Kahoot and Science (Geography)

Hello teachers!  I'll show you an idea of how to use Kahoot program, a free software game-based learning platform designed to create questions and interact with them in the classroom through different devices. When a session is created, Kahoot gives us a password, and by that password all of us can enter in the same session and compete and learn from each other at a time. In this case we will use Kahoot to study the political map of Europe.

Target audience

The activity created is thought to be developed with third key stage (5th - 6th grade).

Aims:

- To revise the unit we have been learning about the last sessions, the political map of Europe.

- To create a game in groups and play with their peers in class

Competences:

-          Management of information and digital:  the students use the computer or other devices.

-          Knowledge and interaction with the world:  is a Geography class, specifically we are working the political map of Europe.

-          Interpersonal:  In groups, they have to cooperate and respect the opinion of others

Classroom Management

Having worked the political map of Europe in previous sessions, all students will be disposed in groups of 3-5 students with a device per group that they will use to create the activity. They will have 20 minutes to think about the 5 questions that will make to the other groups. The teacher will go group by group observing that the questions are well made and are not very difficult. When all groups have all ready to ask the questions, each group will make to the other groups five questions and go counting the points. At the end of class the group that has most point wins.

Material: One device per group

Assessment

The teacher will take into account the process of creation of the game by the groups, not only the final result of the competition. The teacher also will observe if all the members of the group participate actively in their groups during the creation of the game, if they create the questions in English correctly, if they need much help or not and if they treated properly the computer or the device.

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

This activity is mainly a HOT in the Bloom’s Taxonomy because the students have to identify which contents they can use to make the questions in order to create the questions.  Finally, when we have created the game, they use LOTS because they remember what they learned on the previous sessions.

Four English skills

The creation of this game involves mainly reading and writing. In order to create the game all of them they have to read the unit about the political map of Europe and write on the device the questions correctly in order to make the questions.  Although we could also use the speaking and listening if we added a variant that students have also read aloud to his peers the question.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages: it’s a very motivating game for the students.  Easy to use and very intuitive. We don’t need to create an account, simply with a PIN we can play. They learn playing.  

Disadvantages: if the internet connection doesn’t work we cannot play. Sometimes they get focused on the competition and forget the real aim of the game.  Another problem may be the lack of participation of some students in their respective groups. 

TinyTap

Tinytap as a educational resource

Names: Tania Grijalba, Laia López and José Luis Rodríguez
Target users: Initial level: 1rst grade.
Type of resource: APP
Content topic: Classroom objects, shapes and colours.
Skills: Reading, listening and remembering. 
Material: iPads.

In this blog we want to present tinytap. It is an application for tablets thinking on students of nursery and primary schools, it is very easy and intuitive to use. With this app we can create activities ourselves or even teach our students how to create them for themselves. Here we present a video step by step of how to create an activity:

We have created some example activities where students work their LOTS. These activities challenge students to memorize vocabulary previously worked and learned in the class to settle down the knowledge in a fun playing way. We leave some videos where you can see our proposal:

Ideally, students are grouped in pairs sharing a tablet for the activities already created. If you want them to be those who create an activity then is better to group them in threes.

This app will be motivating and children will have more desire to learn English, because finally, learning English can be fun and, in this case, with new technologies! In these activities they are not only developing the verbal linguistic intelligence but also gives the opportunity to work the interpersonal and the visual spatial. Also, regarding Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, they are using the following lower and higher order thinking skills:

Lower order thinking skills:

Level I – Remembering the vocabulary and the content we have studied previously. 

Level II – Understanding the vocabulary and how to use the app.

Level III – Applying the knowledge they have acquired in order to create a new game.

Higher order thinking skills

Level VI: Creating their own game for the other classmates to play and learn.

Other skills involved in the activity are: reading and listening. But when they create the activity by themselves, the students will also use speaking and writing.

One of the possible disadvantages of using this resource is that we might not have enough iPads for such small groups, or maybe that some pupils do not know how to handle the tablet. For the first problem, we thought that can be done in groups with more members or dividing the class into two and choose to do it in two sessions. For the second problem we thought that ideally we can choose students as ICT experts and if at some point there are children blocked by something technological, these experts can help them.

Tinytap automatically has an evaluation system where the students themselves can see their own results. As teachers we can ask them when they finish, to bring the tablet and show us the percentage that appears in the screen to follow an accurate evaluation.

Finally, we present a brief summary in Prezi format:

We hope that this tool will be useful for your future lessons. 

Best of luck!

IWB: The Solar System

Hello teachers!

In this entry Tania Grijalba, Laia López and José Luis Rodriguez are going to talk about Interactive Whiteboards in classroom, specifically about the Smart Notebook application. With Smart notebook you can easily create engaging interactive learning experiences in minutes while providing the flexibility to respond to the needs of learners on the fly. Among the large variety of applications that this resource can offer today we will focus on the Activity Toolkid. This part of the app enables to create present games and we are going to introduce one of them, the ‘multiple choice’ activity.

Target audience

The activity created is thought to be developed with second key stage (3rd - 4th grade).

Aims:

- To revise the unit we have been learning about the last sessions, the solar system.

- To create a game in a collaborative way.

- To identify the most important content and include it in the game.

Competences:

• Linguistic and audiovisual: The students have to create the material in English and meanwhile use the English to communicate their ideas.

• Management of information and digital: Because the students use the computer and the IWB.

• Knowledge and interaction with the world: Due to it is a CLIL (science) session.

• Social and civic:  In groups they have to cooperate and talk with their partners.

Classroom Management

After  having worked in previous sessions the Solar System topic, we will use a program of the IWB to review what they have learned.

The teacher will make six groups of four people and explain how to create an activity with the Smart Notebook program, in this case a multiple choice activity because we want to simulate the game Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Then children will begin to work in groups and, using notes and books about the solar system must create and think among all five questions with four answers and one of them is correct. They will have 30 minutes to create them.

Video. How to create in Smart Notebook an activity of multiple choice.

The teacher will pass from group to group reviewing that the questions are not too difficult, and especially that are not repeated with another group, very important!

When the students have finished, a person in the group will go to the computer, and with the help of the teacher will insert the five questions in the program of the IWB. When all the questions are inserted, we will make a competition by groups. 

Video. How to insert the questions on the program.       

Video. We have already prepared the questions!

                                                                  

Each group will go in front of the class to read their questions out loud while they are projected on the screen.  Before answering any question, each group will write down on paper what they think is the correct answer. They have 30 seconds to discuss, give an answer, and put the paper with the answer on the centre of their table.

Video. Now, we can play!

Each question will be answered on the IWB by different students, and all students in the class must answer a question. Finally, when we know which is  the correct answer, each group will show the paper with the answer that they believed were the correct ones. For each question that the group answered correctly, they will receive two points.  Besides, if the student who is answering responds well individually, will give one more point to his group.

Video. In this video is explained how to save activity on the computer. 

Assesment

The teacher will consider the process of creation of the activity by the groups, not only the final result of the competition. The teacher also will observe if all  participate actively in their groups, if they create the questions in English correctly, if they need much help or not and if they treated properly the computer.

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

This activity is a HOT activity because the students have to, first analyse which content is more relevant in order to create the questions and then create a game it self.

Four English skills

The creation of this game involves reading, writing, listening and  speaking. In order to create the questions first of all they have to read the unit again to revise it and decide which parts are the ones that are worth questioning. Secondly, the students have to write the questions and the answers in a paper and afterwards in the computer. Finally, the students will have to listen to each other and decide which questions and answers create for the rest of the class and also the read and speak the questions out loud.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages: The program is intuitive and it is really fast to create and edit the questions. You can save the game for another moment. It is motivational and helps the students to revise the content and use the language.

Disadvantages: Sometimes the program gets stuck and you can’t use it properly and it needs to be closed and opened again. The visuals are not very attractive. We wish there was more interaction between children and IWB.

I hope you will find interesting and you may use in the future.

Regards!

Session 1: 11/02/2016

Session 1: 

Work management, professional development and social media

Today has been the first session of ICT subject. After explaining how the course will work and what we will do during the semester, the teacher has made us a questionnaire in order to know our  previous knowledge about the subject through Kahoot, a program that allows you to ask questions online to all students in the class.

After this, we have commented the importance of file management through cloud computing, having secure access to all of our applications from any device connected to the network: smartphone, tablet, desktop, laptop… and we have explined also quickly, because many already knew, tips editing on a google docs document: direct search of words, images, insert references, quotes, make comments…

In order to know our previous knowledge about the topic of this session (personal learning environment tools) we have made a questionnaire through this link, google docs questionnaire:

http://goo.gl/forms/AsM0VBBXoT

Then, the teacher has divided us in four groups with the aim of working different tools and resources and after that, present it to the class through a Google Docs Presentation. Each group member will have a role:

Organiser: Organises the work. Keeps people on task and on time.
ICT manager: Creates the presentation. Solves technical problems.
Speaker: Only person who asks questions to the teacher. Presents the group.
Team facillitator: Moderates discussions.

Finally the groups have presented the following tools, explaining to us how they work, how to use ...


- Group 1: Social Bookmarking: DIIGO. It’s a social network where you can save links you find interesting and share it with your mates.

- Group 2: Social Networks: Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin. Very popular and they can be very useful as teaching resources. Twitter is a microblogging service where you can opine, and share your opinion and those of others, about actuality topics; Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that we can use to find ideas for all. Linkedin is a social network where we can share our CV.

- Group 3: Organize, read and share. RSS. Feedly: Feedly is a tool that we can use for organize, read and share the content of our favourites sites and acces them all in one place.

- Group 4: RSS and content curation: Flipboard: Flipboard is our personal magazine where the content is filtered by ourself. It’s a simple place to keep up with your world.

After the presentations, which have helped us to learn more resources and more tools, we have evaluated the presentations of our partners in a constructive way.