A prototype of my open educational project

Hello 21cenTeachers!! Today I am going to share with you all a new challenge that we have been assigned. After analysing an open educational project from EDIA-CLIL projects (Analysis of "A TV program") we have been challenged to prototype our own educational projects.

As I have already said, I will present you a prototype of my educational project in the following lines. Also, I will try to explain carefully all the steps I followed and my learning experience concerning this matter. Moreoever, it is very important to make clear that this is a first approach to the project and it can be modified if necessary.

First, I started to think about what topic my educational project would adress. After thinking about some posibilities I have in mind I decided to center the project on the next topic: healthy lifestyle. This CLIL project could help students acquire healthy eating habits and healthy routines in their lifes that will lead to a better life standards.

Retrieved from Pixabay

"Live a healthy life!" is the title of this project. After deciding on this topic and its title, I started to shape the whole project using a template that we were given for this purpose. Below you can see the template which is complete and shows the main features of this educational project.

Prototype of a CLIL project: "Live a healthy life" 

As you can see this project would be carried out within the subjects of Natural Science and Physical Education but it is connected to other subjects such as Arts and Graphs (cross-curricular link). It has been dessigned with the aims of:  promoting collaborative work, fostering creativity, acquiring english, learning about healthy routines and improving digital skills. Throughout this project, I would try to provide students with the necessary tools and full of examples to ensure they succeed. According with what I have in my mind, all these activities would be related to the final task: creating a class magazine (online). Additionally, concerning the teacher´s role, he/she will act as a guide and will follow a student-centered approach by prompting them to investigate by themselves and by helping or giving them examples when necessary.

Now, I would like to share with you all a video that I have created with Powtoon.  I must say that I was going to use the application called Tellagami but while I was editing my character I realised that the free version only allows us to create thirty-second videos. However, Powtoon is a free online tool that allows its users to create animated videos that result very interesting and attractive for others. A significant advantage of this tool is that it is very easy to use and it offers labeled templates and animations that can be used dependind on the type of video we want to create. This fantastic tool has given me to opportunity to present my project in a fresh and unknown way (at least for me).

Finally, I would like to reflect a little bit on my work. For me, this has been a challenging task which has given me te opportunity of experiencing some interesting things. Regarding the educational project I have to say that I had been said to create a didactic unit before but I had never been assigned such a complete task. I have had to think carefully what I would like students to learn and then fill up the template that we were given. In addition, regarding the online tools, I had never used a video editor like Powtoon and I have to say that I have found it very useful and easy to use. Thanks to it I have been able to create an interesting presentation for my educational project. I have used also some other online tools to share my work; I uploaded my template to SlideShare and my presentation to YouTube. 

In case you have any idea that could either improve or be useful for my project, let me know by dropping a comment here or contacting me on social networking websites.

See you soon 21cenTeachers!

ANALYSIS OF AN OPEN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

Hello everyone! It is time to show you the result of my last challenge: to analyse an educational project! Are you ready?

In this entry I am going to analyse an open educational project from EDIA-CLIL Projects. EDIA-CLIL Projects is a website where we can find a bunch of CLIL educational projects which are designed for Secondary Education. This projects has been created by INTEF (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y de Formación del Profesorado).

I have decided to analyse in depth the next project: A TV program

Image from Pixabay

A TV program is a CLIL educational project which is intended for second grade of secondary school but it could be adapted for Primary Education. In this project, students will learn english and improve their skills in new technologies while they accomplish five missions and create a final project: a TV program. In accordance with the INTEF, the two main objectives of this projects are the following:

• Learn english in an interesting way.
• Develop digital skills.

To analyse this project properly I will base my assesment on some key aspects that we can observe in this rubric which we were given by our ICT teacher. Now, let´s do it!


KEY KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING AND SUCCESS SKILLS

This project aims to teach students content and vocabulary related to the world of TV such as types of TV programs, film genres, TV guides and so on. Because of this, it can be carried out within the subject of English.

Vocabulary: TV programs, adjectives, types of films and TV programs, professions related to TV.
Structures: Telling the time, Past and Present Perfect tenses, WH- questions.

I totally agree with the INTEF in respect of the two objectives of this project which are mentioned above. However, from my point of view this project also enhances a great variety of skills such as critical thinking, cooperative work, group management, personal autonomy and creativity. The development of all these skills make this project a very complete and effective learning adventure. It allows us, as teachers, to have a perfect idea of how we must teach our students and provide them with full of opportunities to acquire the language at the same time that they develop other important skills and values.

Also of note is the explicitness of the instructions that students are given as it will allow them to feel comfortable with the challenges and to succeed.

CHALLENGING PROBLEM OR QUESTION

Regarding every challenge and the final mission that students are proposed in this project, it can be said that the whole project is based on a challenging final mission. Giving them the opportunity of creating their own TV programs will engage students in the learning process and motivate them. In other words, the whole educational project an its missions resolve around one objective: being able to create a final magazine program which will be later published on Youtube. This makes the missions meaningful and appealing for pupils.

Also, I have taken notice of the existence of a purpose for every step within it so it can be said that everything is interconnected and it is definitely a relevant topic (television) for students.

Regarding the level, I think this project is appropiated for this grade (2nd grade of secondary education). As I said before, the final mission and the rest of activities are very interesting and motivating for students of this age. 

SUSTAINED INQUIRY

In addition, I have observed that the way in which the project is presented to students leads to a sustained inquiry process. The students are the ones that manage the learning process by investigating different information related to TV programs. The teacher stands aside and acts as a guide by providing children with the information and tools that they will need to accomplish the different tasks proposed throughout the project. 

AUTHENCITY

As said above, the project can be easily related to students´real life since it is about a topic which is very popular among teenagers: TELEVISION. In addition, this project offer a great variety of activities so they can improve their english skills in many different ways. From my point of view this is a quite original project that would be even carried out in Primary Education as long as some changes were made. It also requires the usage of digital applications and online tools; the magazine program will be recorded with Wevideo and later published on Youtube. It is also promotes cooperative work which is a very valuable twenty-first-century skill in our society.

One thing I discoverd is a website called Classbadges which seems very interesting to me because it might be a good way to motivate and award students that work hard.

STUDENT VOICE & CHOICE 

It is also important to say that students have voice and choice along this project. In other words, students are encouraged to investigate by themselves, to ask as many questions as they need, to create different artifacts, to develep their critical thinking either in groups or individually, etc. Moreover, they are in charge of carrying out all of the missions in a proper way and they have freedom to decide on the style and create the artifacts that they like. Furthermore, it can be said that the teacher acts as a guide by providing students with many examples and clear steps to follow, but the students are the ones that conduct their own learning process.

REFLECTION

Students have to write their own reflections about each mission. For this purpose, they will create a learning diary within their Weebly site. This way they are given the opportunity of reflecting on all their job. It will also help them think of what and how they are learning, their own weaknesses and strenghts. the difficulty level of the missions and the handling of online tools.

For example, once they have finished their final project they will have to complete two sheets which you can see in the image below. Also they have to publish a final post summarizing all these reflections and thoughts.

CRITIQUE & REVISION

This project encourage students to give their opinion not only about others´ work but also about their own work; this means that they are receiving feedback constantly either by their classmates or by the teacher. Additionally, every step or mission of this project will be evaluated either by the students themselves or by the teacher. Every mission will be evaluated by using its corresponding rubric. There are up to eight rubrics, each one with a different criteria, to evaluate the different missions or tasks of this educational project. Thanks to this rubrics, students will know the different aspects that they have to target in each challenge so they will be able to cover all of the points and succeed.

For instance, this is the rubric that students will use to self-evaluate their own final projects. They will have to take into account all the aspects and criteria that appear in it: Project assessment rubric

As you can see below, the work done by students will be evaluated by themselves, by their peers and also by the teacher. This will make the evaluation a more complete and profitable step.

PUBLIC PRODUCT

Students will come up with their own creations (a TV magazine program) which will be available for others in different sites like Pinterest, Weebly or any other platform that students might think of. This way they can promote their work on the web to make it accessible for others so their work is going to be visible and have an impact in real society.  For this reason, it can be said that the project fulfils the aim of creating a public product.


Now, I will embed the slideshow I have created. It shows the main features of my analysis in a visual way. To create it, I have used an online tool that I did not know: Genial.ly. I found it very interesting and easy to use and it allows us to create really interactive and attractive slideshows.

To finish, I would like to give my opinion about this open educational project.

First, I think this project will definitely help children improve their ICT skills since a great variety of online tools have to be used to accomplish the different missions of this project and to keep up with the lessons. Some of the online tools that they have to use are: Pinterest, Weebly, Canva, Wevideo, StoryboarThat, etc. Also, it will help children develope their english skills (listening, writing, speaking and reading) because they are given the opportunity of practising all of them throughout the different activities.

Furthermore, it fosters students autonomy regardind the teaching-learning process. A student-centered approach is used throughout the whole project. Every step goes from easy to difficult and students are provided with many examples to ensure students are able to do it later by themselves (scaffolding).

To finish, it is important to say that a pedagogical approach based on flipped classroom model can be followed during most time of this project since there are many activities (watching videos, searching information, writing down doubts and doing collaborative online work) can be done by students at home.

I hope you enjoy the post! See you soon!

3, 2, 1 Interview with Laura

Today, I´d like to share with you all an interview which I did with my classmate recently. Additionally, I will try to explain to all of you the process and the steps I followed to carry out this interview and how I finally obtained my artifact.

Laura is a 24-year-old student from Santander who is currently attending a Master´s Degree in Bilingual Education at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Below you can watch the video of the interview in which you can know a little bit more about her likes, hobbies, ambitions and future plans.

Now, I will explain to all of you the steps I followed to cope with this challenge and finally come up with this artifact.

Firs of all, when we were challenged to interview our peers by María Jesús, our ICT teacher, we were quite surprised since none of us had never done anything similar. We were advised to do a 3, 2, 1 interview which is basically a short interview where the interviewee is asked a few questions. The main objective of this sort of interview is knowing a little bit more about the interviewee, in this case Laura, in a short period of time and in an appeling way.

Once we knew what to do, I started thinking about what people would like to know about Laura in order to decide the questions I was going to ask her. So I made a draft with different questions according with what I thought people was going to be interested in knowing about her. Then I analized the questions and I finally picked out the six questions I was going to pose in the interview.

Here you can see some of the questions I decided to ask her:

Where do you come from?

What do you enjoy doing?

Do you have any special hobbies?

If you weren´t a teacher, what field would you like to work in? 

As a teacher, do you feel that new technologies are important for us?

Once the interview was clearly defined, we agreed on carrying out the interview. I decided to record a video with my mobile phone rather than an audio because I think it is more attractive and inviting for others. Then, when we finished recording the video I started looking up information about different video editors. Finally I used a mobile phone application called Imovie to edit the video. This application allowed me to add sounds, effects, images and even a piece of different video. I found this application very easy to use since I had never worked with it but I managed to edit my video in a while.

To finish, I think this challenge was quite interesting. I have learned many things that I did not know becuse I had never done anything similar to this. I have also found out that 3, 2, 1 interviews are a very useful way of knowing more about people in a few minutes. Finally, it was a great opportunity for us to practice our conversation skills.

I hope you enjoy it!! If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please let me know by dropping a comment.