Showing posts with label devices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label devices. 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. 

Friday, 15 April 2016

Session 5 (14/04/2016)

written by Anna Solé Tusal and Ferran Rodríguez i Díaz


Today's session is about iPads and its different applications in Infant and Primary schools. Some of us are having our first contact with iPads, so there are a lot of new things we need to explore. The classmates who know how iPad's work will be helping the rest. Therefore, we are learning in a cooperative way. 

first contact

Now we are discussing about the pros, cons and purposes of the use of iPads in class. Some pros are that iPads are fun, interactive and nice; this device can develop and improve the ICT competence of our students. The cons we see are the lack of iPads in the school; the inappropriate use some students would do of the devices and of course one of the biggest cons are the battery issues. 
We also talked about the "What for?"; they are useful for designing interactive and motivating activities; iPads provide a wide variety of high quality visuals and are also good for a recreational use. 



We are discovering some apps we never heard before. They are apps designed to help teachers manage the class. One is called "ClassDojo", it is an easy app that will let us administrate the positive-negative points every student deserves (this can be considered behaviorist, but the app is good and motivates them a great deal). The other one is called "Classcraft"; the purpose is similar to the last app but from a different point of view. We are also talking about Book Creator, BitsBoards, Puppet ShowTiny Tap.



Finally Miriam and me have created activities using the different apps we discovered in class. An example is BitsBoard, which is is a simple True/False game about the different spaces of our university.
This game can be listed in the Understanding and Applying steps of Bloom's Taxonomy, because it will have the students thinking and relating all the vocabulary they know. In the activity, they not only are tested in the vocabulary itself... they will have to pay attention on the spelling as well; some of the words are tricky and have been misspelled.

The target age for this activity in particular would be 9-11 years old. They not only are able to identify the different vocabulary worked in class, in addition they are able and ready to check the spelling as well.

Once again, ICT takes advantage on old/classic activities. We all know how to create vocabulary-check activities on paper... but now we are able to do them with ICT tools as the iPad. With this, you are bringing innovation and technology to the classroom. The students will enjoy more the activity and will improve their tech skills.

Here you have a couple screenshots of it:





We really encourage you to try these kind of apps; they are really useful and engaging for children!! We believe it is very important to instill in children the desire to learn in a different way, why not through ICT support?

Ferran Rodríguez and Anna Solé