Final task: Genially

As a result of my visit to Pablo Ocaña´s blog , I decided to borrow his idea of designing my final on crosscurricular aspects. He focused one of his task on gender discrimination and therefore I decided to do the same , however as I work in Algeciras and it is well-known the large amount of foreing population that lives here, I decided to enlarge it and work on Discrimination in general terms. Consequently , me with the unvaluable help of my students in 3º C have designed a Genially which I hope you enjoy as much as we enjoyed doing it.... Thanks class!!!!

Genially : time to be equals

Pixton

I have chosen option b, Pixton as my students are on secondary education.
I will explain how I developed the project:
First, students are organized into pairs. Except in a few cases, where I recommended a change in pairs because the level of knowledge of the language were quite low , I allowed students to form their own pairs.
I explained on the digital board how the web Pixton works and what I intended them to create. The main objective of the task was talking about plans in the future and about journeys as these both were the contents we had just studied. Apart from these commands I allowed them to use their imagination as much as they desired so they could make up the type of journey they facied (to the space, to the future, to their most enchanted place on Earth...) and so they did, cause they have designed the most extravagant kind of journeys.
I must say the group I chose to do this task is a group where most students have a medium-low knowledge of English and are quite demotivated in general terms, that is the reason I chose them to do this task as I knew they would enjoy it as it was.
We devoted two sessions to plan, develop and finish the task and I may say what they enjoyed the most was choosing the setting and the characters to create their stories and what they liked the least was thinking about what to write in the bubbles.
I may conclude saying that it was a great tool for students to put into practise the use of the future  as they could practise the different uses of this tense.
Unfortunately, we didn´t have time enough for them to see their mates´creations. My idea is to project them on the digital board next time and so they will be able to correct each others´ mistakes and decide which is the best one:

Some samples of the comics:

https://pixton.com/es/:2w72vatt
https://www.pixton.com/es/from/comic/mavu2xls

Genially

I prepared a project with my 4th ESO students about cities and countries throughtout the world. The origin of the project was a reading text that dealt with some interesting places around the world. Therefore I asked my student to create a presentation about some major cities and/or countries . This is an outline of how we planned our projects:

1) We divided students in groups of 3. On this occasion,  I allowed students to create the groups on their own as the level of most of them were similar.
2 ) We wrote the name of as many cities/coutnries  as groups of students were in the class and  cut the names into small pieces of paper.We tried that all continents were represented. One spokeman from each group chose one the papers and in that way they chose the place they had to base their project on.
3) I explained them the characteristics of the projects:
    3.1 It should be done using Genially
    3.2. There should be at least 10 slides and all of them should have at least one image and some text
    3.3 It was an oral project so slides should just contain a brief outline on the information students                will hve to explain orally in front of the class.
    3.4. They could also bring any "extra supporting tool" they consider relevant to their expositions               (i.e.: flags, piece of clothing, souvenirs, food...)
    3.5. We devoted 2 sessions to start presentations at school but afterwards they had to finish their                 projects at home.
4) We set on day to start the expositions . It took us two sessions to see and evaluate all projects.
5) Evaluation of projects:
    5.1 Students self - evaluation : I asked students to evaluate their mates´work . effort and result givin reasons for their mark.
   5.2. Teacher´s evaluation: I evaluated them using a rubrica on oral projects taking into consideration use of the language, pronunciation, body language, etc..

This is not the first time I use this tool with my students since they enjoy it deeply and the result are quite astonishing . On this ocassion they took it so seriously that even brought to class bits of italian panninis and foccaccia for their mates to tate them. Really , really professionals!

Genially 1- South Africa

Genially 2 -Rome

Timetoast

My students have read a hystorical text in the classroom and they have used the tool Timetoast to create a timeline on the text. On the right you may find  the text and  below the links to a pair of the timelines created:
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2141508

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2141512

With this text we have tried not only to enlarge students knowledge about English history but also to broad students vocabulary on the topic of the unit which is "Journeys and Explorers" I consider this text a suitable one to use Timetoast as it helps students to focus on relevant information and to summarize the text effectively. 

To prepare the activity, students have work in pairs.We have moved to our computers room and  first , they have read the text fully during a few minutes. Then , I have aked them to solve all possible doubts regarding vocabulary and finally I have asked them to take note of the important dates the text mentions. Afterwards I have asked them to open Timetoast in their computers and we have gone step by step. The only problems we had have been  those regarding signing up in the website and also that some of the students didn´t have time enough to end up the activity and they had to do it at home (thing they didn´t enjoy much)

I´m satisfied with the result of the activity as students always enjoy using computers, working in pairs and moving to another classroom different to their own, so all these are among the advantages. 

Regarding things I would improve next time, I would mention the distribution of students as the pairs were clearly unbalanced, in the sense that students with a high level of the language worked together whereas much lower ones where in the same pairs. 

Timetoast helped me to achieve my objectives as students where highly motivated when dealing with the text. What is usually a dull activity, it turned out into a motivating one as they grasped form the beginning they were about to do something innovative and creative. It also fosters competitivity since as students had a look to their mates´ tasks they tried to improve theirs and finally students learned about the topic as they were eager to look up in the web pictures and extra info to fulfill their timelines.