Farewell

 

Today I am writing my last post of this learning diary. These months have flown by... The classes have been intense, even though they were just two per week I felt engaged and wanting to learn as much as I could. The resources and tools we have learnt about are diverse, useful and engaging, so I could not be happier!

In February I was ready to learn a lot of ICTs and now that it is May and this subject (and the whole masters) is over, I know so many things that I need to organise them. Therefore, I created this amazing mindmap to organise everything I learnt. I used Coggle as it was my favourite resource of the whole subject. I have included all the resources we have used, an example of my work and some relevant ideas of each one.

The first ones that deserve appreciation are my classmates. I learned a lot from their posts and this masters wouldn't have been the same without them. The idea of creating a learning diary in the shape of a blog facilitated this task, as I was able to engage with my classmates. Moreover, having to create a Twitter account will help me keep in contact with them and their discoveries for life!

Lastly, I would like to thank Francisco for his amazing teaching style: facilitating our learning and acting as a guidance. YOU ARE AN AMAZING TEACHER! This is his Twitter account, I highly reccomend following him.

Follow @franciscogongal

Don't forget I'll keep on posting theacher-related things in my blog and my Twitter!

Follow @martyteachlearn Visit my blog

7.2 Record your video clip

This is the second part of the previous post. It was created with Aurora's Learning Adventure, Nurinu Teacher and It's Pateacher Corner. In this case, the video is complete and ready to be watched!

Right below you can find the final result: a short video to explain Fridays For Future. We encourage you to use it in your class, specially on Fridays!

Critical questions and problems encountered

While recording, we did not encounter any huge difficulties, as our script had been previously designed and we knew what we had to say and how we wanted to record it. The storyboard served as an amazing starting point to look for the best angles and framing.

The hardest part was to put everything together. We used two apps: Videopad and Filmora. Videopad was used for cutting and pasting the scenes together, while Filmora helped to add effects, words and icons.

Discoveries

I had worked with Videopad before but Filmora was new for me. Luckily enough, one of our classmates was proficient using it, so she explained us how to use it. Sadly, it is not free, so we all had to work with one computer. 

Videopad was included in our university account, so it was easy to download and use it again. However, I had to learn again how to use it, as it had been years since the last time.

Uses or connections

Educational videos provide a very interesting approach for teaching, as they provide a direct link with the ICTs. They can be used for revising a topic, to introduce it or as part of a flipped lesson. Furthermore, the teacher is not the only one that can do it. When given the proper scaffolding, students can create their own videos too!

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙 

Pros: 

• Filmora offers a lot of options like music, effects, transitions, banners...
• Videopad was just used for the basics, nothing to complain about it. It served its purpose.

Cons: 

• Filmora is not free. It was painful seeing so many opportunities without being able to use them on my own works.
• To use Filmora, you have to be very careful while editing, as you work in layers.

See you in my last post!

7.1 Storyboard a video project

 

 Today's post is very special, because it is collaborative! It was created with Aurora's Learning Adventure, Nurinu Teacher and It's Pateacher Corner. The task was to create an educational video.

Here you can find the script we created and the information we used in a Google Docs. Moreover, you can see the storyboard we designed as the basis for our videos with Canva. 

Story Board - YouTube video

Critical questions and problems encountered

The first issue we encountered was choosing a topic. We chose for Fridays For Future, as it is a trending issue, and started looking for information. Related to the format, we went for a Youtube video where the owner of the channel introduces a topic and moderates a debate between experts. 

The hardest part was to create the dialogue. Our goal was to create a short video to be used in a flipped classroom, not taking much time from students. At the same time, we tried to condense the most important information, using vocabulary adapted to the students’ level, but adding interesting words too. In our storyboard we added the effects we wanted to include. 

Discoveries

I was not aware that Canva had templates for storyboards. It seems that have templates for everything! That facilitated the task as we were already used to work with ir. Plus, it is collaborative, so it saved us a lot of time. 

* The uses and connections, pros, cons and Martyrating of Canva are detailed in this post*

Stay tuned for the final result! We hope you like it. 

6. Plan an audio project

Combining ICTs with other subjects has become way easier than never. In today's post I will show you how to teach Spanish painters through the creation of a podcast with the students. 

This is the didactic unit I designed for 5th grade of Primary Education for Arts and Crafts

The introductory podcast was created using Session Town and Audacity to join the two music files and my voice. Then, it was uploaded to Soundcloud. You can find the introduction and the playlist where all the podcasts will be stored once recorded and uploaded below.

Marty Teaching Learning · Talking About Famous Painters: Intro

Marty Teaching Learning · Talking About Famous Painters

Critical questions and problems encountered

Uploading content to Soundcloud is very easy, the only requirement is to create a profile. Then, you can upload audio files filling in the required information.

Once the files are uploaded, you can create a playlist and add them there. I tried to create the playlist beforehand but I couldn't, so keep that in mind. 

I also had some trouble recording the initial music, having to screen capture my music and then uploading the video to a mp3 converter. However, Audacity was easy to use as I learned how to use it during the degree. 

Discoveries

Soundcloud was a discovery for me, as it sounded familiar but I had never used it before. Moreover, the webpage I used to create the music, Session Town, was completely new for me as well, it is a great resource for music teachers!

Uses or connections

Soundcloud provides an opportunity to teach students through a different method. The first thing that came to my mind is creating podcasts that students could listen to while studying for an exam. It has a lot of potential to be used for flipped classrooms, or in regular ones like the example I provided.

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Pros: 

• Creating playlists
• Library option with overview, likes, playlists, albums, stations, following and history
• Tags in tracks and playlists
• Easy to embed and share

Cons: 

• Only 180 minutes can be uploaded for free users.

I hope you liked it!

5. Design and present support slideshows

There are many tools to create presentations: Genially, Google Slides, Prezi, Powtoon, PowerPoint... (those are the ones I have personally tried). And the question always is: "Which one should I use?". That always depends on what you want to create. If it is something simple, PowerPoint is a safe bet. If you want people to get a mindmap of the parts of your presentation Prezi is the one you should use. For simultaneous collaborative work I always reccomend Google Slides. For fun videos, Powtoon is the right one. However, the best one I have found so far is Genially. 

The task I was assigned was creating a presentation. However, I wanted it to be interactive, so I created a double functioning presentation: it can be used both by the teacher to present in the classroom or as an interactive presentation so that students can study and review at home. It is designed for 6th year of Primary Education, in the subject of Natural Sciences.

Critical questions and problems encountered

My first struggle was related to the template to choose. I did not want to start from scratch, as it is very hard to do so. Nevertheless, I did not want to leave it as it was. Something I did to give it a nice detail was to personalise the icons shown in the background, using only science-related ones. 

Then I also had to choose how I wanted to navigate through the document. As I wanted it to be also used as a tool to study at home, I added questions at the end and made it a microsite. The information said by me as a teacher is added as windows so that students can learn with them, trying to remember and then clicking to check. At the end, it has an option to play with the information: by answering 4 questions you get 4 digits of a code, and if done correctly you can download the following badge:

Discoveries

As I had used it before, there was not much about the way it works for me to discover. Something I really like is that they have added new templates. Moreover, it seems they have added new scenes and illustrations. This is perfect for me, as I am a very visual person. 

They also added the option to create links to "go back", "first page", "previous page" "next page" and "last page". This facilitates creating microsites and games.

Uses or connections

I believe that the best summary for this section is the following screenshot. It belongs to the Genially webpage, and it appears when you click on "create Genially". These are all the options provided by them. However, the way you apply them is up to you! 

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Pros: 

• You can share with others and work collaboratively.
• Free templates are varied and appealing.
• There is an option for proposing templates (it is very nice from them, to be honest).
• There are sources for free images: Unsplash, Pixabay and Giphy. 
• All the elements can be animated.
• Navigation can be changed to fit a regular presentation, a video or a microsite.

Cons: 

• You can work collaboratively but not simultaneously, you need to take turns.
• Premium templates look very engaging, some even more than the free ones. 

I hope you enjoyed this post!

4.3 Create an infographic about your subject

Visual representations of information or data.

I created an infographic to be used in Natural Sciences, in 6th grade for the topic of the digestion using Canva.

Digestive Process by Marta Díaz-Madroñero Ramírez

Critical questions and problems encountered

At first I was overwhelmed by the ammount of templates that were available. I looked twice and I noticed that half of them were premium. However, it was not like other resources where the free version was terrible compared to the premium one, in this case the free ones were very interesting. 

I went ahead, chose a template and started adding my touch to it. I wanted to change the colours and I found out how to do it quickly: there is an option on the left bar called "more", then you click on "styles". There, you can find pre-made colour palettes instead of creating them by yourself, along with fonts.

Everything was too good to be true. Once again, the premium version ruined my ideas: most of the pictures were only available for the premium version. I had to look for the pictures outside Canva, adding them to my infographic giving credit to the authors. I used Flaticon for the pictures, changing the colour to match my infographic. I highly reccomend it, even though I could not save more than 3 for later, you can download as many as you want.

Discoveries

As many tools suggested by our master's degree teacher, I knew Canva but I had never used it before. I supposed it had basic resources, like images and frames. Nevertheless, when I started investigating I found out it has a lot of stickers, charts, lines... 

Moreover, you can add video and audio from your desktop, which is unusual for this type of plattform as they usually allow you to link resources or pay for the premium version.

Uses or connections

It has a lot of potential, specially for education: infographics, videos, lesson plans, bookmarks, schedules, posters... It can also be used as teachers to spread our own resources by using the templates for Facebook or Instagram. Even to create your resume and impress the principal of that amazing school you want to work at!

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Pros: 

• Easy to use
• Nice and varied free templates
• Wide options for customising the elements (colour, size...)
• Many free elements to use
• Wide variety of fonts
• Allows you to insert images, videos and audio
• Embed content from other apps

Cons: 

• Many pictures and templates are premium

See you in the next post, 

4.2 Design a mindmap for an educational project

Arrows, pictures, text boxes and a lot of colour as a way to organise ideas.

Mindmaps are an amazing tool, specially for learning. In my case, I wanted to make a project to learn the vital function of nutrition in Natural Sciences. The tool I used is coggle. This is an online plattform that allows the user to create mindmaps, even collaboratively! In my case, I used it to create a mindmap to be used collaboratively between the teacher and the students.  

The students from 6th grade would be divided in 4 teams and be given access to this mindmap. Using the links provided, their task is to complete their part of the mindmap, adding branches and categories if necessary. 

Critical questions and problems encountered

I felt completely lost at the beginning, the only thing I saw in my screen was this:

My intuition told me to click on the square right at the middle of the screen, I did it and I started playing with the features: 

The A symbol allows you to edit the text (bold, italics, how it is alligned and images), the link allows you to link websites, the image is for adding images and the lightning symbol lets you add emojis.

Discoveries

When I was halfway done, I discovered that you can change the colour and shape of the branches and the text boxes clicking with the right button. That was a huge discovery, as I am a very visual person and I rely a lot on colour. However, the options are limited for the free version. 

Uses or connections

The example I gave provides a great use for this tool, allowing for cooperative work between students. However, it is not necessary to have ICT resources in the classroom to use mindmaps; for example, they can be created by the teacher leaving blank spaces, print them and hand them in to complete during class. 

Another use is as a student myself, you can organise group works or your own projects thanks to this tool, facilitating visualisation of the whole picture.

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Pros: 

• Collaborative work.
• Links and pictures can be added.
• Text size personalisation.
• Moving branches and text.

Cons: 

• Limited range of colours and shapes for the free version.
• It is hard to get the hang of it at first.

That was it for today's post!

4.1. Create a comic to represent emotions

Comics! Such a fun and engaging way to learn! Today I will show a tool to create comics to use in your classroom. 

First of all, I would like to show you what I did. In my case I wanted to use my comics to teach emotions through History. First, you can see the comic that introduces the main characters, Josh and Sam, and their story: they stumble upon a magic book that takes them to different events in History to learn about emotions. In the second comic, you can see one of the chapters, which is about the Black Plague in the 14th century.

The idea behind this type of comic is that they can be created for each topic of Social Sciences, linking it with emotional intelligence, interrelating them in a natural way and leading to interesting debates between students. It will allow pupils to compare their own period of time with others and seeing how similar situations prompt the same emotions, seeing that even if it happened many years ago it still has relevance. In the case of this example, the comic is set in a pandemic, like the one we are living.  
Made with Storyboard That

Critical questions and problems encountered:

At first, I was a bit lost on which app to use. I tried Pixton, but to use most of the features you have to pay! I decided to switch and started from scratch with StoryboardThat. 

It is very intuitive. However, I had to look for help from my peers to find how to increase the number of cells (the option is at the bottom of the screen). 

When having to embed it, I had to carefully look for the option, as it is at the bottom and in a very tiny font. When pasting it into Blogger, I had to change its size, as it was too big for my blog template.

A problem that I encountered is that the free version only allows for two comics per week. You can solve it by creating an extra account if you are in a rush for a quick comic. 

Discoveries

This resource as a whole was a discovery for me! I hadn't heard of it before. 

One thing that I discovered while working with it is that you can copy whole cells, but I found out when I was almost done. Better late than never, I guess! (the option is on the bottom right corner, by the way)

The free version has a lot of content, like characters from different historical period, scenes, items, speech bubbles, etc. This tool allows for a lot of personalisation in terms of colour: skin, hair, clothes, walls, floor, furniture... Moreover, it has an option to change the time of the day and some features on the scenes. It even has thousands of fonts for the speech bubbles!

Uses or connections

This is an amazing tool for teaching any kind of topic, as it has a lot of scenes, characters and even science-related items. Going one step ahead, you can even ask your students to create comics of a certain topic to see if they understood, to work the features of a comic in Spanish Language or just for fun!

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Pros: 

• The free version contains a lot of items, which are varied.
• Easy to use and intuitive

Cons: 

• To make bigger comics you have to pay.
• Only two comics per week.
• You need to create an account to save your comics, even as an image.

That was it for today, Have a nice day!

3. Aggregated Content Curation

You PIN your INTERESTS

Smart name, huh? It's also an useful tool for teachers, let's dive in!

Critical questions and problems encountered:

At first I was a bit lost on how to use Pinterest. I knew about its existence, but I had never tried it before... So this was a difficult learning process, but I think I got the hang of it. It is pretty intuitive, they start by asking you questions about your interests so that you can start pinning right away!

My main worry was how was I going to store all the ideas I found. Well, you can create boards, like mine below. This way you can organise your posts in topics. As teachers, you could organise them in subjects or grades.

In my case, I created a board with Arts and Crafts resources, organised in sections. You can check them out by clicking here:

Discoveries

I also found something extremely useful. It turns out you can create sections inside each board. In my case I used them to store my resources according to their type: images, youtube, websites...

Uses or connections

Pinterest is an useful way for teachers to organise the resources they are already using or to store ideas for future projects. Moreover, it is designed to encourage the interaction between people, allowing for comments and following each other. It can be used not only as an educational resource, but in a personal way to look for inspiration for pictures, funny images to have a nice time or sources of information for any hobby you have, so it is quite nice honestly.

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙 

Pros: 

• Facilitates storing ideas in an organised way
• Improves interaction between educators and creators of content
• You can add an extension to Chrome to pin anything you see on the net. 

Cons: 

• (not really a con, maybe something to take into account) Respecting other's licenses 

That's it, I hope it was useful!

2. Image attribution for a CLIL lesson

 

Boring, right? Yes, but necessary. 

As teachers we are used to create new materials. However, if we use others' images we must respect their authorship, as we would like others to do with ours. That is why we can use this website: https://creativecommons.org/choose/?lang=en to choose the license for our blog and our content by answering a series of easy questions. I already did mine (check the footer). Have you done yours?

Task: 

Our teacher asked us to practice authorship by looking for some images and thinking about how to use them in our CLIL lesson. In my case I chose images to use in Natural Sciences in the topic of the respiratory system. 

I obtained the images from Creative Commons itself, being able to choose the license I needed while searching. This is where I did it: https://search.creativecommons.org/  Under each picture you will find a link to the original picture as well as to the license it has. 

For my didactic unit in sixth grade, I would use this picture to create a worksheet, as I can modify it (it does not have the "no derivatives" logo). I would erase the words and some of the arrows, as there are too many. The idea is that they can fill it in by listening to descriptions made by me. I have chosen it because it is very clear and it will allow students to have a clear image of the respiratory system. 

"Medical gallery of Blausen Medical 2014" by Bruce Blaus. CC BY 3.0

I would use the second and third picture to create flashcards to explain that our body takes more oxygen when we are tired, compared to when we are relaed to give more oxygen to our limbs. I would add the word "exercising"and "relaxed" below as I can modify them due to the license they have. We would do the actions and see if our breathing has been modified. I have chosen them because the characters are attractive and will call student's attention. Moreover, they will understand the concepts in an easy way. 

"File:Man Out of Breath Cartoon.svg" by VideoPlasty is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

"File:Man Relaxing on the Beach Cartoon Vector.svg" by VideoPlasty is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Lastly, I would use pictures four and five in a Kahoot! about respiratory illnesses, in this case asthma. I believe that apart from teaching how our body works, it is important to know the illnesses we or people close to us may have. 

"Asthma Inhaler" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0

"Adult Using an Asthma Inhaler" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I hope you liked my post and you found it useful. Take care!

1. Cartoonize yourself

Today's task was to create a digital avatar of ourselves. Knowing me, I had to try some tools suggested by our teacher before choosing my favourite one. These are my avatars and next to them you will find the websites I used:

 Portrait Avatar Maker  

DoppelMe DM1797432HTR (that is my code)

 Funko Pop Designer

Now, going to my favourite tool: 

Critical questions and problems encountered:

Not many problems were found while using this app. First you have to download the app in your device (mobile phone or tablet) and create an account using an email, Facebook or linking it to Snapchat.

 From then on it is very intuitive: you are presented with an interface to choose the character’s physical characteristics, clothes and accessories. My biggest worry was which clothes to choose from the wide range provided! Plus, the accessories are very diverse and help adjust to cultures all over the world. 

No problems were encountered, even the app helps you set up the keyboard. That was one of my biggest worry before opening the app, but each and every step is scaffolded. 

Discoveries

Something I didn’t know as that apart from using it on a keyboard, you can add an extension to Google Chrome. This is very useful, as it facilitates adding Bitmoji from a computer. Clicking with the right button of the mouse gives the following options: 

Moreover, I didn’t know it can be linked to Kahoot! Look how cute my avatar is there!

Uses or connections

It is an amazing tool to personalise your teaching materials, specially if it is online schooling, as here we tend to miss the human factor. Moreover, if you print pictures of your Bitmoji you can use them in the classroom, like these ones:

Lastly, as a tech addict, you can also use them to text people through messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram or I Message) and in your email. 

Martyrating

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙 

Pros: 

• Easy to use
• Accessible
• Inclusive and varied designs 
• Connected to many apps

Cons: 

• Couldn't find any, to be honest.