An online magazine

Who doesn't want to write a magazine?
I was always thinking about how to do that, till I came across a site that allows you convert your Word documents into an online magazine.
You are even able to turn over the pages just as if you were reading a real magazine!
It is free! (Very important!). You just have to register, login with your username and password, and upload your Word document.
Easy! Right?

Here you have a sample. I did it with some of the entries of this blog.

http://bit.ly/eco2magazine

I think it is useful for presenting texts to your students, or maybe ask them to write a school magazine -that could be very motivating-. You can even write your reflective journals directly into this new format.

I hope you find it interesting. I know I did!

A couple of extra tools

Last month we had the chance to enrol on a course on ICT in the classroom called "TIC y Lenguas Extranjeras - Relaciones de Colaboración y Autoría". It was carried out by the teachers Flavia Bonadeo, Viviana Basano and our ECO2 teacher Letizia Russo.
We shared these meetings with people from Profesorado de Francés. We did this in the computer lab, though one of the lessons was held at Centro de Idiomas. We had to go there in order to be able to learn how to use the interactive board.

We were able to communicate with each other through the Edmodo platform, just as we do it in Eco. We have learned how to create new posts, upload links, etc. It was no news for me thanks to Eco, but then I (together with my classmates) could experience working with some new software.

One of the lessons was about ExeLearning and Foxit Reader. Both of them are software that are included in the netbooks from Conectar Igualdad (yes, those netbooks that maybe we will never get to see!).
ExeLearning is somehow similar to a web page. It is an open code edition software for web pages without having to be an expert in HTML code. It has very attractive options for you to design tasks and exercises. You can even insert videos and images.
Foxit Reader, also taught in Eco2, is the alternative PDF editor to Acrobat Reader.

Another lesson was devoted to the Mimio software for the interactive board. Viviana showed us all the features that this tool includes and we followed her with our notebooks.

Finally, on the last lesson, we had to present (in groups) a didactic sequence that would include at least two of the ICT tools that we saw in class.
We planned a lesson that involved the using of three of them: Mimio, ExeLearning and Edmodo.

First, we used Mimio and the interactive board for presenting "the possessive 's".

Then we went to ExeLearning for a "filling in the blanks" exercise in order for the students to revise the family members.

After that, we went back to the interactive board with the idea of creating the Simpsons family tree. In order to do that, we first have to show the students the complete family tree with the character's names and then we ask them to build it themselves, giving them guiding questions.

The final task: homework. We used Edmodo to create a quiz where they are supposed to complete sentences that include the relationships between the members of the Simpsons family. Once they have completed them, the answers would be automatically sent to our email address (and even the correction can be automatic!).

I personally believe that this course was very enriching and our teachers were great at showing us how to take advantage of these tools. Maybe we won't find easily many schools that have the infrastructure to use the software, but just in case we did, we will be perfectly prepared.

A break

I want to share a joke I've read (well, not exactly a joke) that reminded me of that topic about digital immigrants and digital natives.
Hope you like it.

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Un presumido estudiante que se encontraba asistiendo a un partido de fútbol se tomó la molestia de explicarle a un señor mayor, sentado cerca suyo, porqué le es imposible a la vieja generación comprender a su generación.
"Usted creció en un mundo diferente, realmente casi uno primitivo", dijo en voz lo suficientemente alta para que lo escucharan alrededor. "Los jóvenes de hoy crecimos con televisión, internet, aviones jet, viajes al espacio, el hombre caminando en la luna. Nuestras sondas espaciales han visitado Marte. Tenemos naves con energía nuclear y carros eléctricos y de hidrógeno. Computadoras con procesos de velocidad de la luz.. y más"
Luego de un breve silencio el señor mayor respondió lo que sigue:
"Tienes razón, hijo mío. Nosotros no tuvimos esas cosas cuando éramos jóvenes..... así que las inventamos. Ahora, dime, ¿qué estás haciendo TÚ para la próxima generación?"
¡El aplauso fue atronador!

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Presentations... ✓

Practical Work Nº2 is over now but it gave us a lot of things to have in mind as regards presentations.
We all had to share our work to our mates, and we had the opportunity to learn a lot more about what you can do with Powerpoint and Prezi. This is the good thing about collaborative work: everybody learns from everybody. Plus, we had so much fun!
I attach here the links for you to be able to download the lesson we designed and the two presentations that you need for its development.

The lesson: http://bit.ly/lessoneco2
The Prezi presentation: http://bit.ly/preziweekend
The Powerpoint presentation: http://bit.ly/powerpointweekend

We had to prepare the lesson based on the topic "a typical weekend", which is what everybody is impatiently waiting for. And it's only Tuesday!

Luckily, we did it alright and our teacher Letizia gave us a very positive feedback on our work. Here you have the notes that she took down:

- You took into account the topic you were supposed to deal with in your lesson,
- you made great use of images,
- you used attractive templates,
- you downloaded, adapted and customized games,
- you even designed your own games,
- you recorded your own material and integrated it into the presentation,
- you used humour and music,
- you used animation and gifs,
- you combined technology with more traditional material,
- you created texts: dialogues, diaries and short stories,
- you contextualised the material to the experiences and realities of the secondary school learners,
- you designed tasks that promoted interaction among learners,
- etc., etc., etc...

So, let's keep on working! (I insist... waiting for the weekend!).