Showing posts with label Writting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writting. Show all posts

Friday, 3 June 2016

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. 

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

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!



Monday, 23 May 2016

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:


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.

Friday, 12 June 2015

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