Hi you all!
Today I would like to share with you the infographic I designed for my 5th graders. It is about Spanish population.
Infographics help learners to understand content because they can visualize and contextualize the content. They are a very visual way of representing and transmitting knowledge via the web. This type of means to transmit information is key, attractive and engages students.
There are many tools we, as teachers, can use. Here are some of them:
-Easel.ly
-Picktochart
-Canva
-Smore
-Mural.ly
-Padlet
The tool I used was Picktochart. This is a web-based infographic application which allows users without intensive experience as graphic designers to easily create infograpics and visuals using themed templated. The app is very intuitive, so it is very easy to use.
If you want to try it, you just have to create your own account (it's free!). Then, on the left, you will find a menu in which you can select different features to create your own infographic. For instance, you will be able to choose different lines, photos, symbols,backgrounds, shapes, letter font and sizes, etc. If you don't like the available pictures you can choose your own ones or create different graphic organizers, as I did.
Another advantage of using Piktochart is that is very easy to share and embed.
I couldn't find any disadvantage. In fact, it is a tool that I will use with my students in the future. As I said before, it is VERY intuitive.
Here you can have a look at my infographic. The topic I chose is 'Spanish population', which I personally find it very boring. I hope my students find the topic more interesting thanks to this infographic.
I hope you found this post useful. If you liked it, don't forget to follow my blog.
Friday 22 March 2019
I do care!
Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.
The project we proposed in class was called "I do care!" and the challenging question my students had to answer was 'What can I do to help people from my community?'
My students wanted to do this project because every year for Peace Day we usually give money to- Save the Children and this year, my sixth graders complained. They wanted to give the money to the underprivileged in their local community. They found this project closer to their reality.
The project, in this way, was framed as a meaningful problem to solve. They had to engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources and applying information.
First, they had to identify problems in their community and do a gap analysis to determine the nature and severity of the problems in relation to efforts to resolve the,. To do so, they had to find the places where they could ask (schools, charities, community centers, churches, etc.). Then, they had to decide how to present the questions. Would it be through questionnaires, interviews or polls?
Once they knew the different types of problems, students had to make some important decissions about the project, such as what they were going to donate (money, food, clothes or toys) and how they were going to garner them (advertising the event using posters, Twitter, writing an article on the school newspaper or the community newspaper, etc).
After that, students and teachers had to reflect on what was learnt, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles and how to overcome them.
Later, students gave, received and used feedback to improve their process and the product of their work.
Finally, students made their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.
In order to help visualizee the project, I used a mind map. According to the definition of Wikipedia 'A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks and drawings or other concepts linked and arranged radially around a keyword or a central idea.'
There are many tools to design mind maps. Here are some of them:
-Bubbl.us
-SpiderScriber
-Mind42
-Creately
-Coggle
-Mindmeister
The online tool I chose to design the mind map of our project was Creately. It is an amazing tool to create visual organizers.
There are many advantages of using this app. The most important one is that it is free. Creately also offers options for web or desktop installation. It has many free templates with a lot of options to customize your diagrams and edit them with some colorful labels, symbols, numbers and letters. Besides, you can embed videos on your mind map, as I did.
As disadvantages, I would say that is not very easy to use (it takes a while until you learn how to use it). This app cannot be used in your mobile phone and real-time collaboration features seems to slow down the application a bit.
In spite of these disadvantages, I am sure I will use Creately more than once! I found it really useful to present the project to my students. They were very engage with the project and had the ideas clear.
Here you can see the mind map of our project. I hope you find this post useful. If you liked it, don't forget to follow my blog!
The project we proposed in class was called "I do care!" and the challenging question my students had to answer was 'What can I do to help people from my community?'
My students wanted to do this project because every year for Peace Day we usually give money to- Save the Children and this year, my sixth graders complained. They wanted to give the money to the underprivileged in their local community. They found this project closer to their reality.
The project, in this way, was framed as a meaningful problem to solve. They had to engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources and applying information.
First, they had to identify problems in their community and do a gap analysis to determine the nature and severity of the problems in relation to efforts to resolve the,. To do so, they had to find the places where they could ask (schools, charities, community centers, churches, etc.). Then, they had to decide how to present the questions. Would it be through questionnaires, interviews or polls?
Once they knew the different types of problems, students had to make some important decissions about the project, such as what they were going to donate (money, food, clothes or toys) and how they were going to garner them (advertising the event using posters, Twitter, writing an article on the school newspaper or the community newspaper, etc).
After that, students and teachers had to reflect on what was learnt, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles and how to overcome them.
Later, students gave, received and used feedback to improve their process and the product of their work.
Finally, students made their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.
In order to help visualizee the project, I used a mind map. According to the definition of Wikipedia 'A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks and drawings or other concepts linked and arranged radially around a keyword or a central idea.'
There are many tools to design mind maps. Here are some of them:
-Bubbl.us
-SpiderScriber
-Mind42
-Creately
-Coggle
-Mindmeister
The online tool I chose to design the mind map of our project was Creately. It is an amazing tool to create visual organizers.
There are many advantages of using this app. The most important one is that it is free. Creately also offers options for web or desktop installation. It has many free templates with a lot of options to customize your diagrams and edit them with some colorful labels, symbols, numbers and letters. Besides, you can embed videos on your mind map, as I did.
As disadvantages, I would say that is not very easy to use (it takes a while until you learn how to use it). This app cannot be used in your mobile phone and real-time collaboration features seems to slow down the application a bit.
In spite of these disadvantages, I am sure I will use Creately more than once! I found it really useful to present the project to my students. They were very engage with the project and had the ideas clear.
Here you can see the mind map of our project. I hope you find this post useful. If you liked it, don't forget to follow my blog!
Tuesday 19 March 2019
USING COMICS IN THE CLASSROOM
Our students deal with many of the same emotions as adults. Children get angry, nervous, sad, embarrassed, happy, frustrated and insecure, but they often do not have the words to talk about how they are feeling or are too shy to express themselves.
Comics are a thoughtful and accessible medium which appeals to students of all personalities. They offer a creative way for a reserved student to contribute his or her valuable thoughts and stories, which might otherwise be missed.
Our teacher MªJesús has asked us to create a comic in order to help our students to feel more confident with our subjects. She proposed several tools to create the comic. They are:
-Pixton: https://www.pixton.com
-Creaza: https://www.creaza.com/frontpage
-StoryboardThat: http://www.storyboardthat.com
I chose Storyboardthat. This app is very easy to use. The program provides pre-made scenes which can be easily customizable, characters, text boxes, shapes and other images to choose from. You can drag and drop these items into your chosen layout. Scenes are organized into locational and thematic categories (e.g. school). Characters are organized similarly and can be customized with hair color, eye color, emotions, gestures and other edits. Text boxes allow the student to give a voice to their characters. Shapes and additional images add props to the story.
The disadvantages of using StoryboardThat are it only contains still images (video is not supported) and that you are limited to the stock characters and scenes (unless you pay).
StoryboardThat is a great tool that teachers can use in class with their students. I will definitely use it!
Here is my comic. It was created for my 6th graders.
Made with Storyboard That
I hope you found this post useful. If you liked it, don't forget to follow my blog!
Our teacher MªJesús has asked us to create a comic in order to help our students to feel more confident with our subjects. She proposed several tools to create the comic. They are:
-Pixton: https://www.pixton.com
-Creaza: https://www.creaza.com/frontpage
-StoryboardThat: http://www.storyboardthat.com
I chose Storyboardthat. This app is very easy to use. The program provides pre-made scenes which can be easily customizable, characters, text boxes, shapes and other images to choose from. You can drag and drop these items into your chosen layout. Scenes are organized into locational and thematic categories (e.g. school). Characters are organized similarly and can be customized with hair color, eye color, emotions, gestures and other edits. Text boxes allow the student to give a voice to their characters. Shapes and additional images add props to the story.
The disadvantages of using StoryboardThat are it only contains still images (video is not supported) and that you are limited to the stock characters and scenes (unless you pay).
StoryboardThat is a great tool that teachers can use in class with their students. I will definitely use it!
Here is my comic. It was created for my 6th graders.
Made with Storyboard That
I hope you found this post useful. If you liked it, don't forget to follow my blog!
Tuesday 5 March 2019
In love with Genial.ly
Hi you all!
Today I’m sharing with you a great tool to create educational slideshows! Genial.ly offers us a new world of endless resources in order to present content of various subjects in an engaging way! But there are different tools to create slideshows and presentations:
On the one hand, Genial.ly is an easy-to-use and free web tool that people use to make presentations, infographics, reports, posters or guides.
I have only used it to create a slideshow and here are some of the advantages I have found:
One of the main advantages is that you don’t need to be a programmer or designer to create a stunning presentation. You just have to register on the website or use your accounts on Google+ or Facebook to register seamlessly. Once you create an account you will gain access to thousands of resources, templates, frames, images, etc.
Moreso, you can easily access or modify your creations from anywhere as you work with the cloud.
Another benefit of using Genial.ly is that your presentation can be easily shared through social networks.
On the other hand, I found it difficult to work with designed templates, as it doesn’t let you change the font and the size easily.
It takes a while until your project is saved and to work properly you need to have a good internet connection.
Apart from these trifle disadvantages, I am in love with this tool and I know all of you will get hooked on it as soon as you try it!
Here is the presentation I have created about Magnetism for my 6th graders.
I hope you found this post useful. If you liked it, don’t forget to follow my blog!
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