lunes, 17 de noviembre de 2014

The future of Education Technology

Learn about how intenet works now and how it will evolve into different and more complex ways of communication:

The internet


Online teaching

Online teaching is increasingly common at many types of higher education institutions, ranging from hybrid courses that offer a combination of in-person and online instruction, to fully online experiences and distance learning. 

domingo, 2 de noviembre de 2014

Make a presentation graphic with Prezi (task)

Students: 10-year-olds or older
Topic: Ancient Greece (Social Studies)

1. Students have read about Ancient Greece in previous classes. They have focused on the following aspects:

Drama
Sports and leisure
Government
Daily life
Childhood and education
The role of women

2. The teacher has asked them to discuss orally about the differences between the Ancient Greece society and ours regarding the previous aspects. 

3. Now, the teacher devides the class into four groups. Two of them will work on Ancient Greece and the others on Current Society. They should make a mind map with Prezi and deliver an oral presentation to the rest of the class. The mind map should include both theory and images accompanying it. Text should be brief and clearly organized. 



Evaluation criteria
a) Accomplishment of the task
b) Appropriate use of the language
c) Appropriate use of the tool



If you are not familiar with this tool, see this tutorial

Have fun!

Make flashcards with Cambride English Online (task)

Students: 9-year-olds
Topic: the jungle (animals and fruit)

1. The teacher reads the rhyming story 'The Parrot Tico Tango' to the students once. Then, students and teacher sing the story out loud. The teacher focuses on items of food that appear in the story as well as animals, making them repeat that vocabulary as he/she tells the story. 

 Find the song HERE

2. Students are given a set of flashcards with pictures of different kinds of food and animals. They should select only those items that appear in the story, and leave the rest aside. 

3. Now the teacher asks the students if they could find all the animals and food that appeared in the story. She tells them to make those flashcards missing, using Cambridge English Online flashcard maker. She guides them through it, so they can insert the image and text intended. 

4. Students print and a colour their flashcards. Once they have finished, they retell the story using them. 

Evaluation criteria
a) Accomplishment of the task
b) Appropriate use of the language
c) Appropriate use of the tool


If you are not familiar with this tool, see this tutorial

Have fun!


Make a meme with Winflip (task)

Students: adolescents or adults
Topic: idioms 

1. Students have been taught several idioms with animals, such as 'as awkward as a cow on roller skates', 'as strong as an ox', 'smell a rat', 'the black sheep of the family', etc. 

2. Now, they should find images on the web that make reference to a literal interpretation of the idiom, for example: a cow on roller skates.

3. They should use the picture to create a meme using the idiom for the text.

4. Later, students will show the meme to their classmates (either a printed copy or from their computers using an overhead projector). They should explain the joke and also talk about the figurate meaning connected to the idiom.




Evaluation criteria
a) Accomplishment of the task
b) Appropriate use of the language
c) Appropriate use of the tool


If you are not familiar with this tool, see this tutorial



Have fun!

Make a poster with Postermywall (task)

Students: 10-year-olds or older.
Topic: enviromental issues (Natural Science)

1. Students have been working with content from Natural Science. They have learnt about the different landscapes (mountain, city, beach) and have investigated about the different problems that people may encounter when living in those areas. For instance: air pollution in the city, dirty beaches and polluted sea, etc.

2. As a final project, students make posters as if they were environmental activists and would like to paste the posters all around the city. In this case instead, students will paste them on the school walls.
They should be creative to construct a text accompanied by the propper background and images, with the purpose of suggesting people a way of taking care of the environment in a persuasive way. 




Evaluation criteria
a) Accomplishment of the task
b) Appropriate use of the language
c) Appropriate use of the tool



If you are not familiar with this tool, see this tutorial

Have fun!

Make a presentation graphic with Prezi (tutorial)

What is a a presentation software?

Presentation software (sometimes called "presentation graphics") is a category of application program used to create sequences of words and pictures that tell a story or help support a speech or public presentation of information.


Benefits of using Prezi

Prezi is a web 2.0 tool to create presentation graphics. It can be used for business and educational purposes. In the English classroom context, Prezi can be very useful for adolescents, as it promotes autonomy and the development summarizing skills. This tool can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, the teacher can ask students to make a presentation graphic about a certain topic of study, to be later used as visual aid in an oral presentation to their classmates. Also, Prezi can be used as a personal tool for students to study for exams. Teacher can also make presentation graphics to be used when introducing a new topic or at the end of a unit, as a way of summarizing ideas. Creators can play with the format of their graphics the way they want, relying on a number of templates helpful to start. Both the graphics and the way the presentation develops are appealing and useful to show how ideas relate to each other in a non-linear way. 

1) Getting started

- Enter www.prezi.com
- Pess on 'log in' in the right up corner to create an account or log in. You can also log in with Facebook or Linkedin. 
- Click on 'New Prezi' to start your project.




2) Make your presentation graphic

- Before you start, choose a template for the structure of your graphic. Click on it and then on 'use template'. You can also choose to start a prezi from scratch if none of the templates fits your purpose. 




- Now, you can start filling in the chart. You can insert a title or add more bubbles. 



- When working on each of the bubbles, you can adjust the features of the text as you like using the set of options given. 




- You can also customize the background image and theme by clicking on 'Customize' on top of the page. 

- If you click on 'Insert' on top of the page, you will find a set of options for you to add elements such as: images, symbols and shapes, a youtube video, draw arrows or lines, highlight text, add background music, etc. When clicking on any of those, a side window will appear for you to choose the image you like, for instance. 



3) Finally

- Once you have finished, you can have a preview of your presentation in full screen. 


- Then, you can share your prezi on facebook, present it remotely, download as a PDF or download as portable prezi.  



- There is no need for you to save it because it saves automatically in your prezi account. So now you can simply press on 'exit' in the right up corner. There you will be able to have a look at your prezi finished. You will be given the same options for saving or downloading as before. You can simply press on 'Your prezis' and there you will find all your projects together with this new one. 





Have a look at a sample presentation graphic by clicking HERE!

See an Activity on Prezi


Have fun!