Friday 22 April 2016

Evaluating my e-project

Hello everybody!

As you know I am enrolled on a beautiful CLIL e-project which has become collaborative in last days. Obviously it is not a perfect project since the perfect project does not exist. I think that it is really important to always self assess our work because we learn from mistakes and we can always improve things. In order to do that, I decided to design my own rubric. Nevertheless, it is a general rubric for any e-project so everyone is free to use it to evaluate someone's e-project.

There are many kinds of apps to create rubrics online for free. In this case, I have decided to use Quick Rubric because it is so easy to use. If you want to create your own rubric using this web tool, you have to create an account. Once you are logged in, you have to click on "Create a rubric" (orange square in th image below). Then you can start filling the information: a tittle, a description, different criterias or topics you want to assess and the scale of rating you want to use.

Here you have a screenshot of a blank Quick Rubric:
You can simply add a new criteria/topic clicking on "add row" (green) and also a new scale of rating clicking on "add column" (red). Then, if you click on Score, you can change the maximum and the minimun score when rating. You can also click on "No score" in case you do not want to add a cuantitative rating.

Once you are happy with your result you can click on the green box at the bottom of the page to "Save Rubric". Then, when you have saved your rubric, you will have new options at the bottom of the page:

* Click on View/Print Rubric (yellow) if you want to print your rubric or if you want to share it online, because by clicking here you will obtain a public URL to your rubric.
* Click on Copy Rubric if you want to duplicate your rubric.
* Click on Delete Rubric if you are not happy with the result and you want to delete your rubric.


From my point of view, this tool allows you to easily create a rubric by only filling a preset template, which you can adapt to your own needs. However, there are some things that I did not liked it about the app. The first one is that you cannot obtain an embedded code to share it in a more visual way. Also, it would be great if the web could provide you with a share button to directly share in twitter, facebook or wherever you want.

Nevertheless, I think that it is a great tool if you want to create a rubric quickly and easily. I sincerelly recomend it to try it!

So, after this mini tutorial, here you can see the rubric I have created to assess my own e-project. But remember that, as I have said before, you can use it to evaluate any e-project.



Of course, if you want to use it to evaluate my project, just tell me! Leave a comment with the score rating I get! Feedback is always welcomed.

I hope you liked it and it has been useful!




2016 Augmented World Book Day



Hello again everybody!

This time I am crafting a challenge to participate in a new project: celebrate 2016 World Book Day using a pinterest wall called A wall of Books. Here you can see different people from around the world posting different things to celebrate this amazing day. And that is the beauty of this: you can see different ideas from different places, such a perfect way to enrich ourselves, don't you think so?
Moreover, World Book Day is a great day to encourage learners to read and the better way is by creating motivating things and projects for them and this is what I have created this time.

The aim of this post is to tell you what I have created to collaborate in this beautiful project. I have used Aurasma. I don't know if you have heard something about this fantastic app which works with augmented reality. Is as simple as create an image or use one you like and the attach a video or audio to the image.- When you have done that, then everytime your camera catch that image (through the Aurasma App), the app will automatically play your video or audio and it will create an amazing effect. Aurasma allows you to overlay different technologies as 3D, videos and audio clips on an image.

In case you don't know how to use Aurasma, you have here an amazing tutorial made by some of my colleagues at the Masters degree @Nepeuspu, @Alvaro_Gope, @Marta_Gayarre, @Maradominguezgo and @22paau :



For instance,  Take a 20 euros note and use your Aurasma app with it. I promisse that it is soo worthy that you are going to become an Aurasma lover and you are going to look for more amazing Aurasmas. Take into account that you have to download the Aurasma App into your phone to enjoy them.

Of course, here you have my trigger image in which you can discover a lot about me as a reader when you focus on it using the Aurasma app in your phone:



If this image is to big, try to zoom out this web page, if you can not see it propperly you have the image in a smaller size in this tweet I have published. Don't forget to follow me on twitter: @LauraGonGar5. Moreover, In Aurasma you can find me as LauraGonGar5 (click to suscribe to my Aurasma public profile) and you can also find my aurasma as: What type of reader am I? 

These kinds of apps and web tools are changing the way we teach and the way students learn. Concretely Aurasma allows learners to interact with the world around them and we, as teachers, can create diferent images and things for them. This can also change they way we introduce new contents and the way we interact with our students. Since Aurasma is an online tool and also an app for mobile phones and tablets, students can see at home Aurasmas we have created for them, to tell them something, to give them a new activity or challenge or simply to teach them a new content in a new way.

I just love this way of teaching due to the fact that children will learn without realising they are doing so. As they are enjoying what they are "playing" they will learn better and they will be more focused on the task. So, if you are a teacher and you are reading this, you must create an account on Aurasma and start changing the Education from today.

Hope you liked it and you have learnt new things!
And of course... HAPPY 2016 WORLD BOOK DAY! Never stop reading because reading is a way of living new adventures that everyone can afford!



Sunday 17 April 2016

A supportive slideshow can promote autonomous learning!

Hello again!
Just came back to tell you that we have also create an online Slide show to support our learners. This Slideshow has been created to show learners how to use the appropriate tool to create their comic. If you have not read my last post about it click here
As we have to support learners, because some of the may be unaware of how to use the tool, we decided to create this to show clearly and easly how to use PixtonPixton is and incredible tool for students to create any story and also represent a specific historical period. Pixton is an easy tool to use but it has many different options and could be hard to start working with it, specially for primary students
To create this tutorial we have used Google Slides. Google Slides is an easy tool and it is also collaborative, so everyone is able to participate and can change it if we want to. Since it is an online presentation, children can work on their own at home and it is also an advantage for teachers as we can work coordinated without wasting time. 

Then, we have added voice and tranformed it itno a video to make it more motivating and easy for children using Movenote. This web tool allows you to record your voice at the same time you are moving through the different slides. In this way, you can create a final video artifact. I totally recomend you to use it, it is so easy and it is free!
You can see our slideshow by clicking here or just see our artifact below:



The structure of the slideshow follows the correct order of the different steps to use Pixton. It starts showing how to sign up and create a new account and finishes showing how to complete a comic. To make it more visual, we have done screenshots of the different steps and emphasize it with red arrows and squares. The unique problem we have struggled with has been precisely emphasizing those buttons or elements essential to use Pixton. Google Slides does not allow you to create a red line square; you can just create a filled square. So that, you must create each read line independently and it is difficult to make them perfectly straight.
Despite this, we think that is the prefetc tool to promote autonomous learning,

Moreover, this is also a contribution to a collaborative online project called Aportics. If you want to callaborate with them you just have to email them attaching a tutorial for children on how to use any webtool. For instance, as you saw above, we decided to explain how to use Pixton. If you are interested on this and you wan to participate do not hesitate and take a look at their blog. You will also see amazing tutorials creatd by different people, so you can also learn new thing. 

Here you can see our tutorial published in their blog or follow them on twitter @AporTICs.

Hope you liked it!

History video challenge for the students


Hello everyone!

Today I want to tell you more about our collaborative e-project. Do you remember my post about the Infographic we created for a CLIL History project? If not you can read it here. Day to day we are creating new things so this is the reason of this post.

Related with this, we decided to create a new challenge for our children through a video. As you now, when you want to record a video it is really to plan everything in advance. An easy way to do it is by storyboarding your video, which means planning every scene to have it ready for the recording moment. We have used Story Board That to create this amazing outline. As you can see, we have included the characters, the backgrounds (we will use a croma when recording to add them by video editing) and everything we were going to say.

Story Board That is easy to use and you can create 6 scenes for free where you can add characters, bakgrounds and edit them with a great variety of designs.


Made with Storyboard That

Having made this outline, we were ready to record our video. As you can see we planned to disguise as different people in different times in History, So there we went.





It was really funny and few time consuming because we have planned everything in advance. Recording was easy and we spend like an hour or so to do it (thanks to the storyboard planning) but we had been suffering a lot of problems when editing. 


At the very beggining, we tried Sony Vegas but it doesn't work in my computer, so I decided to download a free trial version of Adobe Premier cc, which is a profesional video editor and this means difficult to use. We have to saw many tutorials till we find out how to use it and how to apply a croma effect. Then, we discovered that the light in the videos recorded was not uniform so neither the green color on the croma key. This can give you a lot of problems when you are editing because you need the green color to be uniform and with now shadows.  
In that point we thought that we would have to record the videos again with a better light and being more careful. Of course, this has occurred because we are not experts and it was the first time we used a croma and also the video editor. 
Then, I tried to find a solution in order to not record again and I find a color effect which eliminates all the green color in the video and mantains red and blue. This worked because it eliminated all the green background, but it also eliminated the green in our faces. Nevertheless we decided to leave it like that because it was not a big problem. So if you are going to use a croma in your videos, take into account these aspects. 
Then, with the video finished, we used iMovie to add music and some effects easily.
However, despite it was difficult to edit the video, we had a great time recording it and it was a really good group experience. 
Here you have our video in which we explain a new challenge to our children. They will have to create a comic about a history period of time. So, if you see us a litlle orange it was because of our mistake using the croma haha. 
* We have included the Bloopers and Outtakes just for fun, but maybe for children we will leave it without them.






Moreover, this has been part of The ESL Times project. If you want to participate like us or just to know more about it click here.



Hope you like it!

Saturday 16 April 2016

InfoEDUgraphics challenge

Hello again!

Today I am going to tell you something about the e-project I mentioned in other posts. Now we are working in groups in order to create a collaborative CLIL e-project about History, so we are creating different activities and challenges for children.

One of our first challenges was to create an infographic in order to collaborate with the InfoEDUgrafías project. This is a good project in which you can participate with your students at any level (Infants, Primary, Secundary, and University) so if you are interested you can follow them on twitter: @infoedugrafias.

Since we wanted to collaborate, we have created an infographic with the purpose of helping our children to create their own timeline. We have designed it with the inspiration of Mario Bros video game due to the fact that we think it will make the information visual and funny for children. with this they will love to learn how to create a timeline and they will be motivated and focus on their task.

At the beginning we tried different kinds of programas, for instance, Canva. but we decided to use Piktochart because it was the more suitable for us. It allows you to use all the space you need for your infographic, also you can use all the icons and images in the app, the backgrounds are amazing and the text edition possibilities too. The best thing is that it is all for free.
Here is the final result:



Hope you like it and find it useful. 

A sweet choco-talk about CLIL!

Hello everybody!

Today I want to share with you the choco-talk we carried out last 7th of April. The oppotunitty to talk live about CLIL was given us by the Chococharlas team.



Chococharlas is a colaborative blog in which any person related with Education and also the society in general can participate with the only requirement of eating chocolate during the project you want to share. If you want to know more, you should follow them on twitter @chococharlas and also their hagstags: #chococharlas and #Tertuliasconsaborachocolate

Regarding the chocotalk, I was the moderator and some of my peers at the Master's degree were the speakers: Álvaro Gómez (@Alvaro_Gope), Rubén Peinado (@rpeinadog), Patricia Madrueño (@patimasie), Neus Fiol (@nepeuspu), Lola Berral (@lolaberralraya), Inmaculada Caballero (@teacher_inma), Guillermo Lagarejos (@GLHmaster) and Celia González (@celiagon92).
Moreover, other classmates were doing an mazing job in twitter before, during and after the live event. They were promoting the event, asking questions to the twitter community and also curating content to offer a good review to that people missing the event.
As you can see we are a great big team and we were connected all the time.

I had an important role since I had to be paying attention to everything that was happening at that very moment (The chocotalk itself, twitter, whatsapp...) just in case anyone wanted to ask something to the speakers but also leading the talk and try to give every person the same speaking time. So there I was with a lot of chocolate supporting me :). Nevertheless, the hard work was made by my peers who amazingly performed a really good role. They did such a great job talking about: social and emotional benefits of CLIL, advantages and disadvantages of CLIL, ICT in the classroom and the e-projects we are all still working on right now. Despite the fact that it was something that we had never done before, I think that we rocked it!

Of course, we have to give credit of our success to Maria Jesús García (@mjgsm), our ICT teacher and the person who taught us how to use Google Hangouts on Air to make the live talk online.

Just in case you missed it, you can see it here since it is published on youtube.



During this live event there was a lot of activity in twitter about our choco talk so the content curators of our History team, Ana Fuerte and Gabriela Márquez, have created a compilation of the tweets of that day using Storify.



Hope you liked it and remember: everything is better with chocolate!

Laura @LauraGonGar5