A Class Plan – ROAD TO ITALY

Title of the activity	ROAD TO ITALY
URL	http://blocs.xtec.cat/talleresl/
Age group / Level	4th year of Secondary
Aim/s	The students form 4th of ESO went to Italy, so we can use the pictures and the experience to make a collaborative project in the classroom. With this Project they will increase and review vocabulary, practise ICT skills, comprehension and writing skills throught their own experience.
Main language (vocabulary, chunks, sounds, …)	Information about the country, trips, places, etc.
Timing	3 sessions of 25 minutes and 1 session of 50 minutes
Materials / Resources	-Beamer and speakers in the classroom or computers classroom with internet connection. -Photos from the end of course trip taken by the students.
Grouping and interaction	2 sessions of 25 minutes to do activity 1 with the whole group or half, in the classroom 1 session of 50 m. to do activity 2 in the computers classroom (optionally, students can do this exercises from home) 1 session of 25 minutes in the computers classroom to do activities 3, 4 and 5.
Other links of interest	http://maps.google.es/  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy  http://pbskids.org/buster/videos/it_venice_vid.html?playertype=windowsmedia;speed=hi;media=/wgbh/ buster/it_venice_lo.wmv,/wgbh/buster/it_venice_ lo.mov,/wgbh/buster/it_venice_hi.wmv,/wgbh/buster /it_venice_hi.mov;qtcaptions=true;wmcaptions=/wgbh /buster/it_venice.smi;captiondefault=t;playertemplate= /buster/videos/it_venice_inc.tmpl;helptemplate=/buster /videos/videoplayer_help.tmpl;basepath=/buster/videos /it_venice_vid.html;showcaptions=t  http://www.radioblogclub.com/
Description/Activities	1.- Divide the class in groups to describe the trip day by day. 2.- Online activity: Type the writing and look for places, maps, dates, characters, or any interesting information on the net. 3.- Post the writings in the blog: http://blocs.xtec.cat/talleresl/ 4.- Make a Flickr presentation and add music or sound. 5.- All the students can comment the posts and add some pictures.
Assessment	Writing (description, posts, etc) ICT skills progress

Advantages and disadvantages of collaborative projects – Task 14

Collaborative projects are a wonderful way of developing team spirit, critical thinking and creativity that goes beyond the member’s individual work. Teamwork develops as members get to know one another, learn how to solve problems, and reach decisions.

Collaborative projects that use technology in the classroom involve an ongoing learning process for both teacher and student.

Work on computers can allow for both independent projects and collaborative undertakings. This means that the same medium allows for deepening individual skills as well as enhancing group dynamics skills. Children can gain status through helping others, through demonstrating their knowledge and their generosity. Knowledge coming from a peer may be more appreciated in situations where that knowledge is shared for the benefit of a whole group.

But the main disadvantages are the technical problems that often appear when you try to do some videoconference or chat in the classroom. The assesment also could be more difficult to define as it was in tradicional ways (e.g. exams, worksheets, etc,) so teachers have to decide how to grade the work done by the students. And another big problem is that teachers have to be trained in the use of the new technological tools and their skills require continuous updating, which means time and effort and sometimes we don’t have it.

Sandra’s Wallwisher – Task 12

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/aterrad3

Timeline throught Timetoast – Task 9

Timetoast

How do I use 2.0 web tools in the English class – Task 8

This school year I made an English blog with XTEC BLOCS: http://blocs.xtec.cat/zermoianes/  The idea was to create an interactive site where the students could be active and connected to each other, as they weren’t at the same school.  The rural zone, where I’ve been teaching as English specialist during this school year,  includes seven small schools. The students from different schools already know each other because they have been doing trips and workshops together but they aren’t daily in contact.

If you look at Cicle superior there’s a post called Guess the animal. In unit 3 we were learning about animals and how to describe them, so these are compositions made by the 5th graders  that they emailed me and I posted on the blog. The students from the other schools had to ask for clues to guess the animals.
The 6th graders were studying the past of to be so they made a composition about their past, when they were younger and the others had to guess who was it.

I couldn’t use the blog as much as I would owing to a lack of technological resources, such as computers, internet connection(we had internet in May in one of those schools, a pity!!!) or just because they didn’t have an e-mail account. However, I think it  has been a good experience for the students, they realised the importance of the new technologies, how can we save paper and efforts only emailing the school works and getting the teacher corrections on-line and it has been a challenge for me as well.

The Simpsons Project

I prefer Picture Trail than Flickr to embed pictures.

Three Billy Goats

Activity: We watched the video in class, we made some worksheets to learn the vocabulary and some gramtical structures and we act the play out.

Are you ready for a Quiz? – Task 7

This is an easy quiz I made for my students at the end of the 2nd term according to the contents that they had been learning during the term. We divided the classroom in 4 teams, each team had to choose an answer for each question and I wrote them on the blackboard, then we checked the answers (there are the solutions at the end of the presentation). We played in the classroom and we used the beamer. It was a great success! They enjoyed a lot.

C:\Fakepath\Quiz 2nd Term

View more presentations from aterrad3.

Solomon Grundy – Task 2