(Español) TIC, brecha digital y proyectos incluyentes (Material de clase)

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

En el curso 2014-2015 fui la encargada de la docencia de la asignatura “TIC, brecha digital y proyectos incluyentes”, del Máster en Inclusión y Exclusión Educativa de la Universidad de Murcia.

La idea de fondo, la misma de casi todas las asiganturas donde trabajo: aprendizaje basado en tareas, producto final presentado en puesta en común,  evaluación continua y una evaluación final basado en portafolio basado en competencias.  La asignatura tenía una periodicidad semanal con 3 horas de trabajo en cada sesión.

En total el material incluye la guía para estudiantes de 7 actividades y la guía de evaluación:

  • ESTADOS DE LA CUESTIÓN
  • BRECHAS DEL MUNDO DIGITALIZADO
  • CIUDADANÍA EN TIEMPOS 2.0
  • PARTICIPACIÓN 2.0
  • COMPETENCIA DIGITAL
  • ENTORNO PERSONAL DE APRENDIZAJE
  • DESARROLLO COMUNITARIO CON TIC A TRAVÉS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
  • GUÍA DE EVALUACIÓN 2014-2015

Lo urgente, que no me deja casi nunca tiempo a lo importante, así que no había tenido tiempo de compartir el material de clase que hemos usado, pero, por si a alguien le hace algún papel, aquí lo tenéis con una licencia CC-BY-NC-SA, así que, si te es de utilidad, úsalo, mejoralo y vuelve a compartirlo.

Guía completa de la asignatura TIC, brecha digital y proyectos incluyentes 2014-2015

the clearest side of the Dark side: copying The Friskies

I was writing a long intro to this post, but it is not important. This is just for sharing with you the reflections of one of the groups of my students (students of 1st year of the degree in Primary Education Teaching) about the Dark side of TextBooks, as the final part of a task in my class.

Please, take a look and enjoy:

The Dark Side of TextBooks

By Friskihedgehogs

Government and editorials

WE ARE GOING TO START FROM THE END: the relationship between government and editorials and their interests to make money thanks to the educational system (Adell 2010). This situation goes on to a worse and deeper problem, the consciousness of teachers as professionals. The teacher’s creativity melts in a useless tool in which they do not consider themselves like key pieces of the educational process, they rely on the textbook with so fiercely that they have lost the point of teaching. Therefore, the entire planning and lessons are driven throughout the daily class, semester and year with the only contents into the textbook. Besides, the content of the textbooks is something that does not escape from the evil hand of the bias.

Raymond Williams in W. Apple (2000) argues that books are created for people who have a specific knowledge, culture, vision and ideas. If we assume that, we must be aware that the bias and pressure that governments pose over the editorials is overwhelming. Many times, the money editorials make is by linking their products with the ideological purpose of politics. Thus, the benefit of the book sales goes directly to the pockets of those who have the control over the educational system and the editorials. By managing the educational curriculum with that power relationship they decide what materials are used, what teachers must do and what textbooks they must follow. All in all, it is a way to manage the knowledge and the knowledge is power, and the roads from where the knowledge travels are part of the social distribution of power, as it is said by John Fiske in Apple (2000).

Moreover, the next sentence is perfect to grasp the idea “education and power are terms of an indissoluble couplet” (Apple, 2000). This means going so far away, but we want to let this as crystal clear. The neo-Marxist ideas in the sociology of education saw how the official knowledge was distributed and, who controlled its distribution. Therefore, schools act as factories in which the dominant class position is teaching its ideology so as to maintain and legitimatize its social position, Althusser in (J. Saha, 2011).This relevant statement falls dawn on how knowledge is collected into the textbooks and as said before, it is written for someone with an ideology and with a specific intention, perhaps is so rude but, do we need, under such evidence, believe and rely on textbooks to guide our daily lives as teachers? Can we keep going with this textbook in our classroom? Is it not enough all that we know?

The most important fact for me is boys and girls in class, their future as citizens of a society, a society asking them to be competent, but competent under the current society peculiar interest. If we accept the textbook a unique guide, no one is teaching them to be critical, free, dreamers or happy, we are teaching just the contents or even worse, the packet knowledge in a textbook. We will teach them their social class and make them understand where their limits are. Here is the word, “limits”. Whereas, if we teach them where the dominant class is, how they act and how they control society. We will teach them how to be critical boys and girls who will hit this world, we will teach them how to think away from the ideological bias of the textbooks and, of course, make them able to think out of the box.

All in all, we will not set any “limit”, yet we will teach them how to take off to bit this planet. At this point, we consider tackling an important issue, as textbooks are used to deliver the so-called “official knowledge” (Apple, 2000). What are students really learning when an entire class is tied to a textbook? Can we assume that everything stated in a textbook is learned by them? Or even worse, can we assume each teacher teaches exactly what is in a textbook? Without a doubt, every student has a background, cultural basis, religious, families and an SES which differ from another; otherwise, we do not have our lovely diversity. Besides, we cannot assume the students are blank sheets eager to be painted with an amount of information, information that is supposed to be the body of knowledge with which they can obtain the Promised Land. They are not passively reading the book or learning from it, they have their own thinking and beliefs (Apple, 2000).

ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING FEATURES OF THIS TOPIC IS; what is it inside of a textbook? How is the information distorted? And, how are political interests in? “Textbooks introduce young people to an existing cultural and socio-economic order with its relations of power and domination” (Crawford, ND). Crawford states in his research about textbooks analysis an evidence of how many textbooks around the world contain bias depending on the political interest, for instance, in Spain they found evidence on how editorials have to provide the history of a region in 8 different forms in a textbook  by Makay (1997) in (Crawford, ND). There is an European organization, The Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in German which is in charge to analyse, compare and identified, historical, political and geographical presentations in the textbook (Crawford, ND). Knowing about the existence of this institution is ok; however, it does not solve the real issue, the manipulation of textbooks distribution and contents under political interests.  Thus, what could we do as a teacher? Of course, the answer is far to be easy, because we cannot change the whole system but, by knowing what politics and editorials do, we can manage the planning and the classroom and go deeper or not in a topic if we use our critical thinking about the textbook.

At this point, we want to state that critical thinking will help us to engage our students to be critical as well, and as a result, either teachers or students can start a flame which can be the first step to change the entire educational system. Because knowledge it has not to be in a textbook, knowledge is surrounding us, it is anywhere, in different forms, knowledge is drifting among us in our daily lives, knowledge is free and it is the seed of other knowledge. Knowledge is delivered and shared with our friends, parents, teachers, museums, cinemas, pictures, drawings, etc. Knowledge is alive, and it has no limits, no boundaries. This statement drives us directly to the controversy in our country, Spain, in which editorials are trying not to lose money with ridiculous arguments while sinking in a lake of reality. They blame the government for encouraging schools for hacking; they state the schools are spending money on devices with no content; and, something funny, they argue that there are no evidence that ICTs are good at all (Adell , 2010).

The fear of losing privileges and money is evident. It is like a tantrum of a kid because there is no chocolate left to eat. They are not aware of that knowledge is free. As Adell (2010) claim, the content textbooks, the inadequate web support offered by editorials and, libraries full of books are nothing without the teachers’ work because the content does not teach by itself. Also, there are several groups of teachers sharing planning, methodologies, and documents completely free which give us the opportunity to take the planning from other schools (Adell , 2010).

It does not surprise us that editorials become mad in front of such evidence. But the idea is brilliant. We can share everything just with a click. The good news is that we will have the opportunity to develop our method or planning in a group and when we say “in group” we mean the entire earth. Thanks, the internet we can chat with any teacher or headmaster of any school wherever. The amount of experience, knowledge and wisdom are tremendous. Besides, we can compare with others what they did and what they tried, just to avoid mistakes committed before. The real benefit is that knowledge will be growing nonstop with no limit.

The textbook and some limitations

WE DO NOT WANT TO GO SO FAR AWAY FROM THE REAL ISSUE, but the theory of multiple intelligences argues that each individual has a number of specific abilities (J.W., 2011). As teachers, we must provide the best path for our students for powered their abilities and spark their motivation to learn and to learn how to learn. Howard Gardner (2002) stated that every human being has eight kinds of intelligence, verbal, spatial, Body-Kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and natural. Let’s be honest, if we all wish the best for our future children, how can we help them develop their intelligences with a unique textbook? They will need better resources in and out of the classroom, materials with which they can have a cascade of information and knowledge in many different forms. Audio, visual, and media support are offered nowadays by ICTs, but not only ICTs, also the creativity and ability of any teacher is required to deal with the daily live in schools because each child is different and each topic or subject can be approach from thousands of different ways. We, as teachers have the power to adapt the content for our pupils, make it easy for them to understand, and it requires a heuristic point of view, a creative form of working, and a background of knowledge about real resources that we can use to do it. What we want to highlight here is the clever eye of the teacher in a classroom, the teacher must be out of the fixed textbooks which forcing and driving the planning, organization, and the knowledge weekly, monthly and annually. Not only is the use of ICTs important but a great deal of creativity is needed for mastering the process of teaching-learning into a classroom.

THE DYNAMIC CONTEXT OF A CLASSROOM AND SCHOOLS where thousands of interpersonal interchanges take place among student and teachers is named “the social traffic of the classroom” (Jackson, 1966). Besides, Louis Cozolino made the foreword in the book The Invisible Class (Olson, 2014) in which he states the importance of pay attention to The Invisible Class. This idea highlights the thousands of neurological and human connection that take place in the classroom forming the context for teaching between student and teachers. This concept looks after the planning in a classroom and how schools should pay attention to emotions that each student has in class and how these emotions fly among individuals either in classroom or schools (Olson, 2014). Obviously, we cannot rely on the textbook as unique allied for us due to the emotional factors. A textbook is not flexible as we can be, a textbook has not the emotions that we can pose over a topic, a textbook is anything but useful if it is not managed wisely (here, we are to do it). A textbook has not had into account the multiple interactions created in a classroom because a classroom is more than few people speaking or doing exercises. Both teachers and children have emotions and feelings that make them unique as the classroom is (Olson, 2014).

From this point, we may consider how quick a teacher has to manage each question made by students, how to manage the rhythm of a classroom with every child having a different question for a unique topic. SO, how can we solve the questions each child arises? Of  course, if we have a unique textbook, the pressure from editorials arguing that use free resources are hacking (what means teachers are delinquent), and if we have to follow the organization and the planning set in a textbook (Adell , 2010). One this is clear, a textbook is not the answer and, it is way far to be a helpful tool, even though, editorials cannot accept that because they have not the power to conduct our lives as teachers. Whereby, the creativity, the free planning before hand’s curriculum and the flexibility that our planning must have, it is not possible to find it in a textbook.  It is in our hands and minds ready to be used, ready to be shared with others, ready to be useful for our student ready to be delivered worldwide and, of course, ready to push our student to this ocean full of wisdom, thanks, everyone who shares knowledge. we want to state that knowledge and the production of it must be free. Moreover, easy to share and flexible to model, not to mention, it is a necessity that knowledge must be as easily reachable for anyone as possible. Here, we are the future generation of teachers to carry out our magnificent planning which will serve as an example for others, full of creativity, new ideas, and ingenuity, and devised to squeeze the best part of our pupils. By thinking out of biased textbooks, which only serve  the interest of politics and editorials, we can help students, letting them go deeper in a specific subject or topic, loading them with strength and passions and, letting for them the doors to learn open wide.

PESTALOZZI ARGUED THAT THE CHILDREN ARE EAGER TO LEARN, keen to discover the narrow corners of this world (Château, 1956). Thus, a methodology in which textbooks are the only tool to manage the school life must not be taken into account. On one hand, we must be ready to accept in any given moment a possible change in our planning, due to the fact that children can choose to go deeper into a given topic and to do that a textbook only helps to change a page for another (not so special I could say). On the other hand, a good connexion to the Internet might help us, and a method used from others could be useful as well. But it is important not to forget the key fact; we, the teachers, because if we assume that textbooks (with their content alone) are useless, then we must understand that ICTs are nothing without our abilities to make them useful for children. It is not about burying textbooks and fill schools with technology, it is about how we use different resources and technology, more accurately we should say TPACK, or technological pedagogical content knowledge, which is a framework of work in which teachers combine this three elements to manage, adapt and show a given topic for students (Mishra, 2009). This idea shows with hard evidence what kinds of abilities a good teacher must master, of course, far from the old-fashioned textbooks.

TO SUM THINGS UP, we could say the week was great and all of us have learn a great amount of things, from how editorials manage the official knowledge which is made in benefit of dominant class, politics interests tied to editorial textbooks creations, the distorted reality in textbooks because government wants to conceal the darkest past or present of a country, even the voice of teachers praying for liberty when using new tools and methodologies in blogs. So, as a future teacher we think this was a great week, a week that has sparked in our inside a flame, a crave to hit this educational-political-editorial hegemony, to hit them hard, in the stomach. We are aware how big they are, but they don’t seem to realize how the power of shared-knowledge is growing. In fact, every moment they waste in summits praying for government regulations against sharing knowledge. A superb amount of information and knowledge is not only created but also shared throughout the world. Just a word comes to my mind:   PASSION-KNOWLEDGE-LIMITLESS.

References:

Adell, J. (2010). Carta a los editores de libros de textoJordi Adell (@jordi_a): edu & tec. Retrieved 14 March 2016, from http://elbonia.cent.uji.es/jordi/2010/06/06/carta-a-los-editores-de-libros-de-texto/
Adell, J. (2011). Lecturas sobre libros de textoJordi Adell (@jordi_a): edu & tec. Retrieved 14 March 2016, from http://elbonia.cent.uji.es/jordi/2011/07/18/lecturas-sobre-libros-de-texto/
Apple, M. W. (2010). CULTURAL POLITICS AND THE TEXT. Routledge, 42-60.
Château, J. (1956). Los Grandes Pedagogos. Paris: Fondo de cultura Económica.
Crawford, K. (ND). Researching the Ideological and Political Role of the History Textbook -. 1-6.
Jackson, P. W. (1966). The student’s World. The elementary School Journal, 345-357.
Mishra, M. J. (2009). What Is Technological Pedagogical Content. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 60-70.
Olson, K. (2014). The Invisible Clasroom. Relationships, neuroscience & Mindfullnes. New York: W.W Norton & Company.
Saha, L. J. (2011). Sociology of education.”21 Century Education: A Reference Handbook.SAGE. Australian National University.
Santrock, J.W. (2011) “Educational Psycology” 5th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hil

Needless to say, the portfolio was evaluated (not only rated) enthusiastically, and I strongly invite you to give out their work (especially the reflections included) on their final eportfolio http://friskyhedgehogseportfolio.weebly.com/.

And why I take advantage of their job to fill my blog? uh!  because for several reasons:

  • Because it has a beautiful CC License,  I take advantage of their knowledge :-).
  • Because the reflection is very good, especially from the perspective of a  future teacher, so I used to bring one of my favorite topics to blog: the dark side of textbooks.
  • Because having students as them, is a gift (I have more, and I’m very proud of what we do in class, all because they do :-)) and when they do work of this quality I do not want more than show it (hopefully you visit their portfolio) and learn from them.
  • Because we (lecturers) complain a lot about the lack of reflection, but I still think that much of what we need has to do with not define what reflection means; so, when they (or we) want to think, the majority of them do not go beyond “elaborate descriptions”.
  • Because I questioned a lot about what we do not ask them more, why we do not give them more, why we do not encourage them more…

Thank you guys, thank you very much.

Performance Roles Reinterpreted

Those who you spend some time around here, maybe you remember than in subjects in which I teach, we work in groups and use performance roles. I told here some time ago in this blog post about roles.

As I told you then, results have been diverse, but I still use them because the students’ work is very rich… at least have told us and gives me the impression.

However, as we told you in previous works, sometimes afraid not always get organizing the experience for students to be aware of what is required in each role, the essence of their performance.

Even when they give instructions, we know that students make their own interpretation of the instructions and they build their own idea of what to do (back to Sellander, 2008).

So this year, in one of the activities, I have asked students to make a video (30 “) in which they show to other colleagues, the 10 keys to achieve each of the roles in the best way possible.

Here are the results:

Journalist

Facilitator

Curator


Star



Translator

Analyst

In almost all cases I think the essence of the work is clear, although I confess that analysts have been not as precise as I would like -it is no so rare, considering it is undoubtedly the most complex-role-. I will have to work more on defining the role and make some activity so that it is better specified.

As always, thanks to my students that make all this possible 🙂

Selander & the #Rict1516 Fair

On May 17th, we celebrated -my students and myself, in the hall of the faculty, a new edition of our “Fair of Technology Enhanced Didactic Activities”. As you probably remember, last year we invite you to come 🙂 and after that, we show you a little of what had happened there.

This year, in addition to telling a bit of the story, I want to take advantage of this blog post to emphasize the rationale of that “show”, beyond its playful nature, the idea of being together and doing the students’ work more visible, as well as opening windows reality on the walls of our classroom.

I want to do it, because sometimes, the “lights” and “lanterns” of the fair, do not let us see everything that is an “event” like this, and maybe, make this reflection would help me to organize my thoughts and, who knows, maybe, this would encourage you to give me better ideas to improve it.

The Fair was created with the intention of serve as event presentation of the students’ work, but with the difference that, in this time, the work is assessed but not graded, i.e., is an event in where the goal is, specifically, to conduct a formative evaluation of the work (this is the final work of the course). Both by the teacher of the subject that gives feedback one to one to all groups, about all jobs; by other classmates that are passing by the exhibitors; by other students of the faculty who pass; as well as by other teachers of the faculty that can approach.

After the event, I put a “mark” (the 10% of the final grade for the course) for his staging of the work at the fair (effort, organization exhibitor, and exhibition, etc.), but they still have 2 and a half weeks to finish, profiling and “round up” their activity before the final submission of it for final summative evaluation and, of course, for the qualification.

This idea fits with the notion of The Secondary Transformation Unit, in the Learning Design Sequences described by Sttaffan Selander in his 2008 paper, and summarized quite well when he says::

A sequence starts when the teacher introduces a new task and sets the conditions for the work. The Primary Transformation Unit then entails the interpretation of the task and the setting, and the process of transformation and formation of knowledge – by way of different modes and media. The Secondary Transformation Unit starts with students presenting their work. If the goals, as well as the expectations of the process and the product, are clearly defined and explained in the beginning, both students and teachers will have a powerful tool for reflection and evaluation. During the whole sequence, teachers make interventions and have the possibility to reflect on the signs and indications of learning that occur during the process. (Selander, 2008: 15)

Thus, Selander represents the complete sequences bellow

"Learning Design Sequences". Sellander, 2008.
“Learning Design Sequences.” Selander, 2008.

It is, as we told you last year in the JUTE (Castañeda, Adell & Llopis, 2015), getting foster “a second part of learning, beyond the feedback of the task; getting a third phase in which the possibility of remaking the task under the light of that feedback, as well as reflect on what was learned in the process”, get to think and rethink what we are creating, allow us to learn more and better.

We’ll see 😉

REFERENCES:

Selander, S. (2008). Designs for learning: A theoretical perspective. Designs for Learning, 1(1), 10-23 Disponible en http://doi.org/10.16993/dfl.5

Castañeda, L. Adell, J. & LLopis, M.A. (2015). Cinco años de reflexiones y diálogos docentes a propósito de la asignatura de Tecnologías Aplicadas a la Educación. Comunicación presentada a las JUTE 2015. Badajoz, mayo de 2015.

By the way! If you want to see how was the show this year, here are some of super-dinosaur footprints:

Tools on the Bloom’s eyes

If you’ve been here sometimes before, surely you shall know that I do not think that, after 60 years since its publication, we have to keep -“almost with devotion”- looking at the famous “Bloom’s Taxonomy” (here’s the explanation http://www.lindacastaneda.com/Mushware/nobloom /).

However, when I’m asking my students to design an ICT enriched educational activity, where ICT could do more than decoration, and also where they could get from their future students, much more than repetition or identifying, I find tremendously useful the approach to ICT from the Bloom’s Taxonomy perspective, but Bloom’s understood as a list of “thinking skills”.

As a final artifact of that exercise to start thinking about how to develop higher order thinking skills using ICT (Wow! indeed this is the goal), I have taken this year “borrowed” an idea that I saw in the educatorstechnology Blog , and I have asked to my students if they would find a tool of the web 2.0, and would propose an activity they could design with that tool that helps to develop each Bloom’s Taxonomy thinking skills (at least one activity for each thinking skill), and if they would express the list, creating a table / infographic / image that gathers together.

Now it’s time to share them with you on the Pinterest board where we have put together and, hopefully, over the years can be made larger.


 

Another way to think about complexity

One of the subjects where I teach is “School Organization and Educational Resources” for the  bilingual group of first-year students at the degree in Primary Education at my University (University of Murcia).

One of the first things I like working with my students when we come to speak about “the organization”, is try to understand complexity in education, everything that has to do with it and, very specifically, to the school as complex context.
I must confess, however, that these kinds of topics I find difficult to work; I guess because in the first year of degree and especially for those very young people, it is difficult to see the importance of issues as “tacit” and little “touchable” as the complex relations between the elements of a system. So, I try to make approaches to content analysis involving the concept, but, as closer as possible to reality.

On this occasion I suggested to my students the following task:

They must review the first chapter of the book Teaching and learning in the digital age de Louise Starkey (we have also worked using the 4th, but I’ll tell you soon), which speaks “simply” about 6 issues related to complexity in schools:

  • Complexity theory
  • The context of a complex organization
  • The emerging knowledge through connections
  • Diversity and redundancy
  • The balance between randomless and deterministic order
  • Theory of complexity and change in schools

I asked students who, after reading the text, should seek in the news last year (national or international), 1 news illustrate each of these issues. Each group conducted a newspaper where he exhibited his news and the relationship between the news and issues we work (here you can see some example  1 , here another 2, another more 3  and  finally another more 4

Once they made the newspapers, the whole class chose 6 articles that will help illustrate the concepts worked and the performed -among all (self-management and self-organization)- a News TV Show, with 6 news that try to illustrate how complex is the complexity of schools. Here you can see the result:

Here the links from the real news:

1 Hoy comienza la Semana Cultural del colegio Camilo Hernández. http://goo.gl/zctD1d
2 BBC News Is South Korean education ‘best in world’? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFpTd…
3 Un colegio en Vallecas, sin libros ni deberes. http://goo.gl/8Q4JUj
4 Colegios innovadores… sin salir de España http://goo.gl/cbEwfz
5 Unique Uses of Twitter in the Classroom http://goo.gl/DrrdnL
6 La educación virtual http://goo.gl/CdiXsp

… It is not very long, so I invite you to watch it complete to value their work and give us some feedback: to students about whatever you want (please, treat them softly, take into account they already have enough with suffering a teacher like me), and to me, on the activity itself.

I worry that the video could “tarnishes” the important of the issue, the activity “eat” the content and the eflection, yet they continue to make their reflections in the group blog … nevertheless, “traditional” approaches do not ensure that they will focus on “the important thing” … so it only remains to explore and go in the direction of what we know: authentic learning, use of reality, reflection, collaborative work … at least try .. .

Well, you will say to me … I’m looking forward to hearing from you all…

 

#RICT1415 AcTICvities Fair

As I told you in the previous post, today May 19, we have made fair activididades of the subject R & ICT with students in the first year of the Degree in Primary Education.
For all of you who have been here and give you your support and feedback, thank you. For those who couldn’t come, we have made a compilation of the fair’s digital footprint just for taking a look on it if you want.

We hope that you may come next time.
Thanks as always to my students for making these moments possible.

Invitación AcTICvities Fair 2015

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

Los estudiantes de primero del grupo bilingüe del grado de Educación Primaria de la Universidad de Murcia, están terminando de desarrollar sus proyectos de actividades didácticas con TIC en el marco de la asignatura “Research & ICT”.
Se trata de proyectos en los que se pretende que propongan actividades enriquecidas con tecnología, no sólo que usen la tecnología como un adorno y que -sin olvidar el currículo que nos obliga- tengan las miras lo más altas posible. Estamos en la fase final de estos desarrollos y antes de terminar, nos encantaría recibir un poco de feedback que pueda enriquecer su trabajo más allá de nuestra clase.
Por ello nos encantaría invitaros a la feria que tendrá lugar mañana 19 de mayo en el Hall de la Facultad de 9:30 a 12 del día. Durante todo ese tiempo, cada grupo de clase expondrá en un stand su actividad para que podáis acercaos un poco más a su trabajo, conozcáis la actividad y podáis sugerirles aquello que consideréis más pertinente; nos encantaría veros a todos por allí y si queréis que vuestros estudiantes vengan, sería perfecto verles por allí
Las exposiciones estarán disponibles en inglés y en español, dependiendo de la preferencia de nuestros visitantes que esperamos seáis muchos e intentaremos retransmitir todo lo que se pueda por los canales habituales (Twitter, instagram, facebook, etc. usando el hashtag #rict1415.
Si os podéis pasar por aquí, será un enooorme placer veros.

Dark side of Text books, a bit more

As you probably know, each year in one of the subjects I teach SO&ER (for School Organization & Educational Resources) we try to make an approach to traditional resources and I do an special activity about textbooks called, “The Dark side of textbooks” (some chronics from other years here #soyer1112 and  the entire guide of the activity here with some explanation about why I teach only the “dark” and so on.

This year we have just finished this activity, and I want to share with you some new paths we have explore this year and that I do like:

Firstly, my students have read!! (yes something, not the library, but something) and it has been a great pleasure to see them thinking and showing their thoughts on their work. The result: some interesting reflections (they are 1st year students SO I think is quite nice) .

Here you can see a Pinterest board with some of their works (in English and translated into Spanish)

Sigue el tablero El lado Oscuro de los libros de texto de Linda en Pinterest.

English (original) Español (traducciones)
Sigue el tablero Darkside of Textbooks de Linda en Pinterest.

And the second thing that I liked,  is that I have introduced a new thing that has helped us to “close”  better the process of the activity itself. Let me explain:

As you probably know, each group must present a graphical representation of the problem of textbooks, this year using infographics or comics or creating a Twitter timeline. The point that I’m concerned about is that I have the impression that the learning process ends with the creation of the artifact (computer graphics and comics), and how realize that they bring it into the class and that sharing the artifact add something to the learning process… and in that I think we were “uncomplete”…  so, this year, I asked them for doing something during the f2f session in the classroom: while the star of the group (here we told how the roles are organized in class) he stayed on a class room with his “creation” (as in an art gallery ), the rest of the group should visit all the other creations (artifacts = comics, infographies and so on) and should do the work of a curator of a museum exhibition (sorry in advance to the curators for this simplification): giving an alternative title to each work, highlight the key points for everyone, establish criteria for sorting and design an “ideal” visit to a virtual museum visitors of the “The Dark Side of Text Books @ SO&ER1415”.

I needed that they see carefully to their peers and to strive to understand what they had done and what it meant as an artifact of representation and communication.

The overall result I found very interesting … Below you can find an example of these “exhibits” which is presented in a particularly “visual” although there are other equally interesting…

Hope you like it:-) Ah! and if you are curious about the things that my students make, here’s the planet with all their blogs

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Actividades enriquecidas con tecnología, el trabajo de los R&ICT1314

En la asignatura de R&ICT (1er curso del grado en Educación Primaria, grupo bilingüe) hemos trabajado todo el año con un proyecto que me gustaría contaros para lo de siempre, si os gusta que uséis lo que os parezca y si tenéis alguna sugerencia que –amablemente jeje- me la hagáis: durante todo el curso hemos diseñado en grupos de 2 o 3 personas lo que hemos llamado una Actividad Didáctica enriquecida con tecnología.

Para hacerlo lo primero que hicimos fue hablar de metas (goals), la idea era pensar en qué queremos realmente que los alumnos aprendan, partiendo de que si en realidad se trata de “enriquecer” la actividad didáctica, será porque aspiramos a algo más que recordar o entender (aunque ya sabéis que no soy la más Bloomer 😉 ). La idea era, partiendo del tema que quisiéramos abordar (siempre desde el Curriculum oficial y la impresionante revisión de Fernando Trujillo), darle vueltas a qué verbos vamos a poner en marcha con los estudiantes… así que les pedí que pusieran esos verbos en un padlet:

Una vez puestos los verbos en ese tablón, hicimos una reflexión en clase sobre qué significaban y qué consecuencias tenían en las actividades. Ahora con eso, Jane Challinor en su visita (a la que le debo un post) nos hizo reflexionar un poco sobre la importancia de lo multimedia y de buscar y curar información relevante que nos ayude a no diseñar la rueda de nuevo, así que cada grupo hizo un tablón de pinterest para que sirviera como centro de organización de información relacionada con su futura actividad: Captura de pantalla 2014-06-30 a la(s) 01.56.36 Entonces empezamos a trabajar en estrategia metodológica –qué van a hacer tus futuros alumnos- y además tocamos lo que parece que todo el mundo opina que debería ser lo único que deberíamos dar en clase: las herramientas y, cómo no, de evaluación. Para eso tuvimos la suerte de tener en clase a Manel Rives, quien nos contó unas cuántas cosas sobre creatividad, centros de interés, lo que son capaces de hacer los alumnos y herramientas móviles para trabajar con los estudiantes.

Con esa primera aproximación, los estudiantes debían preparar su actividad para presentarla en una feria presencial que hicimos en el hall de la facultad (aquí tenéis algunas fotos de la feria ) El objetivo de la feria era presentar el “todo” preparado y recibir feedback antes de la evaluación: tanto de la profe (yo), como de los visitantes de nuestra feria, quienes después- si querían- podían rellenar una encuesta en red que dejamos disponible con un código QR que pusimos en cada stand. La nota media de nuestros visitantes fue un 8,26 (sí, son muy amables :-)) e hicieron algunos comentarios de los que os enseñamos en la siguiente nube de palabras. Captura de pantalla 2014-06-30 a la(s) 02.22.12 Con ese feedback, los estudiantes debían presentar la actividad reformulada en una página de TACKK (por uniformar decidimos esta herramienta que fuera MUY muy fácil y que dejara un resultado estéticamente similar). En esa página web debían incluirse lo que lamamos “The basics of the activity”: es decir: goals, process, teacher’s guide, assessment criteria and instrument, etc; Tutorial(s) for using the ICT tools that are used on the activity; Example of the final artifact the potential students must do.; Author’s individual PLE & reflection about the subject. Captura de pantalla 2014-06-30 a la(s) 01.40.03 Era importante que todo el proceso (sí desde el principio) se gestionase dentro de los grupos a través de una herramienta de gestión de proyectos llamada Trello que me ayudó a hacer un seguimiento más o menos al día de lo que iban haciendo mis estudiantes. Captura de pantalla 2014-06-30 a la(s) 01.56.36 El resultado de las actividades queremos que sirva en la medida de lo posible a profes, así que hemos realizado una tabla que dejamos buscable a todos los interesados y que, gracias al plugin Tablepress para WordPress, ya se ha agregado a una página de la sección “docencia” de este sitio web . [table “1” not found /]

Eso es lo que hemos hecho… ahora me queda hacer reflexión sobre el trabajo, pero lo dejaré para otro post. Quisiera agradecer sinceramente la inspiración y ayuda que mi amigo y compañero Manel Rives que me ayudó a pensar en toda la estructura del proceso y hacerlo, y obviamente quiero agradecer a mis estudiantes por el trabajo que han hecho y por ser la razón que hace que siga deseando que venga el año que viene y empezar otra vez…

¡Gracias por todo! (y van 34)

And @londones come to visit us…

El 10 de marzo la clase de School Organization & Educational Resources (#soyer1314) y yo misma, tuvimos una de esas oportunidades para aprender que el buen hacer de otros profes cercanos nos dan, nos vino a ver una maga 🙂
En concreto, tuvimos la increíble oportunidad de tener un ratico a Mercedes Ruiz (AKA @londones) en clase, que nos presentara a Doña díriga, que nos contara su perspectiva sobre la educación, que nos contara su experiencia en el cole en Londres, que nos hiciera un hueco en su tiempo y su agenda para ponernos a pensar en la educación desde otras perspectivas y que nos dejara ese sabor de boca que los buenos siempre dejan: sabor dulce aunque corto ;-).
Ma del Mar Sánchez y la misma Mercedes nos habían invitado a tomar parte en la experiencia de blogmaniacos -que realmente me parece preciosa- pero
Aquí podéis ver un poquito de lo que pasó en clase http://youtu.be/z8nC-u97TuY.
Además podéis ver algunas de las impresiones de los estudiantes en sus propios blog de grupo:
http://hideandandseek.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/my-dear-classmates-lastmonday-10-th-of.html#comment-form

http://t8tteam.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/londones-session-or-breaking-stereotypes.html

http://7brainstorming.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/presentacion-de-mercedes.html

http://cmontutankamon.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/mercedes-ruizs-visit.html

http://giveme7blog.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/image-composition-for-londones.html

http://stepbystepineducation.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/londones-activities.html

http://thelittleants.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/mercedes-ruizs-class.html

http://theteachleaderssoyer.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/mercedes-ruizs-class.html#comment-form

Agunos grupos han recogido el regalo de …¿y si enlazamos los blogs de los compañeros de grupos para poder enriquecernos todos y compartir?
En la parte derecha de esos blogs ¡ya no están solos!

Gamificación: explorando qué podía haber más allá de los estimulitos.

Allá por junio del año pasado os contaba algunos de los pensamientos que me ocupaban cuando pensaban en esa palabra tan trendy que es la “gamificación”.

Carles Bellver (@carlesbellver), alguien que no suele ser de opinión –ni simpatía- fácil y por eso aprecio tanto todas las suyas, me comentó a cuenta de ese post algunas buenas ideas sobre aquello que aporta la gamificación y, aunque había más cosas, recuerdo que me quedó sonando en la cabeza un par de palabras que me parecieron básicas: motivación y evaluación formativa.

Así que este primer cuatrimestre, con mis compañeros de asignatura (Isabel Gutiérrez y Jose Luis Serrano Sánchez), decidimos emprender una aventura más ligada al desarrollo de la asignatura de TIC y Educación Social aunque, a diferencia de la parte del trabajo por roles (en el que hay mucha más literatura científica que nos echaba manos y además ya acumulamos algunos años de experiencia), fuera una aventura para probar. Hemos leído alguna cosita de gamificación, aunque hay poco que nos bajara “tanto” a la realidad… así que hemos ido probando… por eso no es este un post para “sentar bases” de nada, sólo es un post para compartir nuestras impresiones y motivaciones.

Teníamos claro que nuestros Badgets tenían que cumplir con las dos características de las que os hablaba más arriba: debían servir para motivar el trabajo de nuestros estudiantes –especialmente el que se centra en las áreas más complicadas- y tenían que reforzar el carácter formativo de la evaluación que creemos indispensable, y para ello debían cumplir con varias premisas:

    • Puede haber badges “puntuales” y “competitivos” pero esos actuarán como los estimulitos de Miss Sonia (o los “minipuntos”) y aportarán poco a la evaluación formativa, por eso debemos hacer que sean sólo anecdóticos.
    • El objetivo NO es generar competición entre los estudiantes, es motivarles.
    • Los badges básicos deberían implementarse estructuralmente en la evaluación de la aignatura, no deben ser accesorios.
    • Cada uno de los badgets tiene que tener repercusión en la nota de los estudiantes (lo que no se califica es ignorado sistemáticamente por los estudiantes), pero mantener los badgets y/o mejorarlos debe tener una recompensa “extra”.
    • Para que la mejora tenga lugar es imprescindible que haya “niveles” en los badges. No se trata sólo de hacer algo “bien”, sino de tener además posibilidad de mejora.
    • Por eso mismo deben estar ligados preferentemente a los aspectos cruciales del trabajo.
    • Perder el badge es posible perderlo… y con el todos los “beneficios extra” de los que hablábamos antes… debemos mantener el nivel de interés (motivación).

Con estos básicos (y usando la herramienta ClassBadges: http://classbadges.com) establecimos algunos badges básicos y los pusimos en juego.
Como en el caso de los roles de los que hablamos en un post anterior, os los ponemos tal cual los propusimos a los estudiantes y esperamos sinceramente vuestros comentarios o sugerencias al respecto.

Badges en juego en #esytic1314:

Pensador de plata: la reflexión de la semana de nuestro grupo suele ser mayoritariamente reflexión dialógica o crítica (valga apuntar que la clase sobre tipos de reflexión y formas de hacerla la dimos el primer día de clase).

Pensador de oro: la mayoría de nuestras reflexiones son reflexiones críticas.

Traductor novel: las definiciones aportadas tienen calidad y suelen ser reelaboraciones valiosas del conocimiento.

Traductor maestro: el contenido de los términos incluidos en el glosario es de excelente calidad formal y de contenido, son reelaboraciones valiosas del conocimiento.

Curador novel: recopila y organiza de manera esquemática información relevante en diferentes formatos e idiomas. La información es actual. Se incluyen más de 5 referencias además de las propuestas por los profesores como básicas.

Maestro Curador: recopila y organiza en un mapa mental digital las referencias de la información usada en diferentes formatos e idiomas, La información es actual. Se incluyen más de 5 referencias además de las propuestas por los profesores como básicas y el esquema explicita el proceso que se ha seguido en el uso de esa información en el marco de la actividad.

Confieso que el resultado de la experiencia fue interesante, aunque en términos de motivación es peor de lo que nos esperábamos y el trabajo de mantener este tipo de feedback es MUY exigente para los profes (imaginaos en un horizonte de 80 alumnos por aula); no obstante, creemos que en algunos casos tener claro el horizonte ha servido para aumentar la motivación y creemos que pueden ser una forma de llamar la atención sobre rúbricas de evaluación preestablecidas o de hacer más autoevaluación del trabajo por parte de los alumnos antes de entregar los trabajos.
Lo dicho, es nuestra experiencia y como tal la compartimos con vosotros, esperamos que os sea de alguna utilidad.

Roles para el trabajo en equipo: experiencias y nuevos caminos

Desde hace unos años mis estudiantes y yo llevamos a cabo las asignaturas con un trabajo basado en tareas que llevan a cabo ellos -siempre les digo que mi objetivo es trabajar lo menos posible- en grupos formados por entre 6 y 8 miembros. Estos grupos, además de la tarea que tengan pendiente cada semana, asumen de forma rotativa una serie de roles que incluyen determinadas responsabilidades dentro del grupo.
Después de 4 cursos (en cada curso solemos trabajar 3-4 asignaturas con este modelo) trabajando de esta manera, hemos probado algunos roles que tengo ganas de compartir con vosotros, para ver qué os parecen:

El Facilitador
Suele ser el jefe de grupo esa semana, reparte roles, organiza el trabajo, recibe instrucciones extraordinarias si las hay, está pendiente del trabajo del grupo y resuelve conflictos internos y externos

El Historiador
Es el encargado de contar la historia del grupo. Hace la crónica de la semana y nos da pistas de cómo han organizado los días y cómo han trabajado. Se le suele pedir que sea muy multimedia en su relato… Total libertad.

El explorador
Debe echar vistazos al entorno e incluir en el blog de grupo una reseña de al menos un sitio interesante en la Web para su profesión (y en relación con el contenido de la asignatura), y de algo de alguno de los blogs de sus compañeros que le haya llamado la atención. En ambos casos es imprescindible comentar en el sitio original y hacer la reseña en el propio blog

El analista
Evalúa -con arreglo a una rúbrica básica- el desempeño de cada uno de sus compañeros. Además lidera la reflexión de aprendizaje del grupo. Suele tener algunas pistas de qué reflexión le pedimos, debe responder a cosas como ¿qué se pretendía en la tarea?,¿qué habéis aprendido?¿qué te va a ser útil en el futuro?¿qué es lo más inútil de la tarea?¿lo más divertido?…. Entre otras varias (a las preguntas de estas reflexiones le hemos dado muchas vueltas, especialmente con el profesor Jordi Adell de la UJI con quien solemos compartir calentamientos de cabeza relativos a nuestras clases, porque son seguramente lo que más echamos en falta, la reflexión de los estudiantes).

Estrella
Es el encargado de representar al grupo. Es la voz del grupo en las puestas en común de los trabajos, así como el protagonista del artefacto que estemos construyendo en cada actividad (si, normalmente las actividades tienen un “artefacto” final para hacer) sea éste un vídeo, una presentación en pechakucha, un debate…

El administrador
Que se encarga del blog y la vida 2.0 del grupo. Revisa los posts de estilo y forma, tuitea, administra las cuentas 2.0 que se vaya creando el grupo, responde a los comentarios, etc… En fin! Se encarga de la Identidad digital del grupo.

Estos venían siendo “los clásicos”, las preguntas de la reflexión han ido cambiando, algunos roles se han juntado (por consejo de los estudiantes o a la vista de resultados) aumentando las funciones de algunos (facilitador-administrador, por ejemplo; aunque este cuatrimestre hemos compartido la asignatura de Educación Social con mis compañeros Isabel Gutiérrez y José Luis Serrano -con los que afortunadamente comparto asignatura e ideas ;-))- y hemos reformulado esos y hemos incorporado dos roles nuevos:

El curador
El miembro del grupo que debe organizar en un mapa mental (se recomienda el uso de una herramienta de mindmapping en red) las referencias (sí la referencia en APA Style -la broma del Gangham style ya la hemos hecho ;-)) de todos los recursos que usaban para documentar y trabajar las actividades, de manera que tuviéramos -ellos y nosotros- una visión de las fuentes de información que se usan en la asignatura.

El Traductor

Que debe elegir los 5 términos clave que se trabajan en cada actividad y definirlos con sus propias palabras -pero con base en la literatura- en menos de 500 palabras cada uno.

Este cuatrimestre he vuelto a reformular para el trabajo con mis alumnos del grupo bilingüe (#soyer1314), he juntado roles, y he creado uno nuevo que agrega labores al curador y que además por primera vez tiene una herramienta concreta asociada (no suelo usar marcas en clase…

The curator-farmer
Básicamente es el mismo curador, pero ahora además de las APA Style, debe cultivar, con toda la info de las fuentes de información usadas ubicadas en red, y de los sitios donde dejan huellas o visitan, el árbol del grupo en Pearltrees

La experiencia ha resultado apasionante…. los resultados son muy variados… Y, aunque tengo “evidencias” del cambio para bien en mis estudiantes (responsabilidad, impicación, experiencia de organización, etc.), NO creo que haya receta alguna que vaya bien en todas partes y que obre milagros en ningún aula… Así que esto no es un recetario, sólo quería compartir con vosotros algo más de lo que hacemos en nuestras clases, por si alguien quiere comentarlo, ofrecernos mejoras, o simplemente quiere usarlo -como ejemplo o contraejemplo ;-)-
Ah! Por cierto! Este año con Isabel y Jose estuvimos experimentando con badges asociados al trabajo de algunos de estos roles y su repercusión en la nota final… Si, gamificación… Pero creo que eso os lo contaré en otro post… A ver si lo hago pronto 😉