Creating maps and games to learn!

Meeting the topography of our country

Prepared for students of 6th grade, this is a Didactic Unit with the objective to know the most important topographic elements of each province of Catalonia. It starts with a diagnosis of the previous knowledges of the students, and the main activity is the creation of a digital map with animaps. With this tool you can create a map from Google Maps by adding markets that move, images and text that pop up on cue, and lines and shapes that change over time. And when you share it, it appears like a video, which can be played, paused, slowed down or speeded up!

I really think this is a must-try tool! You can also learn tips to use it in the blog! And if you wan to see an example, here is a good one where are showed all the things you can do with animaps: New Showcase.

Finally, they have planed to asses their children with an online trivial. Here are two links where you can play to different games with different topics, or create your own one: trivinet, triviar.

Daring with Scratch

About me

This Didactic Unit is for 3rd grade, and it is simple: students learn how to use Scratch by making a self presentation. This is not an easy task, but I want to congratulate my classmates because they have done a nice job although the difficulty given by the program!

So this is a program with which you can create your own projects, animations, stories, games, art, music, simulations, instruments, characters and media. "Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century". I think using this program is a big challenge, but the result can really motivate the students to keep working hard. 

Image from the Scratch website

Didactic Unit on Healthy habits

Help your children learn healthy habits

A Healthy Life

Continuing with the second Didactic Unit presented today, it is about healthy habits on diet and hygiene. What I have liked about it is that, although the ICT are little used, it has a clear structure of the sequence: it has a plain opening to assess, with a game, the previous knowledges of the children. Then is continues with an explanation of the topic, using a digital whiteboard. Later some games are played to see what are their actual habits and how could they change them if necessary, so it sets off the new knowledges from the real experience. Finally, there are two activities of consolidation and evaluation: a visit to a market and a gymkhana in the nature. I like the way real life is combined with the theory of the topic, and how children can really integrate this theory to their real life, helping them to give sense to what they do.

Creative Didactic Units!

Today it was our last day on Digital Literacy lesson at University, so every group of four, has made a presentation on his didactic unit, just like us. Now, I'll describe the most interesting aspects of their works, like some apps they have used, or some methods to organize the lessons. I need to add that one thing we have all done, is using Drive, Docs, Gmail, Calendars, Hangouts, etc. Useful apps of Google to share and organize your work in an easy way, which I explained some weeks ago.

The Geometrical Shapes

The first group has done a didactic unit about geometrical shapes for 5 years old children. The objective is to develop children's ability to to distinguish, identify, describe and draw the basic geometrical shapes.

One of the aspects I want to highlight is their methodology. They work in Interactive Groups, a method that eases the collaboration while increases the motivation of the students. If you want to learn more about this, you can do it in the Learning Communities site.

The second aspect I want to emphasize is the use of EducaPlay, a site where you can create your own educative activities and share them, or find educational activities in the educational system of your country in the Directory. The activities and games are various, and you can create a huge variety of games, for different subjects and grades. Finally, here is a game I used to play when I was a kid, that they have also used: Create a robot with geometrical shapes

Islands of Personality and Trains of Thought

I just found this article on edutopia. It presents a way to tackle emotional intelligence with our students taking advantage of Inside Out, an amazing film of Disney. I reckon it is highly interesting way to motivate children to work on their self well-being, unfortunately an aspect not commonly dealt with in our schools.

Islands of Personality and Trains of Thought: In her third post about the film 'Inside Out,' Lori Desautels explores visualizing the memories and emotions that inform students' identities and shape their cognitive processes.

Aprenem amb les TIC

This post is going to be in Catalan, because most of the links that I am going to share and the resources to find the information are in this language. Moreover this is for a Catalan school with a Catalan curriculum and some aspects of it can not be translated properly. 


Bé, per començar, com ja he comentat amb anterioritat, hem estat treballant per a fer una unitat didàctica per a segon de primària. L'àmbit en què se centra és en el del coneixement del medi, en concret en l'àrea del coneixement del medi natural. La unitat està programada per a nou sessions d'1 hora i mitja, en total 13 hores i mitja. A partir del currículum de primària establert pel Departament d'Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya, hem establert els nostres objectius, les competències a desenvolupar i els criteris d'avaluació de la unitat. Per si és del vostre interès, aquest és l'enllaç públic del currículum: DECRET 119/2015, de 23 de juny, d'ordenació dels ensenyaments de l'educació primària.

Per a l'elaboració d'una unitat didàctica és important saber quins són tots els aspectes que aquesta engloba, i tenir-los presents en tot moment per a no oblidar-ne cap d'important. Per aquest motiu, aquí us deixo alguns exemples d'utilitat de la graella utilitzada en aquests casos. A més a més, a l'enllaç del peu de fotografia, trobareu altres exemples ja omplerts (pàg. 34-38). Finalment a la pàgina 39 trobem un llistat de verbs d'acció que ens pot ser útil a l'hora d'escriure els criteris d'avaluació o els objectius que volem establir per a les nostres activitats.

Del currículum a les programacions

Del currículum a les programacions

Pàg. 39

La nostra Unitat Didàctica en concret se centra en els cinc sentits, el cos humà i la higiene personal, tot relacionant-ho amb l'ús de les TIC. I un dels usos de les noves tecnologies que hem volgut utilitzar és, precisament, un blog de classe. Aquest és l'enllaç: Coneixement del medi, i creiem que tenir un blog a classe pot ser de gran utilitat per a poder realitzar un bon seguiment dels aprenentatges dels alumnes. A més, és una manera diferent d'aprendre que motiva i crea interès als seus participants. Amb anterioritat ja havíem realitzat varies entrades sobre els beneficis de tenir un blog a classe, les seves possibilitats i els seus avantatges en referència a la millora del nivell escrit: consistència, confiança, "feedback" entre companys, pares i mestres i col·laboració, treball en equip. Així que aquests aspectes ja no els repetiré.

Un altre ús que hem volgut fer de les TIC, se centra en les tauletes digitals. Amb una aplicació anomenada StopMotion, els alumnes de segon hauran de realitzar un vídeo del seu procés durant l'elaboració d'un mural amb les parts del cos humà. Aquesta aplicació és també interessant perquè és una eina nova amb què podran donar vida al seu esforç, posar-hi la seva veu o música de fons i, en definitiva, dissenyar-ho al seu gust. Podria semblar però una aplicació difícil per a utilitzar així amb tants alumnes, però és un repte per a ells, perquè aprenguin a treballar en equip, s'escoltin mútuament, es respectin i valorin les opinions de tothom, gràcies a l'ajut constant del mestre.

StopMotion App

StopMotion App

Per acabar avui, vull compartir una última activitat que hem volgut incorporar en la nostra Unitat Didàctica, un dominó de les parts del cos. Aquest tindrà les peces personalitzades amb dibuixos i conceptes, de manera que entre totes hi estiguin presents els continguts claus del temari del bloc (de manera senzilla i clara). Aquest joc, que es farà a nivell de grup classe, ens servirà per esbrinar els coneixements previs de cada nen i, així, poder enfocar les següents sessions en funció dels interessos dels nens, els punts més febles, etc. Aquesta diagnosi inicial també ens servirà per a poder fer grups heterogenis (segons els coneixements previs, els interessos, el sexe, les habilitats, etc.) per a les activitats de les següents sessions. Per qüestions de temps, cada nen tindrà, com a màxim, dues fitxes. En cas que aquell dia hi hagi menys nens del compte, els tocarà més fitxes per cap.

Dominó personalitzat amb les parts del cos

Aviat publicaré més activitats que hem incorporat a la nostra Unitat Didàctica!

Kahoot!: Have Fun & Learn!

In our Digital Literacy class we have been preparing a Didactic Unit, I might talk about it again in other posts, but now I want to share with you one resource I have found, which can be useful for your lessons.

First of all, this is a fun game that can be used in a lesson to do a little assessment. This is Kahoot!, a site where you can create your own learning game, made from a series of multiple choice questions and add images, videos or diagrams to your questions. Later, the players must copy an easy code to play all together, so it is completely free and no accounts are required. While the questions are displayed on a shared screen to unite the lesson and encourage players, they answer on their own devices, so that they can be in the same room or on the other side of the globe! There is then a top 5 classification between them, which could seem a little too competitive, but the truth is that social learning promotes discussion and has a positive pedagogical impact!

This is what you'll see when, as a player, you go to Kahoot!

As a participant you can also find Kahoots created by others, however, if you are worried about what a child might find, you can set them up so that their account doesn't allow them to post their content publicly, or browse public content created by others. To choose this secure option, when they sign in they must select "I'm a student 16 or under".

If you have any other doubt here is the FAQ site of Kahoot.

I hope you enjoy this game! And I will keep posting interesting resources of my Didactic Unit!

Internet Browsers for Kids

Lately I have been slightly worried about my younger brother, because he spends the whole afternoon on the Internet watching violent videogames demos or looking at things that may not be the appropriate for his age. So I have done a little research on safe browsers and search sites, which filter the information and children easily can use. If you have a similar case, or you are a teacher, you should take a look:

Kiddle:

Kidrex:


Bunis:

These three are the best for me, but there are also others like:
BuscadorInfantil
Gogooligans
Kidzsearch

Make sure your kids make a good use of the Internet, because it is a powerful tool, but bad used can be very dangerous! Keep your kids safe!

Author's right and limits

Have you ever wondered whether your are making a good use of the resources you find on the Internet?  I mean, everyday we find new resources that we might use on our blog later, or on our Twitter, Instagram, etc. The problem is that we should bear in mind that we cannot deliberately use everything we find, as some contents may be protected with Copyright. Therefore, today we are facing a new dilema: the limits on the use of resources and contents made by others.

To start with, we need to know what Creative Commons (Catalunya) is: this is a nonprofit cooperation that offers diferent types of licences for those who do not want all the author's right on their work as the intelectual property law offers. There are five different licences, which can be later combined:
1. Attribution: The author must be cited in every use of the work,
2. Non commercial: The reproduction of the work is not allowed for commercial uses.
3. No derivate works: The work can only be shared as it is. With no modifications.
4. Share alike: You can make derivated works only if you share them with the same licence.
Once you have decided what kind of licence is the one you need, you can finally put it in you website with this link: Creative Commons

I have already choosen my licence for this blog, and I have add it as a HTML/JavaScript gadget that you can see in the left foot of the blog:

 

Now my blog is protected by this licence, with which  I allow the commercial use of my blog and also derivated works from it if the new posts are also made with this same licence.

It is now oyur turn, be careful the next time you take an image from the Internet to use it in you works. I leave here some websites where you can pick up images without worrying about copyright as they are public domain images:
- MorgueFile
- Pics4Learning
- Public Domain Pictures
- Wikimedia Commons

I hope this post is helpful for you! If you have any doubt do not hesitate to ask me on the comments!

Strengthen writing with Social Media

As a student I do know that with effort and practice everyone can improve their skills, and the writing skill is not an exception. And in this post I want to highlight that Social Media can be an awesome tool to encourage yourself to use creativity and rely on digital tools to improve these skills. However, although Social Media does impact students, we teachers need to assure that this impact is a positive one.

 

Let’s now see some examples of this idea:

On the one hand, Blogging is a platform where students can practice their writing relying on Social Media and digital tools while teachers can follow their progress. Moreover, a blog means a routine; a platform for a consistent practice of writing, which is the best way to improve. So I would say that consistency is the best advantage of blogging. Therefore, confidence is another ability that will be gained while having a blog. As some students might be afraid of publishing a work publicly, through practice, consistency and encouragement writing will become a more enjoyable experience, and students might get more interest on it and become more meaningfully engaged.

On the other hand, Twitter is useful too as it requires writing short and brief sentences. This can help to practice clarity, precision and brevity. You need to reflect on what you really want to say and choose the correct words. In addition, when students are exposed to writing with their peers in live (like in Google Docs) or not live collaboration, they are able to develop stronger ideas as their owns are being questioned all the time; find convincing evidence and arguments for their ideas and be creative to do not repeat what their peers have said. Hence, collaboration is a relevant skill that students will develop and improve while they improve their writing skills too.

Finally, Instagram, besides being a way to practice brief description, outline and stories of the visuals shared, it is also an undeniable powerful tool for feedback. And feedback help students to improve their writing by collaborating with peers and teachers. To end with, here are some examples of how to use Instagram in the classroom: 

https://ticsyformacion.com/2016/01/10/7-formas-interesantes-de-usar-instagram-en-el-aula-infografia-socialmedia-education/

To sum up, I don’t need to say that all consistency, confidence, collaboration and feedback advantages can be gained in every Social Media well used. And of course, students will not only improve on their writing, but on their knowledge of the real world too, and on their skills on how to look for secure information in the Internet, and I am aware that this are abilities that are not always taught in schools.

Hangouts on Google

We have already seen how to use Google Drive, so now I am going to explain another Google tool that can be worthwhile: Google Hangouts.

First of all, sign in on your Google account and go to the same menu where we went to find Drive. And find the Hangouts option.

This is a simple tool for messaging, voice and video calls. In reference to chats, you can decide whether to have a one-to-one conversation or include all your friends with group chats for up to 100 people. And obviously you can send photos, maps, emoji, stickers and GIFs.

Additionally, when it comes to making video calls you can make them with up to 9 other people and opens up the viewing for as many people as you want. After that, you can save the chat on YouTube. Options not available in Facebook or Skype. And there is also the resource to share your screen. Imagine now you need to explain a project during a video call, now you'll be able to share your screen and ensure that the other people is also looking at the same thing as you, so there will be no misunderstandings. Moreover, as it is available for many devices, you can start a video call on your computer and finish it on your phone.

If we now look at the phone calls, it is true that this is a weak point on Google Hangouts because it is not available to all locations and only those in US and Canada are for free.

To end with let me tell you WHY YOU CAN NOT LONGER IGNORE Google Hangouts:

It has a "Hangouts on Air" option. You can decide to broadcast live conversations to the world for free, or you can follow another Hangout of your interest. 

What do you think about making an online video call lesson for you students?

Discover Google Drive

Do you know Google Drive? You probably do. But you might not know all of its tools and gadgets. Today I am going to post about all its possible uses, and you might get surprised... To start with, Google Drive is a tool to create, share and organize your files in a practical way. Moreover, you can find you files securely saved and access and edit them from any device.

Let's now start using Drive. If you already have a Google account you need to sing in you Gmail and then go to the menu on the right top of your screen. There you have all the tools.

See the arrow:

However, if you do not have an account, I recommend you to create one just here: Create you Google Account

Once you are in the menu, you'll see that there are lots of apps. For instance you can go to your profile, to a Google search, to Google maps, to YouTube, to Gmail, etc. But these tools are known by most of the Internet users. Let's go now to Drive. 

On the left of your screen you'll se the menu:

Google Drive Menu

In My Drive you can find all your files, which can be for almost any type (pictures, documents, videos, pdf, etc.)
In Shared with me, you'll see all the files that are being shared with you, because as we said, this is a tool about sharing.
In Google Photos you will have the photos that you have used inside your account. For instance I have the photos on this post just on the Google Photos menu.
And finally I do not think it is necessary to explain what the Recent, the Starred and the Bin menus are...

Anyway, let's now start creating!! Go to NEW. You'll se you can create a folder (and later a folder inside a folder) and upload a file or create a new one, which can be a document (similar to Microsoft Word), a sheet (similar to Excel), an slide (like your PowerPoint presentations), and also a form, a drawing and a map. But why should you create a document here and not in Word? Because here is easier to share it, and while you are editing your document you can decide if someone else can edit at the same time, or only see or comment. For instance, let's now imagine that as teachers we want to know how our students participate when working in small groups. We will be able to distinguish what is every student doing if they assign a colour for each member when writing, and also comment on their process, which can be really helpful for both, students and teachers.

You might now be wondering, what about the "Connect more apps" option inside the NEW menu? Well, let's take a look there. This is an innovative Google option that allows us to add more than a hundred apps that we could miss inside Drive. For example, a "multifolders" option, a converter for files, online pdf tools, a diary journal, or a translator. I suggest you to take a look on this menu and see if there is something that could help you. Moreover, and this is amazing... You have an "Add-ons" menu on docs and sheets too. And there you can find countless gadgets for your documents and sheets. Wander there for a while and you'll find must-have tools for sure!

To end with, I have done an example of a Google docs explaining its options. It may be helpful!!