomy we could use some dictionaries like Merriam Webster Visual Dictionary Online, Shahi Visual Dictionary or the BBC Pronunciation Dictionary.

Resource used:

Laptops with an Internet connection

Tool:

To create a podcast, there are many WebPages offering a large variety of tools to create Podcast with your class. Most of them are free and easy to use. In this case, I chose School Podcast because it is specifically designed for schools. Therefore, the tool is intuitive and easy to use. The web page guarantees a secure exchange and sharing format within the educational community. Podcasts can be shared with other schools from all over the world. Moreover, the webpage allows you to categorize the podcast by school subjects and topics.

However, Be careful !! This is not your tool if what you want is to embed your podcast in the school website or any other already existing website. This tool only enables the dissemination of the podcast within the same website.

They are plenty of options and ideas on the topic. Here I attach some useful links, How to Create a Class Podcast in 5 Easy Steps, Educational Podcasting, Teacher’s Guide on the use of Podcasting in Education, How to Record Streaming Audio and Create a Podcast from Your PC.

Added value:

To implement this activity without the use of ICT, we could create a “radio studio” in the class and pretend to be radio presenters, collaborators, guest or journalist. However, the creation of a real podcast gives the activity added value for many reasons.

The use of technological tools for the creation of real products is engaging and motivational. Recording speech gives reason and opportunities to focus on language and pay attention to pronunciation. The creation of a podcast offers the possibility to share their work with the world. This will make them want to do their best and will make them feel their opinion is worthwhile. By sharing their work in certain platforms, they may get some feedback. This can be very motivational and give the whole activity real meaning.

Basically, in this case, the use of ICT gives them the opportunity to be real experts in the field broadcasting to the world!!

Students’ roles:

Students will be working in groups of four. They all will provide ideas and participate in the correction of the final script. Nevertheless, while drafting the script, two students will be writing and two others will be looking for words and expressions on the dictionary. Every half an hour, they will switch roles. In this way, all the students will have experienced both roles.

Management:

If we want to use ICT for the management of our class, we can always use ClassDojo. ClassDojo is a free app that allows you to give feedback points to your students and message the parents. Students can customize their avatars and parents can easily track the progress of their children.

Feedback points will be given for participation, fellowship and use of the English language. Students will be able to win and lose feedback point for themselves or for their groups.

Evaluation: 

The process and the final product will be taken into account to evaluate this activity. To evaluate the process, the teacher will use an observation grid. This observation grid will contemplate vocabulary, structures, use of the language and participation. To evaluate the final product, the teacher will use a checklist of requisites. This checklist will be given to the students beforehand to help them create their podcasts.

Moreover, the teacher will use the self-assessment to make them reflect upon their work and role in the group.  

Example of an observation grid, by María Sánchez Lerena and Andrea Malagarriga Perea