Enriching my project

Hello teachers!!

As I said in my last post the students are going to be involved in setting up a company. today I am here again to show you how I have been trying to enrich my clil project.

One of the greatest ways to work with students not only to make them learn, but also to enjoy and know themselves and others is cooperative learning.
First of all I would like to explain you what cooperative learning means. In Fernando Trujillo´s words  the first step to achieve students´ cooperative learning is creating a paceful and affective atmosphere. Once students are involved in this context they will be able to work in groups, which means, each student knows their responsibilities within the group. Therefore  the achievement of the cooperative learning depends on the teacher´s role and responsibility.

According to the idea of cooperative learning and from my point of view, as a teacher, I would add two types of activities in order to give my students the opportunity to meet each other and starting to work first in pairs and then in groups of 3 or 4.

Activity one: divided into pairs, students will write 4 special numbers which have a special meaning for each of them, for example: 2: number of brothers or sisters, 23 my birthday and so on. The student who is next to you will try to guess by questioning what do these numbers mean.
In this activity, students are going to talk about themselves and at the same time they are going to know more thinks about their peers.

Activity two: students will work in groups of 3 or 4 students, they will watch a video about types of companies and they will be asked to analyse it according to a rubric. From the prototype of the project, students will take part to in the assessment process. After analysing it, they will make a short presentation highlighting the main aspects they think should be taken into account. This activity is going to be the first time they face such a difficult task.

In order to enrich my project I would like to give my students the opportunity to share their improvements and phases of the project in a class and online blog. Apart from their personal blogs, students are going to share their projects, improvements, even questions or doubts in a class blog. The objective of this group blog is to share our ideas and our entrepreneur projects with anyone who visit us. In other words, students will see how useful their projects can be and I am sure it will make them feel extra motivated.

On the other hand and as you will see in future posts, this project will collaborate with other online project. the idea is to collaborate online with other teachers and students sharing our ideas and improvements. Therefore, we are going to share something and we are going to have the opportunity to learn many things from students and teacher who are working at the same time all around the world.

According to the idea of the collaborative methodology I am going to apply to the project, I have designed a visual metaphord. The online tool that I have chosen to create the display is called Storyboard That. The tool will give you lots of scenes, characters, textables and so on but at the same time you can edit them changing shapes and colors. It surprised me how easy is creating a whole story in a short time. I would recommend it for those whose digital skills are not highly developed. The visual metaphor itself needed to be attractive but simple and effective. So from my point of view the most important things that have to be taken into consideration were: the final sentences (key message) and the length of the metaphor, it means the time people will need to spend in order to understand the message. According to the final result, which you can see below, the metaphor is very simple and I think it doesn´t take more than 4 seconds to be understood.

Here you can check the visual metaphor I have created:

Made with Storyboard That

Click here to watch it bigger click

Self reflection
I should admit that enriching the prototype of my project have made me think about the viability of my project itself. Prototyping anything could look easy but if you start thinking about how to connect it with the real lesson it can turns very difficult. I was asking myself about the opportunities they are going to have to communicate, the ordering of the tasks, etc.
On the other hand a according to the visual metaphor I was trying to use some other digital tools like canva, pixton or creately . According to the time you consume and the tools it has, storyboard that is from my point of view the easiest to use but at the same time one of the most useful I have tried.

I hope you like the way I have tried to enrich my project and the visual metaphor.

Prototyping my clil project

Hello everyone.

I have already started to prototype my clil project and here you have my first step. I have decided to use the template for prototyping an open educational clil project provided by our teacher

http://stopandlearnenglish.blogspot.com.es

2017 lesson templateclil full (1) de raul oviedo silva

This is the result:

-Open education project title: Set up your company

-Level: Primary school, 5th grade

-Number of sessions: 8

-Areas: The project is connected to social science and english but it has been designed to be interconnected to more areas (cross curricular)

-Teacher´s role: Monitor ( the teacher will act as a guide in order to help students to achieve the objectives )

-Student´s role: students will work individually, in pairs and small groups

-Objective: The main objective of the project is giving students the opportunity to foster their creativity while building a company. At the same time we will work with and through english language, so that our second objective will be focused on the four skills of language: reading, speaking, listening and writing.

-4 c´s of clil:

Content: according to the spanish curriculum the project is connected to the point called: economic activities and sectors, advertising, marketing, companies, etc.

The vocabulary have to be graded according to the level of the students but some specific vocabulary related to sectors and economic activities will be asked for.                                                   

Grammar will be focused on the use of verb tenses and conditionals.

Communication:As they are creating a new company they will need to discriminate between the way the advertise their product and the way they debate with their peers.

Cognition: Activities will make students compare, predict, analyse, present, etc.

Culture:While they are setting up the company they will need to take into account our pluricultural and plurilingual world. This demands tolerance and empathise with their future customers.

-Key competences: LOMCE (Primary)
CC - Communication skills
MCST -Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology
DC - Digital skills
LL - Learning to learn
SCC - Social and civic skills
SIE - Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.
CAE - Cultural awareness and expression

-Assessment criteria: teacher will use rubrics to assess and at the same time students will be assessed by themselves through rubrics. Rubrics can be created by students or provided by the teacher

-Skills: students will improve the four skills; reading, writing, listening and speaking.

-Resources: videos, recordings, websites, computer, etc.

-Setting: classroom and IT suite

-Final outcome: the final product of the project will be a group presentation explaining the features and the process to create their company.

-Suitable missions:

Interactive exercises

Debates

Listening comprehension

Dialogues

Digital posters

Reading comprehension

Recording (podcast)(video)


Here you have a short presentation, have fun!







I would like to finish this post giving you a short reflection about the process of prototyping my clil project.
First of all I was thinking about the main objective of the project, all I want is give students the opportunity to create something, but what? It has to be something that makes them work in groups, something different, to sum up something motivating. From my point of view the project needed to give me the opportunity to add new vocabulary and working with ict and english. 
Once I decided the title and after filling the template I started to create my online presentation. I was checking some applications but at the end, and after having fun creating the character, the voice, the movements and the template I started to record my voice using https://tellagami.com/. It was a very funny but useful experience, I couldn´t stop laughing while I was recording the voice because of the strange movements. Anyway, I think the final results worth doing.

I hope you like my presentation and the prototype of my project.

See you soon!

Designing an advert

Hi everyone!!

I was asked to analyse a clil project. Here you have all steps I have followed and the deep analysis, I hope you like it!!

Steps:

1-select the project

2-quick reading

3-think about what to asses

4-using the rubric https://www.bie.org/object/document/pbl_essential_elements_checklist in order to guide my analysis

5-deep analysis (strenghts and weaknesses)

6-slideshow presentation

Introduction:

Designing and advert is an EDIA CLIL project ( http://cedec.ite.educacion.es/es/rea-ingles ) where students will learn ict and english at the same time. The main objective is to think of a real or imaginary product and a multimedia campaign to advertise it.  The project is divided in 5 missions that have to be accomplished in order to learn something useful for the final challenge, this is the final collaborative project in which students will create their multimedia presentation or video in order to advertise the product.

In order to analyse the project I have summarized some general aspects, some particular ones and what I would change or add to this fantastic project.

General aspects

The project is very clearly structured which means students know always where they are and what is the next step

The objective of the project is not only improving their ict knowledge but also their english language

Students work freely to achieve the objective. It fosters their creativity and personal autonomy

Students take part in individual, pair and group activities

Students also have a learning diary (google drive) and a personal portfolio (blog) where they have to reflect on the different contents they are working on in each part.

Each mission has to include a reflection. Students will answer these questions:

Students have to spread the word by twitter. While they are working or once they finish each challenge, they have to share this product online.

The teacher provides students with links to make the explanations easier to understand:

Evaluation: there are rubrics for everything that has to be assessed. Students and teacher are both available to check the rubrics in order to clarify the objectives and to evaluate according to this criteria.

Evaluation percentage:

40% final product teacher assessment

20% collaborative teamwork partner´s assessment

20% final product self-assessment

20% teacher assessment about how students have tackled the missions

Important aspects from each mission:

1-Breaking the ice

-They have a conversation with a partner about products they would like to advertise as a warm up activity

-The activity is focused on wh- questions

-The second activity is a brief oral presentation based on a short text that have been written before

2- Choosing the product

-This step includes writing, listening and speaking activity.

-They start listening a speech about the influence of the mass media and then they are asked to answer questions like:

-They need to think about the name, photo, etc. With this information they will create the first poster and they will have to spread the word.

3-What can my product do?

In this step, students have to think about features and reasons why people should buy their products and to communicate this information. To accomplish this mission students will need to use modal verbs and they will compare their texts with their classmates in order to find weaknesses and strengths.

4-Why your product is the best?

This step will be focused on the use of comparatives and superlatives. Students will be asked to compare their products to similar ones and to talk about what people usually think before buying a product

What do you usually think before buying a product in a supermarket or in a shop? Raise your hand if you think about this:

• I only think if I have got enough money.
• I think if the quality of the product is good or not.
• I think if I know the trade mark.
• I think if I really need it.
• I think if I don't need it but I have got a craving for that product
• I think if I want it because I you have seen an advert on TV.
• I think about the size and the performance of that product.

5-Broadcast

Students will start doing a reading activity in order to know different types of adverts and language that companies usually use.

As it is the last step, students will create a poster or a video to show why their product is the best and including all things they have been creating.

• Photos of your product.

• At least three things your product can do.

• Four comparative sentences about your product.

• Two superlative sentences about your product.

• You can also add a motto to advertise your product:
• It has to be short and a good summary of your product.
• It has to be easy to remember.

Students will create a post in their blogs with the poster or video and a reflection about what they have learnt. they will be invited to make a public presentation too.

Final step

The final step will be a post in which they have to think on everything they have learnt and how they have learnt it throughout the missions. Students will need to complete these documents:

Final self evaluation:

What I have learnt:

Personal point of view

It is true that the project gives students the opportunity to learn from each other through a collaborative way. it is also true that the teacher provides them with lots of resources and links  but from my point of view and taking into account we are working with ict, I would create a group on facebook, a class google drive document or any digital resource in which students and the teacher will be interconnected and be able to share useful websites, videos, etc. That way students would have the opportunity to ask questions to classmates and teacher at the same time from anywhere.

Concerning grammar as one of the objectives to achieve, I truly believe that the use of modal verbs, comparatives and superlatives are not enough. From my point of view and taking into account the project has been designed for 6th grades, I would add at least, the use of conditionals as we are working on advertising.

In some exercises students are asked to think about what people usually think before buying or how make your product attractive. Advertising is a huge world and I think this project gives us the opportunity to work students´ critical thinking. If I were the teacher I would show them some advertisements in which girls are seen as an object to get or how most of the cleaning products advertisements use girls as cleaners.

The objective of this type of reflexions will be making them think how powerful their advertisements can be and how important is taking everything under control. They have to ask themselves what is their objective and if they are respecting everyone.


Here you can see my slideshow presentation:

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Pompeii

Volcanoes, one of the easiest model to work with history and arts and craft at the same time.

On this ocassion, we were learning about the Roman empire and I decided to talk about Pompeii. This magical city can make children learn how volcanoes work, discriminate the layers and having fun creating their own model.

All you need:

-water

-paint brush

-paint

-paper

-polystirene cubes

-glue

-small and flat piece of wood (base)

-cellotape

Steps:

1- Create a mountain with paper and cellotape 

2- Cover the whole surface with paper and glue it with a mixture made of glue and water

3- Add the polystirene cubes in order to create the devastated village

4- Paint everything carefully

5- Label the parts 

Students can work individualy or in groups depending on the age and how many lessons we can spend to make the model.