Summing up the semester

We have finished the semester and we are almost finishing our degree. It is time to think about all we have done these years and put it into practice.

All the courses we were given have a huge importance in Primary Education. We are going to analyse them one by one:

First of all, I would like to start talking about PROCRED. This course taught us how to develop an English lessons according to the law in force. We also learnt different methods and approaches that we should take into account while giving lessons, and how to work the four competences (listening, writing, speaking and reading).

Then, in TICLE, we learnt how to use interesting tools as Hot Potatoes and free software programs that we can use in our classes (like Audacity). Nowadays, children need to use ICT and it is our mission to lead them into the learning process.

Finally, let's talk about phonetics. We, as English teachers, must be an example to our students and we have to be very careful with our pronunciation. This course helped us to improve our English production.

I hope this blog was useful for you and thanks for your attention!

Sleepy Hollow Guide Tour

For the course "Recursos Culturales y Literarios para la Enseñanza de la Lengua Extranjera" (Cultural and Literary Resources for the Teaching of a Foreign Language), we had to prepare an activity related to the short story "The legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving, better known because of the Headless Horseman. 

I chose to organise a guide tour around Sleepy Hollow, the town where the story took place. 

I used Google Maps to create a map with the most interesting places there. Click on the image to see the result: 

Then, I used Google Earth to show the town.To record the screen, I used Screencast-O-Matic, a free license programme. Finally, I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker. Click on the image to watch the video:

 
While the video was playing, I explained all the historic places. It can be an interesting activity to develop in class, so children can "walk" through the city or town where the story took place, or even following instructions.

Saint Patrick's Day activities (15/11)

For the course "Recursos Culturales y Literarios para la Enseñanza de la Lengua Extranjera" (Cultural and Literary Resources for the Teaching of a Foreign Language), each one of the student had to prepare a presentation about a relevant foreign celebration in the United States, United Kingdom or Ireland.

My topic for this project was Saint Patrick's Day, a cultural and religious celebration on 17 March, with Irish roots. 

For the oral presentation, I used Glogster. Here you can see the poster that I made:

The activity that I developed was a kind of Treasure Hunt 2.0. Why 2.0? Because they did not need a map, they used intead their mobiles phones. They had to scan a QR code that they would find in every clover, in pairs but only with a mobile phone. 

Firstly, I cut some four leaves clovers in foamy using this shape from Wikipedia:

In addition, I made too an extra and bigger shamrock to explain the Saint Trinity, according to Saint Patrick: 

In every QR code, there was an image, that could be a question about Saint Patrick's Day or a tricky image. There were 10 questions and 5 tricky images that said "Keep on trying". 

When they scanned the QR code they found this images:

For making the QR codes, I used this site: http://www.qrcode.es/es/generador-qr-code/

You can choose the colour of the code. I kept the images in my Google Drive account and I share the links. 

Here are some of the codes generated: 

I printed them and I stack the printed QR codes to the foam with glue, and I stack the clovers to the Faculty's walls, in hidden places.

After that, I gave to my partners a sheet that they had to answer.

I set 15 minutes to find them, the first team to complete the sheet, wins. When the first team finished, we stopped the time and we checked the answers. For each correct answer, I gave them a chocolate coin from a pot of gold.

Here we are in the classroom after the game and with the winner team, that won a cookie each one:

It was really funny to see people running while trying to find all the clovers for getting the prize!

In case they were children, I think that it may be a really interesting activity for doing in the classroom, as in some schools they are given tablets. 

César Bona

I have been following this teacher for a long time on Facebook and I really think that he makes a great job in educational terms.

César Bona is a primary teacher in a state school in Zaragoza, "Puerta de Sancho". He was nominated to  the Global Teacher Prize, the teachers' Nobel Prize, in 2015. Recently, he has been visiting Spanish Schools with the "Changemarker Schools" Project.

For people who love education, this kind of innovative teachers can inspire us to be better professionals and create enriching experiences for our students. Here we can see that we can do different things, despite the laws, and that we can believe that given the students other education is possible. School can transform society.

Creativity is an inexhaustible source of resources. Let your and your students' mind fly and create amazing projects. Do not forget that your students are the future and each one is an universe.

"Utopia: Middle lane highway: To go to Barcelona you must go on the utopia."
(in Spanish, highway is "autovía", so they were confused with "autovía" and "utopía")

If you want to have more information about César Bona, check him on:

• Facebook
• TEDx Talk
• In this piece of news, you can find an example of how he teaches: elmundo.es

eTwinning

eTwinning is part of Erasmus+ program for education, training, youth and sports. Its goal is to promote and facilitate contact, exchange of ideas and collaborative work between teachers and students of the countries participating in eTwinning through ICTs.

Click on the image to go to eTwinning main page.

An eTwinning project is a collaboration between two or more schools in different European countries on a topic previously agreed. The collaboration is carried out through a virtual platform and useing different web tools.

The founders of the project agree on the subject, length, the students that will participate in the project, number of partners, product or products they wish to obtain, the working language, the web tools to be used, etc.

eTwinning projects involve an improvement for teachers and for students in the digital competence and communicative competence in foreign languages. Furthermore, eTwinning projects bring other benefits inherent therein as the development of more general skills related to collaborative work, negotiation, intercultural awareness, etc.

When a teacher is registered in the platform, he has to fill out a form with his data and explains what ideas he wants to work on the project. Once registration is verified, you will be able to access your personal desktop through which can interact with other members, exchange ideas, create groups and eventually work on a project.

Here you can check some projects:

• eTwinning projects in Spanish
• Your English Fairy

A school from Soria educates better than in Finland

State-subsidised school "Nuestra Señora del Pilar" gets best scores than the Nordic country in reading and math in tests based on PISA.

Where is the secret? These are the points:

• A change towards a more active approach in which students have more leadership.
• The use of mechanisms such as problem-based learning or interdisciplinary projects consisting of different subjects.
• The education approach to reality and promote skills such as creativity and entrepreneurship with self-learning.

When we have teachers who love their profession, we have the basis for this unusual development. The ability to undertake and innovate in education opens doors.

We do not need to travel to Finland to find good teachers. ;)

Check the original report from a Spanish newspaper in this link: http://ww.abc.es/iW0A304FQnG