INTERSHIP REPORT

Once you have been in a real context working with experienced teachers, you realise that new technologies means a big step in education improvement. Of course, as teachers we have to encourage or teach learning methods of strategies that not depend on the use of new technologies. But also, we don’t realize that the use or implement of the technologies is not an aim but a way or medium.

New technologies or Web 2.0 are really good educative tools. Thanks to them we can make more dynamic and illustrative our lessons (by designing interactive materials). We can take advantage of the time in a better way, we can make easier the work in groups or even we can improve the children’s skills to work individually (promote the student autonomy).

IN MY SCHOOL ARE MAINLY USED:

Ø  Google classroom:  this virtual learning platforms allows the teachers to propose tasks online. The teacher can design little activities by uploading documents, images, videos, audios, links… and adding a little explanation (what is needed to be done) and a deadline. This platform belongs to Google so all the documents to complete the task are carried out by using google drive documents (in all its format: ppt, survey…). This is very helpful due to the simple fact that can be shared to the teachers and be edited by several students simultaneously. Thank to this the teacher can see the jobs online (although they haven’t been finished) and attach comment to offer the pupils a feedback. This platform also allows us to assign the children a mark and take into account the participation of each member of the group by having a look the modification history.

      -->  To make effective the use of tool, we need to be able to get access to it in class all the days. Thanks to the MAGNET PROJECT, my school has 28 chromebooks that make possible to include Google Classroom in our class’ daily routine.

--> The use Google classroom implies that the students have their own email accounts (gmail) and they know how to revise their noticifations.

Ø  Power point, Microsoft word: these text or slides designer are very used nowadays by the teacher in order to create materials to introduce the children new and well-organized information or summarize contents. But… Do we allow the children this tools? The answer should be yes. During my stay in the school I have seen that when the pupils use these programmes in class not only develop their digital competence they also develop information treatment abilities and improve their autonomy and spelling (good consequence of the text corrector).

Ø   Cmap cloud : this recently online tools allow us creating mind maps so as to design a less common format of summary (in Primary schools predominate the use of charts or schemes, forgetting that the mind map is more complete and show the relationships between concepts or events. Of course, we should also be conscious of that maybe the students are a little young to dominate the designing of mind maps (because it is needed very good interrelation skills), but we think it is pretty recommendable to introduce and use this format in class to introduce the children another learning strategy.

Ø  Games, blogs and wikis:  this three tools are very much related in my school due the fact that teachers use the blog or wikis to create banks of resources in which they gather interactive online activities or games to offer the children a big variety of interesting links.  Thanks to this the children can practise all the knowledge acquired in class, test their skills and have fun without being exposed to no appropriate webpages.

This banks of recourse are not only aimed to practise individually, but it also are designed to play together in class (thanks to the use of the Interactive White Board).

  I can’t attach the school’s resources bank because only the registered pupils can get access to it,

           but here there are some website the school usually use:

-          www.agendaweb.com

-          www.khanacademy.org,

-          www.gobiernodecanarias.org/medusa/edublogs/proyectonewton

    
 --> There are some teachers that instead of designing a blog, wiki or website, they share their symbaloo to their pupils.

MY COLLABORATION:

It is very useful to gather online activities or games, but…. Do we always find what we want or our children need? The answer is NO. 

In my class are constantly used the paper flashcards to introduce, review or understand they specific vocabulary of determined didactic units. So, I wonder: Can I create and design my own flashcards and share them online? At first, I thought I was going to be really complicated, but nowadays we can’t imagine the marvellous websites and platforms we can come across in Internet.

Thanks to www.examtime.com I could create my own and very customized flashcards about general vocabulary needed to understand the Pre-roman people’s lifestyle. But then I thought….Wouldn’t be more beneficial for the pupils to design activities or game with the same flashcard? And suddenly www.quizlet.com appeared to make possible this idea. I made up some flashcards about the Romans vocabulary, which you can revise by playing games like SCATER (match concepts and pictures) or GRAVITY (type the concept that the pictures illustrate before these ones fall down and disappear). I also created some puzzle ( with jigsawplanet.com ) to provoke curiosity about other Roman legacies.

To collect all these materials I designed a jimdo (website with an easy management interface): http://classicalantiquity4.jimdo.com/

 

Surprisingly, the implement of this materials was very productive. We used the online flashcards through the IWB, playing all the class together celebrating a contest in which different groups score point if they guess the vocabulary word just being shown its illustration.

I also prepared a computer room session. The students were divided in pairs and had to practise the vocabulary playing he quizlet’s games and completing the puzzles. Then we proposed the pupils to ask to each other in order to let then co-evaluate which concepts they have internalized.

Taking into account all the problems happened along the session, I realized that it would have been better to invest some sessions to teach the children how to create flashcards and games with quizlet. Doing that we would have assure that the children get used to the interface and the website options and controls.

Despite of these little problems I would dare to say that the material I did meant an improvement, because all the children internalized very quickly the didactic unit vocabulary and had fun doing it. The simple fact of creating an own specialized bank of recourses, and sharing this one to the children can suppose a big positive change in their learning.