Thursday 7 May 2015

My ICTs learning journey

Hello everybody,

This presentation summarizes my reflections and my learning outcomes derived from this great experience:



Hope you enjoy it!

Marta




Thursday 30 April 2015

Creating a collaborative audio challenge

Hello everybody,

Today I want to share with you a great audio challenge as another useful resource to engage our students in learning. I would like to thank some of my peers that let me use their voices to create this interactive record: 




Merlín: @MaríaJLLopis
The Genie: @estefaníablanch
Harry Potter: @Nora_LomasG
Gandalf: @MartaLFabero28

The tool used to create the animation was Blabberize in a "scenes mode".
As a way of improvement, it would be nicer if you use pictures with similar size and shape.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Marta


Wednesday 29 April 2015

Designing digital interactive CLIL artifacts

Hello dear readers,

Today I want to present two digital interactive artifacts that will be used as models to support the students' learning process. I have carried out two of the tasks included in The ancient eBook of the storytellers' secrets to use the output as a resource to explains visually how the tasks must be developed.

The first digital artifact is intended for modelling the outcome that would result from carrying out the task number two: To create an storyboard of a scene that shows your character’s personality by using a digital online resource.


From this storyboard we can infer many features of the character's personality: Mcnolian the wizard is brave, reckless, curious, open-minded and risk taker. The digital storyboard introduces the character in a very visual way that allows us to predict the kind of story that we are going to read, watch and listen. In this case, it's an unbelievable adventure story.

The resources used to create this storyboard were Pixton, Inkscape and Canva.


The second digital artifact is intended for modelling the outcome that would result from carrying out the task number five: To invent a problem that the character has to face and make an epic trailer that engage people in reading the whole story.


The trailer presents the conflict of the story and the characters that are involved but it doesn't reveal the ending of the story. The music and the different slides animated with transitions engage people in the story and make them wonder what is going to happen next.

The digital resources used to create the epic trailer were Sketches for iPad (the drawings), Pixton (the storyboards), Canva (the slides design) and Kizoa (the audiovisual presentation).

Hope you enjoyed it!

Marta



Collaborative flyer that supports learners

Hello dear readers,

Today I would like to share with you the flyer I created to support my students’ learning. It was a project carried out collaboratively with @MaríaJLLopis and our topics of interest are storytelling and arts, both reflected on this visual flyer:



The first thing that attracts our attention to a book is the cover. It must have a clear and bright title, sometimes supported by a subtitle that gives extra information about the topic. Also, the background and the pictures have to match the text and show some basic aspects from the content in a visual and appealing way.

Children have to learn these necessary strategies while creating their stories. They need to know the basics to invent stories but also how to make them more engaging for their readers.

Therefore, this example shows how a book cover should be and what are the essential aspects that they must take into account while carrying out this task. It should be developed during the sessions intended for Arts and Crafts in a cross-curricular way. Designing a cover requires the ability to think creatively and involves many fundamental artistic processes. Also, arts connected to digital resources are becoming increasingly popular.

The resources used to create the cover have been Sketches for iPad (premium version 5$) to create the background and the island, Pixton to design the characters of both painters; and Canva to create the flyer (poster format) and to add the text.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Marta

Friday 24 April 2015

Collaborative video challenge

Hello everybody!

Today I want to present a collaborative video challenge that integrates four different topics: Storytelling, healthy life, the planets, and the lives of two of the most famous Spanish painters. This means that I worked collaboratively with three CLIL teachers: @estefaniablanch, @Nora_LomasG and @MaríaJLLopis

An unusual mix that could only end up in an unbelievable science fiction story that will captivate the audience:

Pedro Picasso is a teenager who lives in year 5302. Life is very different since Humans had to leave the Earth to find another habitable planet due to the excessive exploitation of natural resources. Currently, people live in Electron, a beautiful planet in a distant galaxy. As other teenagers, Pedro is very insecure and he is worried about not finding that thing he is good at that would allow him to stand out among everyone else. That's something that worries you when you are the great great great grandson of an artist as well known as Pablo Picasso.
He's having problems at school and at home because of his disorganization but, by dreaming, he will find out the solution with a little help from two famous characters.

The tool that we used to create the storyboard was Pixton, and amazing digital resource to create comics. I hardly recommend you to go directly to the advanced mode. Probably, you are going to mess it up several times but there are several features that are only available if you are an "advanced comic designer".




When all the scenes were created, we used Kizoa as the tool to combine the different slides and to attach the music. The process ended up in this dynamic video:




To know more about this video, check the description posted on Youtube!

And, just in case you would like to have a look at my peers' work, here you have their educational blogs:



Hope you enjoy it!

Marta




Thursday 23 April 2015

Designing a cover for my digital eBook

Hello dear readers,

I'm so excited about presenting the cover I designed for my digital eBook! But firstly, I will share the process and the tools I needed to carry out the project:

I used "Sketches for Ipad" (the Premium version 5$) to create the background and the different drawings. Then, I used Online Photo Editor to turn the pictures into .PNG images (transparent). Also, I used Canva to create the composition in a poster format and finally, I used Aurasma to attach a digital surprise that you will find out by downloading the app.




Hope you enjoy it!

PD: Follow me on Aurasma by searching for MartaLFabero28

Marta

Tuesday 14 April 2015

Magic storytelling tools

Hello everybody!

Today I want to share with you the interactive resources that must be known by all the wizards of storytelling. 




I've designed a very complete mix on Symbaloo that includes interactive resources to create videos, storyboards and presentations. 

Click on the link below to go into all the apps:

MAGIC STORYTELLING TOOLS


Hope you find it useful

Marta


Monday 13 April 2015

Mindmapping my eBook

Hello dear readers,

Today I would like to share with you a resource to visually organize your CLIL e-projects: 

the mind map



It is a diagram that connects ideas around a single concept, in this case, my digital eBook, The Ancient eBook of the Storytellers' secrets. This resource allows teachers to present the different aspects of projects in an enjoyable way that guarantees that children are going to look at them before carrying out the tasks. 
Moreover, If we teach students to create mind maps, they learn how to summarize the content by highlighting the essential information; and develop cognitive skills to associate different ideas and concepts.

Here it is my eBook's mindmap using Cacoo and shared on a GoogleDoc.

Mindmapping my eBook


I recommend Cacoo and Bubbl.us as online resources to create mind maps.

Hope you find it useful!

Marta


Sunday 12 April 2015

Creating an infoEDUgraphic

Hello dear readers,

Today I would like to share with you a resource to create visual and engaging ePublications: The infographic.


Infographics are representations that mix information and pictures of an specific topic. We can use them to present certain facts in an attractive way, that allow people to get the information without a ton of heavy reading.


I joined the collaborative project of infoEDUgrafías that is intended for teachers and students in all the Education Stages. You can find a wide variety of activities linked to all the areas of knowledge. Therefore, I became a participant in the project and I decided to use the information of my CLIL eBook outline to create a visual infoEDUgraphic that engages sixth graders:

View at Canva


To know more about the tools I used and the steps I followed to carry out this project, read the post on InfoEDUgrafías' blog


An infoEDUgraphic is not just an attractive way of presenting facts, it develops visual thinking and information processing cognitive skills. As a participant in the project and as an infoEDUgrapher, I encourage you to use this resource with your students!








Tuesday 7 April 2015

Designing my digital eBook

Hello everybody!

The first step to design an interactive ePublication is to define some basic aspects that will determine the rest of our eBook features.

At the beginning, we should think what is it going to be about. I chose the topic storytelling because it doesn't limit me to just one curricular subject so, despite I finally decided to carry out this project linked to Literacy, I could have developed it linked to any other area of content.
Also, this topic allows me to create cross-curricular links to any other subjects by designing characters, settings and plots that match the content that I want to highlight from other areas.

Then, our next step is to decide whom is this project intended for. I want to work with this eBook in 6º Grade because, according to our curriculum, it is the grade where we can go more deeply to the characteristics of the narrative genre and the features of the storytelling process.
Also, 6º graders are students whose technological knowledge is considerable. At this age, they are already familiarized with most of the tools that we are going to use in this project.

The next aspects of the eBook are determined by these previous ones and I created a shared document on Google to establish them:

MY CLIL EBOOK OUTLINE


I hope you find it useful!

Marta


CLIL teachers on Twitter

Hello dear readers,

Before beginning with mi digital ebook, I would like to tell you about our Twitter Project at university:

One of my courses in this Master is about the use of ICTs and other digital resources in Primary Bilingual Education. As part of the content of this area, we have to learn how to use social networks as interactive tools for teaching. Our professor @mjgsm encouraged us to create a twitter handle (@MartaLFabero28) and to spread out all our learning outcomes using the course hashtag #ictclil_urjc 

So, if you enjoy this blog and you would like to have a look at my peers' work, click on the hashtag link!


Why CLIL?

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is the approach that integrates the teaching of content from our curriculum with the teaching of a non-native language.
Currently, this is the best approach in the Spanish Bilingual Program due to globalization and academic inflation. The students are required to be fully competent in the use of a foreign language and this means that there must be a balance between their four skills development (reading, writing, speaking and listening).
In past generations, we learnt to know about the language and the activities in school were clearly focused on reading and writing development. As a consequence, adults are still suffering nightmares about their first trip to a foreign country where they were trying to distinguish the present perfect in that speedy mix of weirdly pronounced words.
Fortunately, things are progressively changing. Using CLIL method, students are able to acquire the language in a natural environment, using it as a vehicle for communication in the different curricular areas. This means, that they are able to use English in a wide variety of contexts, developing the four skills that allow them to be competent in a language.

My students are not going to know about the language because I want to teach them how to use it. I want them to be able to enjoy music, books and conversations with people all over the world.

Break the intricate bonds with textbook and grammar and begin to enjoy teaching!



Sunday 5 April 2015

Welcome to my ICTs & Storytelling Blog



Hello everybody!

This is my first post on my new blog about epublications and storytelling. The resources that will be shared in here are intended for children, teachers and parents.

I would like to give you my personal welcome and encourage you to have a look at the different issues that will be progressively published.



Stay tuned at this site to learn how to become wizards of storytelling!


Marta