miércoles, 16 de octubre de 2013

Beat lab

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WEEK: Monday 7th October, 2013 to Sunday 13th October 2013.
DATE: Wednesday day, 7th October, 2013
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BEATLAB

http://www.beatlab.com/

As a keen musician and composer, I couldn't help recommending an application for Clil misic and english projects in class. Beatlab is a really easy application to create beats, which can be used for chants in English. Pupils can easily create their own beats, discovering how key and sound position modifies a beat or the whole song.


The idea is to display this programme at the digital blackboard so that pupils can "read" the visual score sheets and play the rhytmns created by using different percussive instruments. Another options is to display the beat created by the application which is less noisisier and more significative.

Feel free to have a look and try to create your own beats. It's really easy if you try!


martes, 15 de octubre de 2013

Learn english kids Brittish Council

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WEEK: Monday 7th October, 2013 to Sunday 13th October 2013.
DATE: Tuesday, 7th October, 2013
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LEARN ENGLISH KIDS (BRITTISH COUNCIL)   



 “British Council Learn English Kids” is a must amongst all the educational websites available for teachers and students to develop their tasks. Brittish Council websites include a huge variety of activities which teachers can use, and also some ideas on programming, assessing, and developing meaningful activities.

However, the main reason for me to take this website into consideration is the variety of TIC activities the web site includes, where pupils can play in the digital blackboard or at computers room. These activities range from interactive computer games which work pronunciation to songs, chants, readings, stories in English, and quizzes. The website also includes kids’ games, listen and watch, reading and writing, arts and crafts, grammar and spelling exercises.

Feel free to have a look at it, especially if you are an English teacher, as you will surely find resources to be used according to your taste, pupils’ needs and personal preferences you can chose from. 

lunes, 7 de octubre de 2013

The National Gallery "Take One project"

LOGBOOK

WEEK: Monday 7th October, 2013 to Sunday 13th October 2013.
DATE:Monday, 7th October, 2013
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The National Gallery is a useful website providing teachers ideas on using several photographs on famous paintings or other artistic support in order to integrate Arts into the English classroom, so as to create Clil projects integrating contents from both subjects, using English as a language for communicating when speaking about art or while working on an art project.

The website includes, amongst many other useful tools, a guide for teachers about how to develop these projects, giving ideas and examples on them. Also, there is a link to a similar website, from which you can obtain more ideas to create and develop your own Arts and Language Clil project.

I have added a gadget to my Symbaloo so as to have a quick access to this resource.

viernes, 4 de octubre de 2013

How I used dome of the applications described to make my own University tasks. Examples.

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WEEK: Monday 1st October, 2013 to Sunday 6th October 2013.
DATE: Friday, 4th October, 2013
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Hello! Today I am going to explain some tasks I have done for the University subject of “Didactics at the English classroom”. I have included these in my PLE in order to be aware of my ideas on several topics related to teaching.

Also, I have used some of the applications I have been explaining to you in the process of developing these tasks, in order to prove their usage. This is my Symbaloo right now:



 I had to make several modifications so that I could include more gadgets in it, by clocking at “options” followed by “Symbaloo size” and then unlocking the option “set Symbaloo size” to add another gadget line, and then unlocking the option in order to avoid accidentally deleting a column or bar by clicking in the wrong place.

MY PERFECT CLASSROOM SITUATION TASK

This is the first task I made, which consisted in thinking about how a perfect lesson should be, taking my best learner experiences as a reference. To do the task I used “Sweet Home 3d” to help me with the background design. Then I used standard color pencils, pen, glue and scissors to make the characters. Feel sure to have a look at my Symbaloo for further details on the task. Here’s a more detailed explanation on how I did the drawing, in case you are not interested I the task but in the process:

HOW I MADE THE DRAWING:



Firstly, the idea of repeating the initial drawing sounded a bit challenging to me, as I am not someone who shines by its ability at drawing. Still, creating a handmade drawing would be the same I did in class, so I had to think of something entirely different, something unique.
At first, I wasn’t’ inspired at all, but after the usual evening breakfast, an idea came up all of a sudden. I remembered the computer program I used to design my own bedroom –which indeed, was calling for an urgent renovation-, and thought: “If this program can be used to design home interiors, why not using it for creating a classroom?”  Then was when I got started, experiencing with the possibilities it could bring to the task.
The first step was to download “Sweet Home 3D”, a freeware program from the internet. Once installed, I created a new project and drew the classroom walls with the computer mouse. After that, I began to add different furniture into the room. Some of it was already included in the program; while some other was not, forcing me to look it up on the internet. After all this furniture was installed, I downloaded a floor wooden texture and applied it to the floor, and painted the walls in blue and white.

Finally, I set the proper perspective by selecting 3D view and then, 3d visit, so that it would look like as if it was seen from a person’s point of view. Finally, I converted it into a picture, printed a copy of it and then glued handmade drawn characters on the picture. 

PRESENT MYSELF AS A TEACHER

“Present myself as a teacher” is one task I was recently asked to do. It was about telling the reasons why I considered becoming a teacher, and the qualities I wanted to have or develop as a future teacher, so as to make an impression of myself and the way I believe the task should be accomplished.

To summarize, I mentioned I wanted to be a teacher in order to make pupils become competent in English, developing their communication skills, in order to pave their way to develop a role in society and also in the everyday life tasks and process you can do by knowing English and being competent in the language, having also developed the communicative skills.

I also listed the qualities which, in my opinion I will need as a teacher, these I am confident I already have, and those I think I still must be working in...And so on (don’t misunderstand me, a teacher has ALWAYS the need to Update and improve, I am referring to my strong and weak points at the moment). Finally I have given reason on why do I think these qualities are important.
To prevent the Power point presentation from becoming a bullet power point, I set some illustrations about the matter, which I did by creating my own avatar in “Bittstrips”. 



For more detailed explanation on how to create your own comic cartoons, see my previous entre in this blog. Thank you very much!

Next time I will update with more tools, so keep on visiting my blog, and feel free to subscribe. See you!

martes, 1 de octubre de 2013

Some more applications I came up with by myself.

LOGBOOK

WEEK: Monday 1st October, 2013 to Sunday 6th October 2013.
DATE: Tuesday, 1st October, 2013
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BITSTRIPS and BITSTRIPS SCHOOLS:



Although it’s been long since the first time I started using the application for personal uses, it’s been now I have decided to explore its utilities, and I became surprised on how beneficial this tool could be once applied to an English lesson.

First of all, Bittstrips is an application which, logged to our Facebook account, allows us to create an avatar resembling ourselves for free. Once created, this avatar is automatically saved so that every time you enter the application, you will have your character already prepared.

Once the avatar is created, you can select share a status comic, which allows you to choose from a huge variety of cartoons regarding situations, in which your avatar is automatically loaded, so that you really appear in it with no need to draw anything at all.
You can also select make a friend comic for those using the same application, so that you can upload your character and your friend and select a different situation to be captured in the cartoon. After this, you can customize your facial expression, gestures and include speech balloons in order to customize even more each unique cartoon of yours, thus making it more personal before sharing it with your friends.

Children are not allowed to have a Facebook account until they come off age, but the teacher could create an account specifically designed to make a cartoon, allowing pupils make their own character, make a cartoon and then delete the character. This would be, however tedious work and has the drawback of having to delete a character before being able to make another one unless pupils use their own Facebook account, which can’t be done.


However, the website includes a web department, called http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/  which allows using the application outside Facebook. This is especially useful, as you can have a 30 days trial for this use before your avatar gets erased, time enough to have created many cartoons or even a whole comic. This application is therefore of real utility for comic creation in an Engliosh classroom, and I would recommend you to take a look at it.

No need to say, I have added the application to my own personal Symbaloo, which will be made public so that all of you will be able to access it if needed once it was fully completed. I will be uploading with upcoming details. See you soon!