Sunday 28 February 2016

I'm a content curator!

Hello!

I just want to tell you that I just become a content curator. Maybe you know what does it means but maybe not. To be a content curator means organizing information in order to have everything you need ready to use it whenever you want without loosing time searching on the net. There are plenty of web tools to do that, although the most famous ones are: Pinterest, and Symbaloo. The best part is that they are free.

I use Pinterest to arrange lots of materials related with CLIL teaching and also to find materials, resources and DIY projects, which I love! You can use it for many thing at the same time, because you can create as many boards as you want and pin all you find there.

I recently discovered Symbaloo, which allows you to create an online desktop where you can gather webpages and other resources in different tiles. Here you have mine:



In this webmix I have my favorite webpages and links to find resources related with CLIL. I also have my social networks and some free online web tools to create my own materials. As you can see, they are organized in different categories using colours.

In red colour you can see my main and everyday social networks (twitter, blogger, pinterest and my University moodel). Then, in orange I have my favourites pages to improve my academic english. Also, highlighted in green, I have different web pages full of reosurces for Primary classrooms.
At the top on the right, in yellow, I have some useful tools to create my own materials easily and free, of course! Finally, in blue, I have my favourite youtube channels for kids.


Hope you like it.



A bank of common knowledge


Hello again everybody!
Today I want to tell you something about banks of common knowledge. Since we are teachers, it is useful to have a online space in which we can have lots of resources, materials, web pages, etc. ready to use them, just with one click. 
As far as I see it, I think that it is really amazing being able to have a bank of resources shared with other teachers in order to learn from others adn to see different point of views. I think that collaboration between everybody who teachs gives us a top quality knowledge and information and a great variety of materials. 
With this idea, we have created in our class a bank of common knowledge about CLIL in which everyone has posted web pages, web tools, resources, blogs, videos and music among other things. We are using Pinterest, so if you want to take a look, click here. 
Here you have my contribution to this common banks of reosurces:
Timeglider: web-based timeline software. Free online web tool to make timelines, which can be useful in CLIL classroom as a visual organizer for some contents, for instance in social science.
2. Pixton  is a web tool in which you can create comics for free. --> PIN on Pinterest.
PIXTON is an amazing free web tool which allows you to create wonderful comics easily. It is a greeat tool to work literacy in CLIL with students and, depending on their grade, they will be able to create their own comic and printed. In that way, they will be learning the language by using it
3. Piktochart is a free online tool that can be used to create infographics --> PIN on Pinterest. 
Piktochart is an amazing free online tool in which you can create infographics to make the information beautiful. This can be used with educational purposes to create really visual and eye catching posters, presentations or visual organizers for children. You can download the image and print it easily
4. Model making of Landscapes to learn science vocabulary while working creativity made by my children in class. They are 2nd graders --> PIN on Pinterest.
Model making to work landscapes. This was made by 2nd graders in my internship class and they learnt all the vocabulary about landscapes by using it. Model making is always a good idea in CLIL and they can also do a show and tell to practice oral skills. Here you have an idea to develop creativity in children while they learn without knowing.
5. Chef of volume: an e-publication by Marta Plaza, last year student on the same master --> PIN on Pinterest. 
CHEF OF VOLUME is an e-publication by Marta Plaza, a last year student of our Master. She created this lesson plan to work out volume with creative activities. I think that this is a good example of how to relate different contents while children learn in a fun way. You can finde this in her web page: sites.google.com/...
Manuel Cacicedo English blog: mcacicedoenglish.... Here you can find lots of materials and reosurces to use in a CLIL classroom. I've followed him for 3 years now and I always find interesting things about english teaching! Hope you like it and you find it useful.

Hope you find it useful! If you know any amazing resource, please leave a comment below o contact me on my social networks! Thank you.


Tuesday 23 February 2016

Reasons why I use Creative Commons License.

Hello everyone!

I just decided to put my blog under a Creative Commons license, particulary this one: Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International. You can see now the icon of my license at the end of my blog page. 


Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which helps you to share your knowledge and creative materials with the world taking into account that they have a value so the people who wants to share your creations has to give you some credit. 

First, you have to realize that, for education, sharing information with others is an important fact. Therefore, Creative Commons is aimed to develop the growth of a new education era in which everyone can share content without worries. 


My Creative Commons license allows other people to share the information as long as they do it in the same way. People can share my content by coping and distributing it in any medium or format. Moreover, they can adapt the information by transforming and building upon the material. The aforementioned terms will be permited under the following conditions:

  • Give appropriate credit to the author, provide a link to my license and also mention whether they have made changes or not. 
  • They are not allowed to use my material with commercial purposes.
  • If they made some changes to the material, they have to distribute it under the same license. 

I have decided to have a license in my blog because here I post a lot of images and materials that I made my self and I don't want anyone to use them in a bad way. Actually, I'm not against someone who wants to use my materials, because that is the reason why I post them in this blog, but I want my  materials to be used with a great purpose contributing to education. 


Regarding my students, I will encourage them to share and use online materials as long as they realize that the materials belong to someone else, who has spent time creating them. In this way, reflecting on that, they will learn to value their own and others work. They will have to be aware that their own materials have a value and that they have to protect them in some way under the terms they decided. For that purpose, they can use Creative Commons in order to create a great community in which they will be able to share content respectfully.  
Besides, they will have to be aware that all the online content may be not free to use and that they can have a license that everyone wanting to share has to respect. 

Sunday 21 February 2016

All about me!

I'm Primary English Teacher. Right now, I am studying a Master's in Bilingual Education at Primary Schools at URJC in Madrid. 
When I was 6 years old I started to study musical lesson, particulary Piano lessons untill I was 15 years old. I consider that this kind of Education develop critial and creative thinking in my brain. 
Besides, when I was 15 and also 16, I travelled to USA to spend a month with a host family in order to improve my English. The first year, I went to Columbus, Ohio and the second year I went to Salt Lake City, Utah. This experience made me being what I am now and of course not only my English improved, but also I became more open-minded. 
Then, I decided to study a Degree on Primary Education with an English mention. While I was studying that, I had the opportunitty to spend a month in a english schoool abroad to do my internship, concretely in Coventry, UK. There, I was able to see different techniques and methods and grow my knowledge on the teaching field. 
I also did a part of the internship in a CRA school ( a group of associated rural schools with fewer children per class) and it was really interesting to learn how they work with different learning needs and levels and a lack of resources.
I'm interested in CLIL, ICT, new ideas and teaching methodologies, arts, music and diy projects. I love English learning and teaching. I love colaborative learning, I think that if you share ideas and opinions with others, you are enriching and widen your knowledge. 

If you want to know more about me, I recomend you to take a look at this.
If you want to contact me:
My personal e-mail: g.g.laura@hotmail.com
On skype:  laura gonzalez garcia / caracola_laura
On Twitter: @LauraGonGar5
On Pinterest: @LauraGonGar5

Learning by twittering


Hello again everyone!

This time I want to tell you about Twitter! Surely, you already know a lot of twitter and probably you have a twitter account. Actually here you have mine: @LauraGonGar5 just in case you want to follow me!

If you don't have a Twitter account, I would strongly recomend you to join the Twitter community and start following interesting thing to widen your learning. You should take into account that you will need an eye-catching user name, a good profile picture and some information about you in your bio.

With this post, I want to share all the things you can do with twitter in order to improve your knowledge about everything you want. You just have to follow people or things you are interested in.
For instance, since I am an English and biligüal English primary teacher I want to keep my knowledge updated and maintain a nonstop learning, so I use twitter to follow educational information and some teachers around the world among others.

I not only follow people but also I publish things which I consider interesting for the community. In other words, twitter is a social network which allows you as a teacher to exchange ideas and widen your teaching-learning knowledge.

Currently, I am studying a Master's Degree in Bilingual Education and still learning a lot about CLIL and here you have my own definition of this amazing teaching approach combining content and language learning:

If you are reading this and you are looking forward to learn more about CLIL, you can share publications like mine using the haghstag: #ictclil_urjc . Here the students of the Master's Degree in Bilingual Education (at URJCin Madrid) publish amazing facts about CLIL.

As far as I see it, twitter allows you to learn just wherever you are and whenever you want. Therefore, you are always connected and updated. 



Learn something about me: 3,2,1 Introduction

Hello again!
A 3, 2, 1 Introduction is a way of presenting interesting information about you in 3 steps: tell 3 things that people should know about you, then share 2 of your passions or things you like, and last but not least tell everyone your dream occupation you would have if you weren't what you are right now. 


To produce my 3,2,1 introduction I've used Pixton, which is an interesting web tool to create personalised comics. When I was thinking which tool I was going to use to make my personal introduction, I surfed the web page and I see PIXTON, inmediately caught my attention as it has a very colourful icon. Also, I thougth that it would be a great and original way of producing my own digital identity.
 It is a very useful, original and full of details. You can add your own characters, backgrounds, objects and also edit them in a great variety of size, proportion, colour. It offers you a great amount of pre-designed elements to create your perfect comic. It is also very realistic since you can change everything about your character as facial expression, clothes, hair cut, accesories, gestures and also move parts of the body and all the surrounding elements. Moreover,  Since we are teachers, we can extrapolate this to our field of study putting it into practice in class, in order to develop children's creativity and critical thinking.
It has a lot of advantages as I have described before, but it also have some disadvantages. One thing that it can be changed is that it would be useful to have the possibility to transform the comic in an animated video once you have finished. Also, if you could transform it into a video you would be able to add some music to it to make it more visual and interactive. 
 While I was using this tool, I felt inlove with this amazing tool because it has a lot of detailed things and I love to create things like these. So I would recomend it because it is a easy-to-use web tool, it is free and you can also publish, share and save your comic in many different ways. Moreover it would provide you with an original way to make a personal introduction or tell a story.

My PLE and PLN for CLIL


Hello everybody! I was looking forward to share my PLE and PLN, so here you have it 

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When I started to design this mindmap I thought that I didn't have enough sources of information, but then I realized that we can learn from everything that surround us just by using the right resources and tools.  I have used Piktochart, a free online web tool to create colorful infographics. I totally recomend you to try it because the results are amazing. Nevertheless, at first could be kinda difficult but when you start trying all the posibilities it becomes easy.

Regarding my knowledge about CLIL, I have to say that I have learned all I know from my classes at Salamanca University when I was studying my specialisation in English in the 3rd and 4th years of my degree. During those academic years I had 6 subjects related with CLIL so I learn a lot about this topic. I consider that as crucial knowledge for my future as a bilingual teacher.

After finishing my Primary Education degree there, I moved to Madrid in order to continue learning, so I decided to start a Masters degree in bilingual education in which I am learning a lot of new things about CLIL.
Moreover, not only the classes at the University but also social networks are keeping me on track whit CLIL. For instance, whit twitter you can be up to date on CLIL with a simple click on your phone, tablet or computer wherever and whenever you want it. What is more, you can share with your community all the interesting information you find and your own ideas.

Related with that, to interact whit my peers I also use twitter because it's so easy to use. Furthermore, I also use whatsapp, skype, instagram, google hangouts (similar to skype), google drive, dropbox, facebook. Here we can share information and learn from eachother which I consider a good way to obtain a top quality knowledge.
In the infographic I have shared you can also see what I currently use to improve and keep up my knowledge about CLIL. You probably know the vast majority of them, but I will explain some which I think are interesting for you, just in case you haven't heard about them.
* TEDtalks: is a nonprofit organization to spread ideas using powerful talks. Here you can find a lot of speeches related with Education and Technology among other topics. I recomend you to use it because they are amazing!
* Coursera: it is a webpage in which you can join free online courses about everything you want and they also gave you a diploma when you finish a course.


Hope it was helpful!

Laura

Do you happen to know phonics?

Hello everyone!

I decided to write a new post in which you can see the other blog I owned. It is aimed to phonics and some resources related. Just in case you want to get some inspiration or maybe you are looking for activities to work phonics in the classroom.

http://doyouhappentoknowphonics.blogspot.com.es/

This blog has its origin in when I was doing my Primary Education degree in Salamanca University. I had a subject in which I created lots of materials and activities. Since I think that nowadays learning and sharing ideas online it is the best way of get top quality learning, I decided to create a blog to publish all the thing I did. I hope you can learn things from it and you are free to take them and use it in your class if you think that they can be useful for your students and their necesities.