Infoedugraphic

Hello ladies and gentlemen!!

I’m glad to show you my last ICT project... This time, we have made a group work so first of all, I would like to introduce my classmates since without them, this InfoEdugraphic wouldn’t have been possible! The members of the group are María, Celia, Estrella, Gonzalo and I. 

To do our Infoedugraphic, which iis basically a graphic representation of some information, done with an informatic tool (such as Easel.ly, Picktochart, Thinglink or Canva) we surfed the InfoEduGraphic Project Site to look for tips, instructions and ideas.

What about the topic? Well... as you can verify [Planets in the Solar System (mine), TheHydrosphere (by Gonzalo), Environmental care (by Estrella), The Mysteries of the Earth (by María) and Landcaping (by Celia)] all our individual e-projects are connected with Social Science. That´s the reason why we have decided to make an Infoedugraphic as an introductory tool about the Universe, the Solar System and the Earth, which has so many amazing features that we have called it "The Magic Planet". Our main learning outcome is for our students to know about the planets of the Solar System, The Earth’s layers (Hydrosphere, Atmosphere and Geosphere), its landforms, as well as environmental care.

Before going on with the task, the roles were asigned:

• Estrella was the coordinator. She had to direct and check that each member did his part of the job. She also encouraged us to keep working on the infographic. She did her work perfectly and she knew how to motivate us at each moment!

• Celia was the speaker, who is in charge of spreading the work and representing the team when it’s needed. She also did his work in a perfect way! She represented all our ideas and issues to our teacher María Jesús.

• Gonzalo was the supervisor and he was in charge of controlling the creation process and remembering each person’s task. They also had to take notes of everybody’s ideas. He wrote all the steps we followed and at the end, we could made a little feedback in order to identify the good things done and other things we could improved.

• Finally my peer María and I were the secretaries. We made and created the InfoEduGraphic using Picktochart and Thinglink.

 
Once that each member had clear their function, we had to decide the tool. As it was said before, we chose Piktochart due to the fact that some members of our group had already used it and they said that it could fit the purpose of the project perfectly. Piktochart gives you the possibility to create infographics, posters, presentations or reports depending on what you need. The quality of its pictures and icons is quite high and very attractive, exactly what we were looking for: to captivate students’ attention. However, we also had to face some problems:

•  Firstly, how to link all our e-projects’ contents. After thinking about it for a while, we decided to structure the infoedugraphic from the most abstract content (the space) to the most concrete one (landforms). That’s how it is structured in the national curriculum according to the different educational grades. This way, we could include all our Social Science curricular contents in a structured and well-organized way. In order to motivate them, we added a badge that they could get once they finished the learning process.
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•  Secondly, we thought about how to adapt the contents to the different school’s levels: this challenge was harder to face, but finally we thought of making an interactive InfoEduGraphic. What does this mean? We did not only an infographic (which is an image) but also an interactive image. By doing this, we foster an active learning and allow students of different grades to access to different activities of different difficulty according to the content. Throughout this project pupils will have a more active role whereas the teacher will act as a guide. Inductive learning is also part of the learning process that we wager. 
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• Finally, we would like to highlight that Piktochart would be perfect if it offered the possibility of making those graphics interactives (pictures with movements, sounds, to link to other webpages and so on) instead of being just an image.

Once we had our infographic finished, we went to make it interactive to promote and active learning and to increase pupils’ motivation. We did this part of the project using the online tool Thing Link. With this tool, you can make an interactive image by putting links in small spots inside your picture. Therefore, we included a video to expand knowledge, interactive activities to review each content and an Arts and Crafts activity about environmental care.
For all these things before mentioned, this tool is incredibly useful to create your own CLIL materials since, by linking resources, you can work the 4Cs. However, we think this tool would be nicer if it offered a wider variety of forms to insert the links, not only spots.

To conclude, we can say that Infographics have a lot of uses in our classrooms: they can be used to introduce a specific content, to review key vocabulary, to explain the steps of a process or activity, to help children with special educational needs... Infographics present information in a neat and visual way, that can clarify students’ doubts. Moreover, students can also create their own infographics in order to learn about content and ICT skills.
 
Our final artifact is this amazing interactive InfoEduGraphic. Click on the spots to see the activities and enjoy it!!
 


See you soon!!

Evaluating an eProject

Hi everyone!
I have evaluated an eProject called Enjoy Learning: Art and Music, which was made up by students of this Master some years before. At first view, I liked a lot the project, but it´s a fact that some things could be improved in order to get a more complete eProject and catch children attention.
I have made a presentation including these things I consider positive and the others that I think they could improve. In order to build this presentation, I have used Genially: I have to admit that I prefered to use another webtool at the beginning, but the teacher encouraged me try do do it wit that one. It was a little bit dificult first, but then It was really fun because Genially has lots of resources that you can use. I have called "things that could be improved" due to I believe that it´s a subjective work, because everyone has a different opinion about the same thing.

It´s important to say that evaluating other projects is very useful, because you can say what do you like and whant don´t you like, and it helps you to decide the things you will include in your own eProject and the things you don´t.

The prototype of my own eProject

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

How are you? I´m very happy because I have started a new challenge which enthusiasms me! Our teacher María Jesús asked us to make a prototype of our own CLIL eProject and I would like to share with you my experience.

The first thing María Jesús told us was “It´s just a prototype. You didn´t put it into practice, so you might elaborate it very short. You´re looking for being realistic”.

Well… The first task was to define the topic of my eProject. Due to the fact that I was doing my school internship at the same time we did it, I thought that I could take advantage of it. I decided to choose the Social Science topic which I was teaching to my pupils in CEIP CarmenLaforet: The Solar System. I consider this topic very interesting for children and very abstract at the same time, because it is something that they cannot touch or see through a screen.

Once I have chosen the topic, I started to think what program I will use in order to create the video-presentation. My final choice was Buncee since I have used in the past others like Prezi, Genially and Powtoon and I would like to know another one.

Buncee is very easy to use. You only have to create an account (if you didn´t have one yet) and click on create new! Then, you will see have to enter your Buncee Tittle and begin by adding your first item and choosing the background of your slide (you also can choose if you want the same background in all the slides or one different for each one). The program gives you some backgrounds but you can also look for others. In the program, an item can be some text, an image, an animation, a Youtube video, a web page, a sticker, a QR Code… You have multiple options. Finally you click on download or share and you have your slideshow wherever you want! It´s fantastic!

From my experience by using Buncee, I have to highlight some advantages and disadvantages:

·        The images are really fantastic! You can adapt their size and move them wherever you want!

·         The colour and type of letter can be changed as you want and It´s pretty easy to use!

·         I also like that you have the option to add audio support, which means a voice which reads all that you have written on the slides.

·         Another thing I liked a lot is that the program save your job automatically so you don´t have to be worried about loosing it.

·         Furthermore, you can download the slideshow and share it with the Social Network that you want.

·         A disadvantage I found it is that I couldn´t add my voice to the slideshow using this program, so I had to use another one.

·         Finally, I couldn´t download the slideshow as a video, so I had to use also another program to do it.

On the other hand, I have included the web tools Jigsaw, Powtoon, Pixton and Pinterest in the prototype of my eProject, since I know them and I think all of them are easy to use for children from that age (6-7 years) [You will see what to do with this web tools in te prototipe of my eProject]. I also claimed that the artefacts that they can create with these web tools are very attractive and they motivate them to learn more and more about the topic and ICTs.

Once I had the slideshow finished, I used aTube Catcher 2014 to record my screen and become my Buncee work into a video. I also added my voice explaining the eProject and a background music (but I had some problems with it and currently, it sounds more as a noise). So that, I include the video here, because I think it can help you to get into character!

Furthermore, after recording the slideshow with my voice and the (failed) background music, I wasn´t able to cut the video using aTube Catcher 2014. My boyfriend recommended me using Movie Maker 2012, so I was brave and I encouraged myself to prove other different tool (and there were three). But… what a nice surprise! Movie Maker 2012 was free and really, really easy to use, I could choose the language and I could cut the video spending only five minutes of my life (that is important, since I don´t have so much time to waste now). I dragged my video made up with aTube Catcher 2014 to the Movie Maker 2012 window and I moved the cursor where I want my video to finish. Just a tip: due to the fact that I wanted to share my video to Youtube, I had to save it in my computer as a film (not as a project as I did at the very beginning).

And that´s all! I had the prototype of my eProject finished! Do you want to see it?

Ouch… Before it slips my mind! In order to give you more information about the eProject, I did also a writing, where you can have access to more specific aspects as the objectives, the content, the evaluation...

I hope you enjoy them! See you soon!

via GIPHY

My CLIL Board in Pinterest

Hello everyone!
Today I´m glad to tell you that I have another CLIL project in Pinterest, the webtool I have explain you in the post before. I have created my first board! Yes, after three years using Pinterest (not as well as I might to do it) I have built my own board. It´s called CLIL Field because it´s destinated to organize and share all the interesting things that I could found about this topic. Initially, my work was to add 6 different pins, but I have added others after I have completed the Master´s homework because I consider a very useful way to order and clarify my mind.
All my classmates have created their own CLIL board too, and I recommend you to visit them as well as mine.
See you soon, I wish in Pinterest too!

Open CLIL bank of common knowledge in Pinterest

Good afternoon everyone!

I´m here again to talk you about Pinterest. It´s a social website which allows you to look for, upload and share information regarding all the topics you can imagine. You can find there images, websites or even videos.

First of all, you can search lots of things using that website, in different Boards or Pins. You can reduce your search clicking or writing specific words in order to make the search easier. People upload a lot of interesting information, adding links about other websites and information from others regarding the same topic.
 Secondly, you can apload also information in form of videos, images or websites which you consider important to share with others.
Furthermore, the most important characteristic of Pinterest (of course, for me) is that you have the opportunity to make your own Board and add all the pins you have found or made to it; you are allow to give them the name that you want and make your Board public or private.
To conclude, from my way of thinking, Pinterest is a nice webtool to organize our information and have a clearer idea about we want and what we know.

This week, our TIC´s teacher encourage us to collaborate in a Open CLIL Bank of Common Knowledge, called Open CLIL, adding  to this board she had created 6 different websites, videos or tools we consider could be interesting to share with our classmates. I believe this is a great idea, because we can share a lot of things there and it will made our work with CLIL easier. In fact, some of us have created other boards shared between us.

I hope you to enjoy this Pinterest boards and to enjoy also Pinterest in general, I recommend you to use it as your resources search engine.
See you!

Creative Commons License

Good evening everyone!


­­I have decided to license my blog with a Creative Commons License. With this, people can use my have the possibility to share and distribute my work commercially, with the principal condition of crediting me because of the original idea. I took that decision due to the fact that my blog will be about CLIL methodology and the majority of the images which I will upload will be created on my own. As the same way I would like to be allowed to share the content that other people upload to the Internet, I prefer give them the same possibility. Anyway, as teachers and educators, we have the moral obligation to help each other.
 Click here to know more about that license

At the same time, we might encourage our students to use Creative Commons License with the reason to respect and valuate others´ creations, because in that way, their own crreations and inventions will be respected and valuated too.

We have to motivate our students to use Creative Commons material in order to make themselves proud of their works, when they will see them been used by other authors. They have to know that they cannot use all the material uploaded at the Internet, because so much authors don´t want them to do that; that´s the author-user relationship. Children must be aware of the laws and permissions which they can choose for their content.