This adventure comes to an end!

Everybody knew that this adventure had to end but... I didn't expect it was going that soon! What is undeniable is that time flies!

In order to make something special for the ocassion, I want to look back at the beginning of this experience to be aware of how much we have learnt!

Do you remember what was our first mission? We had to create our learning diary with blogger! But... we had to add an avatar made by voki, but you could also have used plotagon.

This learning diary has been so useful to self-reflect in my own learning, since I had to explain what and why I have done the projects while I show my progress to everybody. In addition, it is something that I am never going to lose, since it is upload here.

Furthermore, I have written better posts when the time was passing. I protected my blog with Creative Common Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence.

Then, I created a CLIL activity using free pictures from Pixabay and Pexels. They were great webpages because they are already available to use them without worrying us about the copyright.
Nevertheless, we learnt to be greatful and to cite and attribute the picture to its owner.

Afterwards, we learnt how to curate and organize our webpages. I used pearltrees. It was so easy to use and a really interesting tool. You can store there your webpages and access whenever you need.
You can also use symbaloo or pinterest.

After that, we were part of a twitter tiny story with the hashtag #TinyStory_URJC. It was great! We were 31 authors of the story, adding images and gifs following the others' ideas.

Then, we learnt how to do educational slideshows. I did mine with genial.ly but, we could use more such as prezi or google slides. They are really visual and our students love organize their presentations with these digital tools instead of poster boards.

Later on, we learnt how to create visual materials such as comics, mindmaps or infograpics.
Even though I used those webpages that you can see if you click on the words. You can also use other programs such as:

• Comic: Storyboardthat, creaza.
• Mindmaps: creately, mind42, bubbl.us, spiderscribe, coggle.it.
• Infographics: piktochart, easel.ly, smore, mural or padlet.

I loved creating my own material for my students and they appreciate it too. It is more visual, fun and different. They can also create their summaries with these digital tools.

Unit 6 was started doing a podcast. We used Soundcloud to create the channel, they playlist and the podcasts. I really enjoyed this project and I started using it in my school to foster speaking. It is an awesome tool due to the fact that their voices can be recorded and then, they can listen to them at home.

Afterwards, we learnt how to flip a classroom and how to create some materials to do that. One of them was the video. We made a videoproject in teams. First, we needed to create a storyboard to plan and organize our video. Then, my class and I went to the "Aula del Futuro". There, we received a great Etwinning session and then, my team recorded our video. We used iMovie to edit it. You can see the final result clicking here.

In the same unit, which was the number 7, we also attented to a webinar about the digital competence
and how to foster it, thanks to the INTEF courses. This webinar was done by my teacher Maria Jesus.
We also shared our experiences in #twima 8: We all have a story with Flipgrip webpage. It was great listening to others' stories and motivate yourself and learn with other people's stories. My students loved doing this in class. They really enjoyed recording themselves and thinking about the fact that other people were going to listen to them.

I have created a genial.ly presentation to make you easier to access to all the examples I have done about these incredible tools. I have not tried all of the tools that Maria Jesús has taught because I have not had time enough, but, I have chosen some of them and here, is the example and the result of my projects using them.

To explain everything in detail, I also let you a video explaining the presentation, giving some tips and opinions about all the projects I have done. It has been done with Screen-o-matic, which allows us to record the our screen and our voice. It is so easy to use, just click on "start recording", download the launcher and press the red botton. Then, the steps will be indicated.





I have really enjoyed doing these digital projects.  As an opinion, podcast was the most useful resource for me and my classroom. I don't think any project has been useless. I am sure I will use all of them in my teaching life.
That is the key idea that I take from this course. All of our students are from the digital era, so, they learn in this way, they are digitalized and we need to teach them like that.

Thank you for letting me being part of this master where I have learnt how to be a digital teacher and to make easier my students' learning.

I don't want to finish my post without thanking to Maria Jesús the great effort she has done to teach us all these incredible tools to make us XXI Century Teachers.

And of course, thank you for reading me! I hope you have learnt and you have enjoyed as much as I do.
I hope to see you soon, because, that would means that I won't stop learning and I will keep sharing with you every knowledge I will get.
Thank you!

#Twima8: sharing our experiences worldwide

Hi buddies!!

How are you?? I've come back to tell you about an amazing app where you can share your experiences and watch other people's too. This app is called flipgrid.

It is a great resource to foster your students speaking and listening while they watch the other students stories as well as motivating and technological. In addition, we foster cultural awareness since it is a worldwide collaborative project called the world is my audience, so, they can watch as many people as they want telling their experiences in the 8th edition of this project.

The app is super simple to use. You have to download the app, then you login in and finally, introduce a code to get inside the platform with the stories related to the question that has been asked to us. In this case, our "platform" is called #twima8: we all have a story.

This platform encourages us to share our story and broad our minds to think about helping other people sharing our experiences. It has also a great educative potencial since it is a new way of storytelling. We can get rid of the cd player with the old tape with listenings and we can start listening "real" people telling us true stories.

Of course, I have participated in this project to give an example of how to do it.

First, you have to go to the main page of the worldwide collaborative project.


Then, you click on #twima8: we all have a story and you will be able to watch other experiences related to your topic and upload yours.


How do you create your own video? Easy! You click on the green button and you start recording it yourself. Your video can last more than five minutes and then, you can decorate it with emojis and pictures. This is my video as an example:




I also tweeted my experience in #twima8 and #itcclil_urjc:

Being part of #twima8 with #itcclil_urjc What restorative is listening to other people's stories! https://t.co/WScPSXnI3N

— SuperEnglishTeacher (@CanoCanou) 30 de abril de 2018

Before coming to an end with this post, I would like to tell you how participating in this experience has contributed to my life.
Regarding my learning, I have not only learn one more digital tool to improve listening and speaking skills, I have also learnt to not repite some mistakes that my partners and other people have already done and that they share with us in their videos.
To my teaching experience, I have learnt another way to improve social and civic competence as well as lingüistic competence. Students love sharing their adventures and to be informed of the others' experiences. I used this app with my classroom one week ago, when we did an Etwinning project and we wanted to see the other students' faces. It was great because we received their Etwinning projects (which were letters) but we didn't associate a face to the letter. So, we shared our individual experience using flipgrid and we could see how excited  they were,

So, from this experience, I have learnt how to motivate our students and the eagerness they have to interact and to meet new people. I have learnt through the observation of my students. They really loved it.
From my professional point of view, I think we can't do nothing, we should keep renovating ourselves and looking for new tools and techniques to motivate our students, because, motivation is learning and success. From my personal opinion, teacher must be perfectly organized because, otherwise, the classroom could be a mess. However, the first time will be a chaos, but the next ones will improve, until being an expert.

This activity is also comfortable to be assessed. It can be evaluated in any computer, in your school or at home. The best way to evaluate it is through a rubric. Having 4 assessment grades, you will write whatever indicators you need. In my case, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and creativity. From 1 to 4.

So, as I told you before, I have already apply this tool in my classroom, and it was simply great. I wanted to teach how to respect people who speak other languages and who have other cultures while we keep learning our curricular contents. It was a total success. They got it and I'm totally sure I will use it again.

That's all buddies! I hope you have enjoyed my story! I would like to hear yours and your pupils'! Share your story with me in the comments below!

See you!!!

                                     

Creating our videos to flipped the classroom! (II)

Hello again!

Do you want to see the final result of our video? I am eager to show you but, before that, I want to tell you how we have done it and why.

As I told in the last post, we are going to use this video to a flipped classroom session based on the Roman Legacy in Spain for our fourth graders in Social Science subject.

The objectives of the project are:

• to help them understand what Roman Empire did in Spain.
• to motivate them in class.
• to make them work at home in a funny way.

So, this methodology is useful to make the lessons more active and participative and the homework less boring.  Then, the video is the core of the methodology and the lessons, since all the activities are based on it.

You can remind the video project (how the sessions are and what for) clicking here:

So, once having prepared all the details to record the video, we went to the "Aula de futuro" in the Minister of Education.

There, there was a green chroma in which we could record our video with costumes of Romans.
After that, we use iMovie programme to edit the video. With this programme, we could cut it, add the background image, music and make it beautiful. You can also use other programmes such as:

• Powtoon
• Screencast O-matic

So, the final result is this, finally, I show you the video!!

As a reflection, I am so proud of the work that my team has done and I can't be happier because, at last, I have learnt how to do a flipped classroom by myself! I am so sure that I will use this video technic in my teaching life as soon as possible, since it is extremely useful to practice speaking skills, which is one of the most important skills to be developed.

I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I do!
Regards!!

Creating our videos to flipped the classroom! (I)

Hi everyone! I am excited to tell you the best activity I've done ever! I 've been lot of time listening about a new methodology called Flipped Classroom, which consists on flipping the classroom and learning at home watching a video and then, putting that knowledge into practice the next day in the school. However, I didn't know how to properly carry this methodology on. I didn't know how to create that video or how I could edit it.

In this activity, I have learnt how to create that knowledge that I missed!

During this learning experience, I have been with two incredible partners of my class in URJC.

So, María, Francisco Javier and I have created a video to use it in a flipped classroom.
How did we do it? I am going to explain it step by step. Before starting to tell you... I want to highlight the organization that we have had. It is essential to have a good planification with your team!

Maria was the drafter. She was responsible of creating the scenes and the costumes. She has a lot of imagination and the visual part of the video was done thanks to her.
Francisco Javier was the recorder and editor of the video. He loves editing the videos and he is awesome with those programmes!
And finally, I was the community manager. I was in charge of make ourselves good advertisement of our teamwork.

Firstly, we created a storyboard in which we have added the needed information to create our video.

• the roles that each of us have followed.
• what topic is and what is about
• the main objectives of the project
• the evaluation
• the video challenge story: the script, the video and the music we are going to use in the video.

Here, you can take a look deeply:

So, this video is meant to teach Roman Empire in Hispania using flipped classroom methodology.
We are going to work with it during 5 sessions. Once they have already watched the video, in the first session, they are going to sit down in groups of 4 and think about the most important information of the video. Then, they are going to create a digital mindmap and then, the topic will be divided in 4 branches and 4 groups. They will be: infraestructures, Roman law, language and religion.

In the second session, time will be given to research information. Then, they have to create a genialy.ly presentation or an infografic.
In the third session, they must present their works.
In the fourth session, they will carry out some strengthening activities to consolidate the topic. They will consist on:

• doing a debate. (Is the Roman legacy beneficial to Spain?)
• adding this historical event to our online timeline that we are creating since the lessons started.
• tweeting individually what they think it is the most important and interesting about the topic using the hashtag #socialsciencemm4

The last session will be the evaluation. This will be assessed through a rubric and observation.

Secondly, we started to record the video but... I can't tell you more by the moment!
I am eager to show you the final result!! I will write soon to show you the video and how we did it!

See you soon! 

PODCAST: A GREAT TOOL TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL.

Hi everyone!
I've come back to tell you an amazing discover I've recently known! The podcast! It is an incredible resource to practice and foster speaking skills!
A podscast is the distribution of the multimedia files (usually audio or video) that we can upload to a digital platform and other people can hear them. We can also download them and listening to them wherever we want. They are a really impresive didactic resource because students can work with them in small or big groups, in pairs or individually.
They are the best way to create motivation in our students. They are going to speak in English, write their script and be familiarize with tics, developing their digital competence. What a complete activity!
In this post, I am going to tell you how to create a podcast. The first thing you have to do is to create a soundcloud account. You can use other tools but I have used this because is extremely easy! These are the other tools:

• Spreaker
• Ivoox
• Podomatic 

The first thing you should do is to create a document in which you can prepare your project. Here I attach you my google document to help you create yours. 



Then, using soundcloud, once you are already login in, your channel is created. Then, you just have to personalize it. This is my channel as an example for you.

Then, you can create a playlist to help your students do their job. I have created two playlists. One of them is with Italian opera to get them inside their culture and the other has relaxing music to help them to take their nervous away and do the project as best as they can. I want to show you both as an example:

Relaxing music playlist:


Trip to Italy playlist:


To create the playlists, you have lot of music under CC0 license to choose!

And finally, I want to share with you my podcast:


  I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I do while I was doing it and I also hope that you start using podcast in your lessons to foster the speaking skill, It is a great tool!
If you do, post me a comment!

See you!!                                                                                                                                                               

Digital competence: our outstanding account

Hi buddies!
I come back to tell you an amazing story! I was lucky to assist to a webinar! Do you know what is this?
This is a conference, workshop or seminary in a video format that is imparted through internet. What makes the webinar special is the possible interaction between the speaker and the listener. We could assist to it thanks to webex.

So, I want to tell you my experience in the webinar "Aprendizaje en linea y competencia digital educativa" done by my ITC teacher Maria Jesus García San Martín. It was about the multiple options that teachers have to be involved and aware of the last educative technologies that we can use in our daily lessons.

They are available in the INTEF (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y Formación de Profesorado) webpage. It is created to keep teachers trained. We must be learning the best ways of teaching our lessons but, we don't usually have time to dedicate to these courses. What this webpage offers to us is total freedom to them when and where they want. These courses and online and totally free and then, once completed, we will receive badges to attach to our digital portfolio. There are different types of courses:

• Edu pills: It is an app to upload it in your mobile phone or tablet. It enables teachers to develop the digital competence in a short period of time (from 3 to 7 minutes) and you can share your achievements in the same app. Each micro-learning is classified according to the Common Framework of Digital Competence Teaching. It is great to train ourselves in a short while! You can even kill your free time doing this micro-learning courses.

• NOOC INTEF: In this section, teachers are going to train just one competence or objective, making a record of it through a digital portfolio. These courses are a little bit longer than Edu Pills. However, here, you will have a tutor who will encourage you to not give up. Once you have done it, they provide you with open badges. You will be able to complete your digital competence portfolio attaching them. However, these training hours are not certified.

• MOOC INTEF: They are similar to NOOC but they are a little bit longer and with different content. These courses are focused on active methodologies, peer learning or professional learning communities. You can also connect to others through the platform. These training hours are not certified either but, they provide you with open badges to attain to your digital porfolio.

• SPOOC INTEF: this course is free open, you don't have fixed a day to sign up or to finish it. They are learning experiences at your own pace. Here, you don't have a tutor but you have the internal support of the Facebook group where all the members are included. In addition, open badges are provided too when the objectives will be attained.

Finally, the portfolio is the digital platform which is going to ask us questions to assess our digital competence. Then, we will have to demonstrate that competence attaching our open badges. This is not something we can do in one evening, this is something we have to fulfill during our educative life. Due to this, these courses should not be done because of the badges, but because of the knowledge they are going to give us to put into practice in our class. 

As a conclusion, I think we are not aware of the great opportunity that these free courses offers to us. It is great how we can be trained in this difficult competence for us, and super easy competence for our students, who almost think in digital. They are born in a digital era that we are not used to, so, they don't learn as we do or did, they learn in a digital way. Due to this, we must teach them in a digital way.

Unfortunately, I think teachers are not well informed of this great opportunity. 

I am so grateful to have been informed in this webinar about all this amazing information, but, I am more grateful to share this information with you!!

Thank you for reading me! 

Share you opinions with me in the comments!

See you!!

Canva tool: the best way to do infographies!

 Hi everyone!

Today, I bring you another tool to make your class visual! It is something really cool called Educational infographics. There are too many tools to do them, such as:

-Easel.ly
-Piktochart
-Canva
-Smore
-Mural.ly.
-Padlet

The one that I have used is Canva. There are two options: the free way and the premium. I have tried the free option and you don't miss almost any extra choice. Using this option, you can access to multiple templates, images and types of letters. In addition, you can upload your own images if you want. However, you can´t use bold or italics letters unless you choose that pre-established option from the beginning. It is not a big mess but it is quite uncomfortable.

How can we start using it? It is so simple! We have to sign it up and start creating it, just using the templates and the backgrounds that the program offers to us and let your creativity and imagination do the rest!

This new tool helps us to make our class more visual. It is an scheme of the whole unit and in only two pages! They have the important information and the images all together to take a look whenever they need.

I show you an example that I did to my first graders in Natural Science when we studied the types of animals.

Types of animals de Cristina cano-magdaleno

All the images are taken from Canva, so, it is not necessary to cite or attribute sources.

I hope you like it!! Share your opinions with me in the comments!
See you in the next post!!

VISUALIZING OUR IDEAS: MIND MAP

Hi everyone!

I would like to show you a great way of visualizing our ideas and projects. It is essential to make our lessons visual and...how can we do that? Using mindmaps, of course!

There are too many tools to create them, such as:

-Coogle
-Mindmeister
-Mind42
-SpiderScribe
-Bubbl.us
-Creately

I have created my own mindmap with Mindmeister. It is so easy to use and also, it guides you when you sign it up, so, it makes you easier to learn how to do it.
 However, I think it is quite simple. I mean, you can't choose the type of letter of the structure of the bubbles and you can't personalize it as you want and that is something I don't like. Indeed, I would like to have the option of creating the structure as I like, not as the app does. On the other hand, fortunately, it allows you to change the direction of the branches and bubbles just dragging with the mouse and also adding new ideas just pressing tab key.

I share with you my example of mindmap. It has been done to explain the project that my course is going to follow the third term.

This project is about going to a trip to "Parque Europa" in Torrejón de Ardoz. We will go with the other two classes and each one will prepare information about a monument. In our case, we will look information about the Eiffel Tower. We will look for the country, the flag, important facts about the country and the monuments and French culture. Then, they will practice the presentation in the classroom and then, the trip day they will present their work.

A trip to Europe by Cristina Cano-Magdaleno

You can also see it here: https://www.mindmeister.com/1063180056/a-trip-to-europe

I hope you like my new post and don't forget to tell me your opinions srolling down the screen!!
See you!!

CREATING A COMIC

Hí everyone!!

I come back to tell you about a great idea to teach CLIL to our students. This idea is making a comic to integrate all the content!!
You can use different tools and apps. In my case, I have done it with Pixton.
It is great and really easy to use! Read more and you will learn how to use it!

STEPS TO USE PIXTON

The first thing you must do is to create an account or log in with your facebook or google account.
Then, you can start creating your comic! It is that easy!
You can choose whether you want the classic structure of a comic or an advanced option. Then, you can choose the background, the characters and their dialogues. Then, you can change the position of our characters, their arms, head or the whole body. Indeed, you can add other objects and you can put your voice to the characters.

All of these options are free! Isn't it great?

I have to recognize that it is not the first time I have used this tool. I have used with my students so many times in different ways. Sometimes, I have done the comic and they have read it, answered some questions and put their voice to the characters using the tablet. Other times, they have created their own comic, using their ideas and creativity.

An issue to take into account as well is the incredibly safety of this tool to use at classroom. Students can use it with no danger to find something innapropiate for their age. It is totally recommendable. In addition, you can use it in a computer or in a tablet or mobile phone using their app. However, I would change only one thing to improve it. The app would let us paste the text from outside webpages. You must write whatever you need leaving you no option to copy and paste the text. However, when the students make their own comic, this is a benefit instead of the opposite.

Anyway, I show you the comic that I have done. It is for my third graders who don't have the confidence to ask their doubts aloud. If they don't understand anything that has been already explained in class, they don't have the courage to ask about it, they just go home without understanding it. So, this comic is great to help them to get over it.




You can also see it here: https://Pixton.com/es/:mm3f9xid
I hope you like it!!
I'd be delighted if you share your opinions about it with me in my post!
See you in the next post!
Cristina XX

SLIDESHOW TOOL: GENIAL.LY

Hi everyone!
How are you?
Today I want to share with you the most useful tool I've worked with to support my lessons with slideshows. Its name is Genial.ly. You can use it in a free or in a premium way.

Fortunately, the free option provides you all the facilities you need.

How do we start? 

The first step you have to follow is to create an account. It is very easy and you can enter with your facebook or google ones, so it's super quick!

What do I do then?

It has many templates you can use depending on the type of slideshow you want to do. Once you have chosen one, you can start adding images, videos, links, gifs or any information that you want.
However, the only thing you can't do is downloading your slideshow but, you can copy the url and visualize it whenever and wherever you want.

I really enjoyed the experience of doing my slideshow with this program. It looks like it is reading your mind. You think.. I wish I could have an option to do that... and suddenly you discover that option. It is equipped with everything you need!

I let you the url of my slideshow in order you can see an example of how it can be done. It is an example for my second graders:

I also share with you an example of how you can use this presentation in classroom.

You can share your opinions with me about this tool commenting in the post.

I hope you like it as much as I do. See you!!

MY FAVOURITE CURATION TOOL

Hi everyone!

Today I want to share with you an amazing tool I have recently discovered.

It is my favourite curation tool to have all the educational websites together. It allows us to throw away the post-it written with all the webpages that we use.
This tool is called: www.pearltrees.com

How can we start using it?
First, you have to log in following the steps to create the account.
Then, you can watch the video embedded in the webpage to know how to start adding websites.
Finally, you can start using.

I really like it because it saves me a lot of time in the classroom. I just have to open my pearltree and click to the webpage that I need. I hope you will see as useful as I do.

Take a look to my pearltree! I have embedded 6 webpages about CLIL and English subject, which help me to get extra materials and ideas for my lessons. I have also added Etwinning website, which also help me to create CLIL projects with countries abroad. In addition, moviesegment blog provides me with chunks of films to teach grammar and finally. Powtoon website, which helps me to create videos to make my explanations funnier.





However, this is my favourite curation tool, but there are more!
I give you more examples of this useful tool in case you want to take a look.

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/
Symbaloo: www.symbaloo.com/startLogin.do
List.ly: list.ly

I hope you enjoyed my post!
Regards!

Criscanou

WALL-E'S HOUSE

WALL-E'S HOUSE

How's it going mates?

Today I am going to show you a proposal of a CLIL lesson for 1st grade. It's going to be about Solar System. So... let's start!


Have you watched Wall-e film? Where does it happen? In the space, doesn't it? Do you know what is it?

Let's ask Wall-e!

                            Photograph by Brickset. CC0 2.0.

 Space is where I live, says Wall-e. I would like to show you an image of my house:

"Via Lactea. Cielo estrellado." Fotograph by Felix Mittermeier. CC0 1.0

I live in the sky!! You also live there! It is called universe. There are too many houses in the sky. Mine and yours are not the only ones. Do you want to know your neighbours' houses?

Let's take a look.

Photograph found at: The Sun and the Planets of the Solar System.  CC0 3.0 

You live in that tiny planet called Earth. I move around to one place to another. From Mars to Saturn or from Jupiter to Neptune. However, I need to be far from the Sun. Do you see that big yellow star that looks like a fireball? It is too hot! So, Mercury and Venus are too hot! I use a rocket to move. Do you know what is it?

Photograph by ArtsyBee. CC0 1.0

This is my home! I have internet, so, I hope you will keep in touch with me to discover more planets, but please, not so close to the Sun!

I would also would like to share with you my favourite song, in case you want to listen to it.

• What have I chosen these images? How can they help me?

I have chosen these pictures because while I am telling them the Wall-e's story, images give me a visual support to a better understading. They are exactly related to what I am explaining and help them to understand me if there is some word they do not know. In addtion, universe is a difficult concept for them to understand because of its big size, so, images make them easier to understand that abstract concept. 

STARTING OUR TRIP

STARTING OUR TRIP

Let's take a look at what our friend says before starting to travel!

http://tinyurl.com/y99kp29d

Our avatar is superteacher! He is our helper to make the class funnier. His age is 22 years old. He is from New York and he is a teacher. In his free time, he loves watching films. One of his great talents i the ability to join the education and their passion for the films. But he also loves riding a horse or going to have dinner to his favourite restaurant.

• The tool that I have used to create superteacher is voki. It is great because I can give him voice and movement to the mouth without paying. Indeed, it is really esay to create. You just have to click "create" botton and then start doing it. Be careful to not choose the premium characters because you will have to pay. Then, when you have finished, you just have to click "publish" and copy the link.
• Taking into account that my learning journal's goal is to help teachers and students to have fun while teaching or learning English, I think that voki has helped me to make my blog more visual. In addition, my viewers can also take the idea of using voki in their classroom, so, it is very helpful to my blog.

BUT BEFORE STARTING OUR TRIP!

Are you sure that....

-you get your train ticket just like this?:

Photograph by Karen Roe. CC0 Attribution 2.0

and you have all the stuff you need (the owl, the books, tunic...)?

Photograph by Bert Seghers. CC0 1.0

If the answer is yes, you are ready to start our trip through the CLIL resources !! Have fun!