Session 7

Hello again digital teachers,

I’m Amaranta and today I will explain to you the things that we learnt during Session 7 with Maribel. The last session was about Ipads, the new trendy thing in relation with education nowadays. The amount of applications and resources that Ipad offers us is amazingly growing. Currently, either teachers and students can access to and endless ways of learning and teaching by using ICT in the classroom. However, how can teachers and students chose the right application that they want to use?

Choose the right one!

In this session, Maribel showed us a useful tool where different applications are organized by the skills that students are developing or by what the teacher want them to focus on such as photo editing, recording, interactive writing, creating a game...etc. If you are looking for an specific app this website might be useful for you!

Here you have some other websites (examples, reviews..) where applications are well organized and will save you a lot of time when looking for the good one! Hope you find them all worth it.

• AppEd Review
• Educapp
• Top educational apps
• My first app
  
  
  
  
  

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In addition, if you feel that it is too difficult to assess Ipad work, here you will find some resources to do it such as rubrics and grids that will make it easier and faster: Ipads4TEACHING

Quizz response games

Related with the assessment, during the session we also learnt different apps or programs that you can use it as a way of assessment or if you prefer as a quizz response games that children need to answer faster. In this way, children use technology in a more motivating way that help them to review the content while using Ipads, computers, smartphones...Personally, I will absolutely recommend all teachers Kahoot and Nearpod. If you want to know more about Kahoot you can read my last post and you will find further information. As for the Nearpod, I have discovered recently and I’m amazed about all the possible things it can offers. Nearpod allows you to work in groups, write with a purpose, express your knowledge by drawing, develop your critical thinking...etc. In short, take part in a quizz where all the learning styles are taken into account.

The rest of the class we focused on StoryTelling. However, we didn't spend time reading books but we learnt lots of websites to create our own story! In this sense, children are the authors of their literacy creations and develop the four skills in a contextualized way. You can ask them to create whatever they want after exploring all the resources or let them read for a while. Here you will find good apps to do it! Want to know more about them? Scan this QR code:

	Price and Platforms	Skills	Purpose
Shadow Puppets	Free/ Ipod, Iphone, Ipad...	Communication Collaboration Creativity	Create and design Creating high-quality, versatile presentations is really easy. Students can use their own images or pull images from several impressive online resources

Puppet Pals

Free/ Ipod, Iphone, Ipad...

Communication Collaboration Creativity

Kids can learn how each part of the creative process works to form a story as they make decisions about which backgrounds and characters to use in each scene, how to size them and move them around, and which audio to record.

Toontastic

Free/ Ipod, Iphone, Ipad...

Communication Collaboration Creativity

A fantastic digital storytelling tool that empowers kids to organize ideas, transforming them into entertaining animated cartoons

Some photos of our projects and presentations:

Use Shadow Puppet to record the year...

Let’s create our own presentation!!

Hello again partners! As you know I am Míriam Porras and I am going to talk about SHADOW PUPPET!

Shadow Puppet is an app that allows you to create custom videos combining photos and video clip with your voice and songs. You can easily create videos to tell a story, explain an idea or send a personalized message drawing on the screen, adding emoji stickers, the zoom and pan. In addition, using Shadow Puppet you are combining art, literacy and technology into one great piece of work, because it is a useful tool to create an amazing and creativity stories.

In addition, you don’t have to pay for using it. You only have to download the app for you iPhone and your iPad and enjoy!!!

Apart from this, once your Puppet is created, you can share it with your peers by email, message, copying your link or using different social networks like Twitter, Youtube or Facebook.

Here you will find some links that could be interesting to know more about how Shadow Puppet works.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/shadow-puppet-app/

http://get-puppet.co/#home-alternate

STRENGTHENS	WEAKNESSES
Ideas galore are included in app, with more resources available online.	Editing is possible but it is a bit trickier than creating.
Students can use their own images or pull images from several impressive online resource.
Pupils can deepen their understanding across content areas creating presentations and showcasing their knowledge.
A video tutorial walks students through the creation process.
Videos can be up to 30 minutes long and can include up to 100 images.

Regarding the activity, first of all, I will show them how it works the app and all the possibilities it offers. Then, I will present them the activity. After explaining and presenting and example of how to use the app, I would divide the class into different groups to allow them to explore the app. Then, each group is in charge of one session of additional language classroom and they have to summary what happens during the class creating like a little story that helps students in future sessions to remember what they did. Although to use a blog to write what happens in class, it is a new way to create more creative and designed a presentation about the session they have chosen.

Timing:

It would use as many sessions as groups there are in the classroom. Of course, we will ask them to present a summary of each project we will carry out. So, we will allow them a session for the chosen group to create their presentation (60 minutes).

Aims:

Ø  To use English for communication.

Ø  To work cooperatively.

Ø  To use new vocabulary in a creative story/summary.

Ø  To describe a project using the digital and the written skills.

Ø  To engage in simple and basic oral conversations. 

Classroom management:

We are going to divide the class into different groups (4 students). Each group will be responsible of one of the projects we are going to carry out during the year in English.

Multiple intelligences

In relation to multiple intelligence, they have to create the story using the content they have acquired in the project. To create a Shadow Puppet you have to use photographs, so pupils need to develop the Visual and Spatial. In addition, pupils would work on different groups using the Interpersonal intelligence. Moreover, students have to use the Linguistic Intelligence to record the story and to present the result in front of their peers.

Language skills and competences

The activity is thought to work on the four skills:

RECEPTIVE	PRODUCTIVE
Listening: The pupils will listen the explanations of their teacher and their classmates during the presentation. Reading: They will have to read the worksheet/self-assessment to complete the marks.	Speaking: They will have to speak with their peers to create the presentation and to cooperate to present it in front of the class. They also have to record their voices to create the Shadow Puppet. Writing: They could plan and write the presentation before do it in the app.

Concerning competences, they are the following:

Ø  Linguistic and audio-visual, because pupils have to create the story using language and photographs.

Ø  Information handling and digital competence, in order to do the task, they have to interact and know the app to use it.

Ø  Learning to learn: They would have to manage and regulate their own learning taking into account different opinions.

Ø  Autonomy, initiative and decision taking, because they have to assess their peers using a self-assessment.

Ø  Social and civic, because we are going to work cooperatively in groups.

Ø  Cultural and artistic, because they have to create a visual and creative presentation.

Ø  Knowledge and interaction with the world, because pupils have to create a presentation about a project that they have worked on the classroom.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy

 Regarding Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, they have to use the following lower and higher order thinking skills:

Lower order thinking skills

•     Level I – Remembering the vocabulary and the content we have presented to do the presentation. 
•         Level II – Understanding the vocabulary and the concepts we have worked on the project to do the presentation and to understand how they have to use the app.
•           Level III – Applying the knowledge they have acquired to create the presentation.

Higher order thinking skills

•        Level VI: Creating their presentations to make visible the project we have been working.

Content topic and target users

The story/summary they have to create has relation to the project we are working in the classroom. Thus, they will be able to use it to create their presentations. You can use this approach with any topic and content.

As I said before, Shadow Puppet is easy to use. For that reason, I consider that this activity could be done in the first cycle of Primary (1^st and 2^nd Grade). Always it depends on the level of your students.

Assessment

With the aim to assess pupils, we would use self-evaluation. I strongly believe that it is essential to make them a part of their evaluation. It is a valuable way that they could understand what are their strong points and what they need to improve them. Then, they will have to assess the presentation of the group regarding content and creativity. We will give them a grid with different item to point 0-5 where 5 it is the highest mark).

Added value through ICT

·      It is a creative must have for elementary classrooms. It is a different way to present the information because the format is more attractive.

·      It is a motivated activity because they are doing presentations about a project they have involved actively and using technologies.

I hope you enjoy the activity!

See you soon,

Míriam Porras