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.

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