WEEK 10: CURATOR FARMER

Hello readers!👋👋 This is our last week😓 of being part of 8 plus half, I am Patricia and I have played the role of curator🤠🐮. This task has been the longest😅 one and although it has been quite difficult to organize ourselves from our respective homes, I think that the result has been amazing😍.

As I said, the task has been quite long, and it has had different parts, so I think this is the week in which we have used more links, apps, etc. So, we have loads of refferences:

STOP MOTION:📸

10 Experimentos para hacer con tus niños. (2020). Retrieved 16 May 2020, from https://www.quo.es/ciencia/g40660/10-experimentos-cientificos-que-puedes-hacer-con-tus-hijos/ 

Sick Science. (2012). Incredible Egg Geode [Video].https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VezcQMpIp5c

https://www.messletters.com/es/emoji/ 

Farré, C. (2017). XXI JORNADAS DE ACUARELA [Picture]. Retrieved from https://elegirhoy.com/evento/congresos/xxi-jornadas-de-acuarela

EdWarehouse. SCIENCE LAB DESIGNER CUT OUTS [Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/573083121332547634/

PrueFever.(1992). Walt Disney Screencaps – Prince Aladdin [Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/walt-disney-characters/images/43138039/title/walt-disney-screencaps-prince-aladdin-photo

Buzzle. Functions of the Human Respiratory System You'll Be [Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.es/pin/311592867941362550/

 Makemegenius. (2011, february 3rd). Respiratory System for Kids (Breathing) [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydX8Lw4q2Mk&feature=youtu.be

Zafra, M. & Blanco, P. (10th April 2020). Así ataca el coronavirus en los casos más letales. El País.com. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020/04/08/actualidad/1586348055_291666.html

Bolivar, G. Cristalización rápida por descenso brusco de la temperatura [Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.lifeder.com/cristalizacion

Plata, C., Alvarado, M. & Chaverra, W. Huevo Geoda: Cristalización [Message in a blog]. Retrieved from  https://geodeegg4chemistry.weebly.com/explicacioacuten-quiacutemica.html

Seguillon, G. (2019). Aladdin’s cave of wonders [Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z5oQaG

AUGMENTED REALITY:📹

Bring your lessons to life with Expeditions | Google for Education. (2020). Retrieved 16 May 2020, from https://edu.google.com/products/vr-ar/expeditions/ 

Tour Creator. (2018). Retrieved 16 May 2020, from https://arvr.google.com/tourcreator/ 

Smartech group. (2016). AR Map (5.0 Version)[ App]. Retrieved from:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartechgroup.bcnmapp&hl=es_419

Extrapolitan. (2018). The Original Tour (2.6 Versión) [App]. Retrieved from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.extrapolitan.theoriginaltour

Aladdin-1. (s. f.). [Photo]. Retrieved from https://i2.wp.com/www.browngirlmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Aladdin-1.jpg?fit=704%2C415&ssl=1

ROBOTS:🤖

magic-lamp-aladin-prodip-iconos. (2017). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.freepik.es/vector-premium/magic-lamp-aladin-prodip-iconos_3033062.htm#page=1&query=lampara de aladino&position=16 

McCauley III, L. (2019). #ABU #ALADDIN #DISNEY #MONKEY #PROTAGONIST [Fotografía]. Recuperado de https://picsart.com/zh_hans/i/310613767131211

Character_aladdin_abu. (2017). [Image]. Retrieved from https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dis/images/8/8b/Character_aladdin_abu_bb8ccab2.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20160620001147

WALL-E. (2011). [Image]. Retrieved from http://deskarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wall-e6.jpg 

Wall-E-Eve. (2013). [Image]. Retrieved from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSZLDaFR3uxi8sCJ1JE1NSOagysCPueFgBCpYikSYp9rNV1SPG2reSkzMq31EpJ0F5uIFbDJTZQQNSvST98ZuhZx8aOe9nvCxClF0_5WadHy__oTL_mVsplC6xrQiqnot-DbhCOcNsie28/s1600/Wall-E-Eve.jpg 

Xeecos. (2015). Makeblock (3.5.1 Version) [App]. Retrieved from: https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/codey-rocky 

Xeecos. (2018). mBlock- Scratch-based Programming Software (2.0 Version) [App]. Retrieved from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.makeblock.mblock&hl=es 

Reap.as.I.sow. (2018). Sibelius (3.1 Version) [App]. Retrieved from:

https://www.avid.com/sibelius

That's all for the moment, with this week's refferences we have also finished the big diagram📈 that all the curator farmers from our group have been preparing throughout the last months, here you can see👀 the final result, I hope you enjoy it❤:

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_ktB5_oI=/

Bye readers!💕💕

WEEK 10: FACILITATOR

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to what seems to be this gentleman´s last stand as facilitator in this first year of primary education. I indeed some matters to clarify in regards to these week´s work, since I believe it to have been the most demanding of all projects we have done until now, taking into consideration that the project was also prolongued to more than a week, with me as its facilitator, the one in charge of administration of all the group´s work, which I can´t precisely say was an easy task, but we went through it with effort and teamwork, as it should be. I am very well aware of just how stressful these situations may be, however, this is what will make us stronger in advance, we will improve further and develop ourselves into more competent teachers than before.

Along these weeks I have been "assessing" the group´s work; to begin with, we started the project through making a call in which I organized all the project, dividing the group in three subgroups as to take care of all the three activities to deal with, all making whats app groups in order to work properly and not overwhelm the main group, where all propositions regarding general work were made.

During the weeks, all groups were pretty active, making their corresponding  progress in their documents. Although some problems and inconsistencies were found, all conviniently fixed in due time.

To be precise, what was the most bothersome to deal with was paying attention to all four groups; general group, stop motion group, augmented reality group and robots group, as well as trying to keep them all under check while I dealt with my own duties. But all things considered, I did my best to help them as they needed as well as individually assessed their doubts and bothers as they came. We also made a second meeting where all doubts were resolved as well as made the arrangements for documents to be used and so on.

Generally speaking, these two weeks have been a true challenge for me, I have had the chance to test my perseverance, patience and capability to deal with problems and disparities, and I must say that within my limits regarding squedule and so on, I have done quite the job, all have done what they could, no one has missed their duty, which is something to be grateful for, and not much more to say. May you enjoy your day.

WEEK 10: ANALYST

Hello guys. I am Fátima and this week and a half I have had the pleasure of being analyst.
I think that having to accomplish this role has been a challenge for me, as I wanted to demonstrate a huge improvement and a remarkable difference between the last time that I have been analyst and now.

This Global Project that we have been working on was the most important of all the activities that we have done until now as well as the most stressful due to the difficult form of communication. But, overall, this huge activity has meant a test. A test in which the key point to get over it and stand out is TEAM WORK.👭

For that reason, this activity as been enriching in terms of transmiting us group values: coordination, group confidence, brainstorming and group analysis. Some of us have understood it excelent and have internalized it, others have understood it but they didn't put it into practice and others not even have realized about this idea.

However, despite of the diffeerent levels of group cohesion awareness within the group, it is a fact that the combination of the diverse attitudes, actions, ideologies and feelings of the members within the group bring about meaningful and original ideas. In general, in this activity I have felt that our group really has entered in an atmosphere based on consensus and reciprocal participation.

I have been imagining how the process of the whole activity would have been outside this exceptional situation. It is clear that it would have be more gratifying and enjoyable. Communication among us would have been more efficient and easier. We are social beings and affectivity and social relationships are essential in the group💘. Related to that, I think that the messages of motivation and encouragement created within the group along this overwhelming week has been the best part of the activity, without considering also the huge satisfaction of seeing that the complex project was turning into the activity that we desired.

The worst part was the first days of the creation of the activity. We were a little bit confused about the contents that were meant to be explained on each activity and also we had insecurity about wether our ideas were conducted in an appropriate way.😰

In terms of the subject content that we have studied, it is directly linked to the recent crisis that we are living. This opportunity of doing a deep research with technologies provides us with a broader knowledge about our professional career apart from having the chance of offering students different and funny forms of learning beyond the classroom and beyond the classroom walls (as now with COVID-19).

I have realized that the fact of working in groups and sharing ideas is related with some contents of SCHOOL ORGANIZATION such as the term of learning communities. We are trying within the group to create new knowledge through combining our different ideas.

Honestly, I think that as group we need to keep this cooperation that has been arising. Throughout the diverse sessions of the course, I have noticed a great improvement. From my point of view we have learnt to be focused on efficiency and organization apart from learning how to delegate, what doesn't mean lack of consensus.

Talking about my role, I really have realized that it is very useful and that helps you to be critical, objective and analytical. Moreover, it trains you in constructing your own assessment criteria that in our future job will be very important.

Finally, I don't want to finish without mentioning that it has been a pleasure working with such kind and funny people. I hope that after that course that is coming to an end, I would have the chance of working again with them. I think that we have reached a healthy environment based on hard work and good vibes.💫💟

Hope you enjoy it!

Fátima.

WEEK 10: STARS

Hello everyone!!

We are David and Verónica and we have had the pleasure of being the stars of this last week, what could be better than finishing this amazing subject being the stars!

Regarding our role during this week, we have to admit that we have carried out a great deal of tasks than just being stars. Indeed, when we started this project, just with reading about it, we knew that we had to do MANY things, but not actually those MANY things that we did.

Thanks to our facilitator, organization came to our life, he fulfilled his role efficiently and divided us in three different groups as to work in the three different activities; robotics, augmented reality and stop motion. In Vero's case she belonged to the Augmented Reality's group as for David's case he was in the Robots' group (don't blame us for being talking in 3rd person singular XD). 

In Vero's group, each one in the group worked in a different activity being the third one hers, but despite the fact that we were working in group, communication was everything for us in order to give harmony and coherence to the full project, we never forgot that tenet in our mind, because we wanted to show a good job but also the point that we had been working as a group. So that, we helped each other in each activity, we developed a written file for the project itself, a ppt for the presentation in our eportfolio as well as the class' presentation and as stars we also wrote a script to organise our ideas adequately. 

Sometimes, working as a group is a marvelous thing because what you can't see, others can see it, it is very benefitial that not only one person supervise everything, because in the case of having such a big project it is very likely that you miss some detail, so feedback was essential. The day before the presentation, David and I rehearsed it and put in common ideas to express what we really wanted to in order to be precise. Our main aim was selling our project in the best way that we could, because we really thought and think that all of our effort was worthy to be appreciated and shown without losing any piece of our genuine ideas. 

Suddenly, the moment arrived, the class started and we were ready for it, we were really looking forward to showing our baby to the rest of the class and to get some possible detail to make it brilliant. Unfortunately, timing wasn't on our side, but Linda gave us the opportunity to show it just a couple of hours later, we really appreciated the alternative of being in the same day, we were so sad thinking that we had to wait until next Thursday. 

Our moment took place and despite some technical problems which are currently our bread and butter, we went ahead and we think that we went out of the hurry. We started giving an introduction, explaining the structure of our project, the meaning of the whole project and its title, the lenght of the sessions and the students' distribution, then David continued talking about robots activities and Vero finished the whole presentation because David was fighting against technology, it was very heroic and metaphorical! 

With everything said, I have to say that we have had an amazing opportunity to learn impressive things about technology and a possible feedback would be that it's better working in small groups than in a big group, it's very difficult that everyone will be as committed as you are. I hope that you will like this blog as much as I do and that you will have learned as much as we have done. Thanks all for reading it!!  

WEEK 10: TRANSLATOR

Hi everyone! I’m Lucía and my last role has been the translator💭💁. The funniest part is that this is the role I started with and the role which I will end this journey with.
I’m getting emotional… 😢😉



For the last couple of weeks, we have been working in task 10, which consisted of creating a set of 3 activities, similar to the ones for Un Día en el Cole de Mi Maestro, using robots🤖, stop motion🎥 and augmented reality 📱.

This task has been sincerely one of the ones we liked the most, since creating activities for our students will be essential in the future. I must admit that it also took a lot of hard work: planning all the activities, completing them so that they were close to perfect, preparing the demos, presentations of the whole project… But it was totally worth it.

We worked on mini-groups, as suggested by our facilitator Álvaro, and I think it was a great idea, because that way, each group could focus better on each activity. But, at the same time, we shared our progress with each other and tried to give the project a global and common character.

I was, along with Patricia and David, in the group of robots. At first, we discussed several ideas involving an app similar to programming, but at the end we decided to go with Codey Rocky. We wanted to give it a different approach to the one used in UDCMM, and then it came to my mind: why not make Codey Rocky sing a song from the movie “Aladdin”, in which our project is based?

Moreover, it was perfect to relate my two studies: music (I am a pianist) 🎶 and Primary Education 🏫👩‍🏫. We even related the activity with Maths, which I think was a great success, since not many activities try to portray Maths in an amusing way.

As for my task as translator to select 5 core terms, here they are:
- QR code: it is a kind of code in an image format, that can be easily scanned by anyone with a phone. Its main purpose is to make content more accessible, in circumstances in which using an URL, for example, is not the easiest option. The QR codes we created were mainly thought for the tools used in the activities, but we found them so useful that we used them for some of the demos as well.

- Instructions for students: they are the set of oral or written orders given to the students by the teacher relating to an activity or task. For this project, we wrote both what oral instructions would be like and instructions in form of a worksheet. Both oral and written instructions are useful, but the most convenient option would be explaining the instructions orally and including them in a written format as well, so that the kids can remember what they have to do in case they missed out on something.

- Demo of the artifacts: there was a bit of confussion at first about this term. It is basically the creation of a physical object the students themselves would create through one of our activities, or the demonstration of a process they would carry out. The purpose of demos is basically to show what we expect our students to do and confirm that it is possible to create (if we don’t know how to create that something, how are we supposed to expect them to do the same?). Some examples of demos of the artifacts in our project were: a video playing the recorder, coding screenshot, video of Codey Rocky singing a song (robots activity); a demonstration video using augmented reality; a demonstration video creating the gems the kids will create (stop motion activity).

Demos stop motion: https://youtu.be/ULZ5yOzJqyM
Video playing the recorder: https://youtu.be/LMp6pjVnbTI
Codey Rocky singing: https://youtu.be/6pnjIHQbwiE
Augmented reality demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZuJq_YUwU8

- Process diagram: it is a representation of the steps or stages that are part of a larger process or procedure. It usually includes schematic symbols, arrows and images that make the process comprehensible with just one look. We could say it serves as a way of summarizing information about a process in a visual way.

- Aumentaty Scope: it is an app available both for computers and smartphones, which allows us to visualize previously created projects of augmented reality when scanning a picture in real life.

For the last part, I have to create a specific question ❓ about the weaknesses of the topic of this week. This is the question I decided to create: What are the weak points of using these technologies (robots, stop motion and augmented reality) in a class environment?

The first weak point is the lack of resources (especially technological) that is present in a lot of schools. The activites with these technologies can be splendidly planned, but that doesn’t mean they could be carried out in every class of every school, since the environment plays a huge role in education. Codey Rocky, for example, costs quite a lot of money, and even if the school could afford it, it would be interesting that this tool would be used for more than just one activity.

Another weak point (or at least, complicated part) is the planification of time for the activities. You don’t know how the kids will react to the technologies, if they will find it too difficult to use and then more time than expected will need to be used.

But, to be fair, the application of these technologies in a class environment can have marvelous effects as well: motivating the children, getting them out of the routine, helping them develop technological skills at the same time they develop other academical skills… Definitively, an option worth to consider to put into practice in the class. 👦🏻👧🏾

And being this (probably) my last post on this blog, I would like to end it with a message of hope for everyone: we will get through this situation. Be responsible and appreciate all you have.

And by the way, good luck with your exams! 😉

WEEK 10: JOURNALISTS

Hello everybody, were we are again and this post is our last one as journalists😔. We are Lorena and Marina and we can say without doubt that the creation of this blog has been amazing. Also, we are amazed of the great quantity of visualizations we have. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!💔 Now, let's talk about the task because we are getting emotional 😢. If you see us crying it's because we are peeling onions 😁

This week's task has been a sweet comeback to UDCMM 😻. This activity, that we did with the kids was fabulous and this time we had to create NEW ACTIVITIES ON OUR OWN!😬 Yes, it sounds insane because we have to do it in a week but we managed it perfectly and now we are going to tell you our evolution.

First of all, on Thursday 30th we had the explanation lesson with our teacher and inmediately after the class finished, we made a videoconference to share our ideas about how the activity should be done and we did brainstorming as usual 💭💬.We also subdivide the activities between us in order to be more efficient, so Lucía, David and Patricia were in charge of the robot activity; Fátima, Álvaro and Lorena were in charge of the stop motion and Vero, Marina and Megan were in charge of the augmented reality. YES, I have said Megan 😄. She is with us in this last task, because 8plushalf cannot say goodbye without the special half 💞 . Despite having to split the activities, it doesn't mean that we forget about the rest of activities, but that we are more specialists in certain activities. On Sunday we had an important meeting, first all together and later the subgroups. In the global meeting, we talked about the development of our activities, the demos, the diagrams and all the stuff that is involved, discussing also how to do it everything in similar manners. Here you can observe a picture of us, HOT AF as always 🔥:

During the week we were very busy preparing our activities 😓. We decided that our activities should have a shared theme, Aladdin's world. In augmented reality, we created a virtual trip that will give you goosebumps; in stop motion 📷 we created two scientific experiments related to Aladdin's cave of wonders and also this coronavirus situation 🦠  and finally in the robot activity, we'll get our student to understand math and music in the Codey Rocky context. But no more SPOILERS, if you want to see them, check our Instagram account 8plushalf.

On Friday we had our last meeting to check if everything was fine and the development was correct. I know, you are thinking, this group is always together and having meetings, but we cannot deny that WE LOVE EACH OTHER 😍. We examined the title, the topics, the standards, the diagrams or the demos  among other things because the things requiered for this task were endless.

Finally, the presentation day arrived and our stars were brilliant 💁. They presented the activity like if they did everyday the same, with fluency and comfort and here you can watch them. Also we want to show you how our presentation was:

Regarding the blogs of our classmates, we want to consider the great job of "The Pickles" 👌(https://picklerict.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-tour-through-dark-side-of-moon-robots.html).
What really loved us was the deep descriptions of the robots activity, as well as we loved the idea of programing so easily to make a vehicle!🙊

Surfing on the internet, we've found a website where explains which are the best apps of AR to include in a classroom: https://www.realinfluencers.es/2016/11/29/10-mejores-aplicaciones-realidad-aumentada-eduacion/ . We find this very useful since is perfect to inspirate yourself in order to program activities with augmented reality.😎


Finally, we want to say that working as journalists this week has been very enjoyable. In fact, this is our last role in this course😔 but we are sure that it has been THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING BIG!!

Marina and Lorena

WEEK 10: ROLES

Good morning readers!!
We're Lorena and Marina, this week journalists😋we want to present the roles assigned for this week:

💂Facilitator: Álvaro Ramos

👀Analyst: Fátima El Mnari

👅Translator: Lucía Alarcón

💫Stars: Verónica Cano and David Crespo

💬Curator-Farmer: Patricia Caja

✌Journalists: Marina Ruipérez and Lorena España

💓Helper: Megan Higgins


Eight plus half again wish you have a nice day.

WEEK 9: STARS

Hello everybody and welcome back to our wonderful blog!👌We are Lorena and Marina and this week we have been playing star's roles 🌟🌠; it has been such an exhausting week with lot of work, and now we are going to explain our experience.



First of all and as previous weeks, on Tuesday we had an online class with the teacher where she explained us the activity, wich consisted of creating an infographic pointing the main elements that constitute a teacher competence for a digital world 💻. Afterwards and without delay, we arrange a meeting to analyze the activity and the document we needed to read. We also arrange another videocall 📹on Saturday. As you can see, we love to be together like a big family👪.
On Saturday, we reunited in order to create the infographic, we wanted to make a very visual infographic with metaphores and these type of things, so we took into account the colours, shapes, format and so on in order yo create a perfect infographic 📊.


Finally, the big day arrived and we were both very nervous but also excited 😆.



We explained our decisions for the infographic; the title, the background, the analogies and so on. Later, we explained simultaneously and briefly the 6 elements and finally we conclude reflecting not only about our infographic but also about the current world and educational situation. Here you can observe a picture from us where you can observe how BRILLIANT we were ( and hot AF also 🔥) and also the transcription of what we said if you want to more about the theme.

INTRODUCTION: 👈
Hello everybody we are 8 plus half and now we’re going to explain our infographic. First of all and as you can see we have made an analogy with being an effective digital teacher and the figure of Steve Jobs.  If you have been living in a cave, let me tell you that Steve Jobs was Apple’s founder, one of the most important technological enterprises.  He was also a genius, a visionary that changed the course of technology. Now, at the top of the image we observe the title: Is that a teacher or Steve Jobs? This makes an allusion to the comics world, where these types of sentences are very recurrent as in the beginning of Superman DC Comics. 

Adding to this, another detail that we would like to highlight is the choice of the background, there you can see the silhouette of New York’s skyline as making reference to the fictional city where Superman’s adventures take place, Metropolis, which is indeed inspired in the Big Apple.

Additionally and because we are very perfectionists, we didn’t find an infographic that seems perfect for us, so we decided to create one from scratch, taking under consideration that appearance is everything in an infographic, so that our choice for a blue colour scheme was not a coincidence, as we know that blue is a colour that transmits professionalism.

Now, and without delay, we are going to explain the elements that constitute the teaching competence for a digital world.

1. The first characteristic for being a digital educator involves the creation of emergent pedagogical practices, which includes deep understanding of the educational processes and teaching methodologies.

2. Next one, is being an expert in digital pedagogical content:  Effective teachers should be able to link the three types of knowledge: pedagogical, content and technological knowledge, as in the TPACK framework. That means, it is as important to have knowledge about methodologies, the subject matter and technology in general.

3. Thirdly, another important element implicates the perception of a teacher as a reflective and practical individual. According to this element the teacher creates an process of evaluation of a educational intervention, that can be teaching tools, materials or programmes.

4. Another element is being expert in enhanced organizational or personal learning contexts: This concept is very familiar to us because is the Personal Learning Environment. A teaching PLE is influenced by the new technologies. These ICTs have provided a shift in the way we construct and encode information in our memory, in the manner we amplify, adapt or enrich our learning.

5. Fifth, our teachers must be sensitive to the use of technology from the social commitment  perspective. As we live in a globalized world, we must educate our students to become critical thinkers, taking into account the role of technology as a tool for social obligation.  

6.The last element is about being able to use technology to expand teacher’s relationship with the student's family and environment. The use of technology allows teachers’ communication and cooperation with families and children's’ framework.

CONCLUSION: 👉

Technology is a rather powerful weapon if we know how to use it, according to the data offered in a survey, the greatest challenge in the introducement of technology in Spanish education is found in the educators’ formation and it’s there where the change must start, and that’s why this guide is proposed to them. Technology provides two great advantages, on the one hand, it makes possible to access to a greater number of content and resources and, on the other hand, it promotes autonomous learning. 

So that, we can conclude saying that bearing in mind all this data and the effects seen in the current situation where technology is playing an important role, technology is just a tool, it won’t replace teachers, it will make their work more efficient. Therefore, we have considered that the ideal thing to have more effective educational outcomes  would be a symbiotic relationship between technological knowledge represented in the figure of Steve Jobs and content and pedagogical knowledge represented in the role of a superhero teacher. 

This has been everything for this week. Go and check other posts form these weeks so you can find our infographic 👌. If you have enjoyed, please leave a comment and see you! 👋💚

WEEK 9 JOURNALIST

Hi everyone! I’m Lucía and I was this week’s journalist🙋🏻‍📸 Let me tell you what we were up to this week…

On Tuesday 21st, we were presented task 9: we would have to do an infographic based on a text about competences teachers need for a digital world💻👩🏻‍🏫👨🏻

We agreed to all read the text “Holistic Teaching Competence for a Digital World” (2018) by Linda Castañeda, Francesc Esteve anda Jordi Adell 📖, and to do some research about infographics, so that the following day we could properly discuss how to approach this new task.

On Wednesday 22nd, we did an initial videoconference to discuss and distribute tasks. We decided to look for inspiration and examples of infographics and then to meet again on Saturday morning, to properly begin the design of our infographic.

On Thursday 23rd, we had a session that was a bit different to the ones we usually have. All the groups were arranged at a specific hour in order to be given individual feedback about our work to date. Regarding our meeting (at 9.30), we were told to improve some aspects of our blog: for translators not to do copy-paste, and to quote it if they do; for curator-farmers to show all the sources in a common conceptual map, so that we can come back to it any time we need it in the future; and for all of us to try to do better reflections on our blog entries. In addition, it would also be highly advisable to work as a group in a more united and coherent way.

On Saturday 25th, we agreed the structure that our infographic would have, as well as some icons we wanted to use. We all (through screen sharing) discussed what program to use. We started with Visme and the changed to Canva, which in my opinion was a great success. We then started to look for infographic templates, but we weren’t convinced by any of it, because we thought none of them was creative enough. That’s why we decided to create our own infogrraphic from scratch. This probably took more time than it would have taken if we had gone with a regular template, but it was definitely worth it, since the final product turned out to be both professional and original💪🏼

On the afternoon of that same day, Álvaro and I started with a draft. It didn’t look bad, but we would later change the structure all over again, so that text wouldn’t be as charging.

This is our initial draft: 

We then spent Sunday afternoon, Monday morning and part of Monday afternoon trying to leave our infographic as stunning as possible. Vero had some really great ideas to make our infographic engaging and meaningful, such us including the city skyline and Steve Jobs figure on the middle. Here you have some pictures of the process 📷:

And this is the final product:

We couldn’t be more happy about the final result!! 😊

On Tuesday 28th, the big day arrived. Our stars⭐ Marina and Lorena had to present our infographic to our class, and despite the initial nerves, they did absolutely fantastic. They only had 2-3 minutes to explain it, but they managed to go over all the important aspects of the process we followed to create the infographic, explaining the color choice, metaphores included on it, the selection of information, etc…

As for the blogs of our classmates, we would like to highlight the one of Game of Phones. We especially liked the idea of portraying a road in their infographic, as a metaphor for the journey that it is to become a digitally competent teacher. Their infographic was also visually attractive and not too overloaded, which helps understand the topic. Here you have the link if you want to take a look at it: https://resourcesandict.wordpress.com/2020/04/23/facilitator-task-9/

As for external sites, I found an interesting article on a website about the use of infographics in education, which is really interesting and appropriate concerning this week's task. Among other things, the article deals with the benefits of infographics in education and how they can be used both by teachers and students. If you're interested in reading more about it, here you have the link: https://www.copypress.com/kb/infographics/the-benefits-of-infographics-for-education/

As for my personal thoughts about this week, I think it has provided me with interesting and useful new concepts, both theoretical and technological.

Regarding the theoretical aspects, reading the text “Holistic Teaching Competence for a Digital World” (2018) has enlightened me in order to better understand what a teacher needs to be competent not only using technology, about also living in a world where almost EVERYTHING has become technological. There is one specific aspect that has caught my attention and that I would like to highlight, and that is “the ability of teachers to use ICTs to enrich classical methodological models” and the importance of a teacher’s understanding of “the implications of the new methodologies that are inseparable from technologies” (Castañeda, Esteve and Adell, 2018). Based on that statement, I would like to remark the importance of integrating technology applied to education into our basic set of competences as future teachers, since this will be needed to think of methodologies and strategies including technology in the most natural and efficient way possible.

As much as I found useful the theoretical concept, I absolutely enjoyed the technological one: creating an infographic. I think that it has helped me improve my skill and knowledge about editing and designing, and my ability to learn how to use technological programs in an autodidactic way. Learning how to LEARN in an autonomous way, without needing anyone else to teach us something, is one of the abilities that I value the most and that, in my opinion, should be encouraged through all our lives.

That was all for this week😉. I hope you enjoyed both the documentation of the process and my personal reflection.

See you guys! 😁



References:

Esteve, F., Castañeda, L., & Adell, J. (2018). A Holistic Model of Teaching Competence for the Digital World. REVISTA INTERUNIVERSITARIA DE FORMACIÓN DEL PROFESORADO-REIFOP, (91), 105-116. 

WEEK 9 ANALYST

Welcome yet again my dearest ladies and gentlemen, to my last post as analyst as it may seem. It has trully been a beautiful journey of investigation and observation of other´s work and determining their overall efficiency towards the duty at hand, it is really a pleasure to me the fact of observing others, getting to understand them, even if while they are not noticing you 😈😆.

For this last week I must argue that it hasn´t nearly been the most complicated task we have done so far, what I can say though is that it took some sweet time to properly express as the idea on its own appeared simple to develop, but upon applying it, ended up being way more work than what we had initially anticipated.

To begin with, I am proud to say that I find myself relatively satisfied with the working efficiency we have met for this week, we took our time to think, we properly developed a plan in which to surround the rest of ideas, we shared and conformed tasks and accomplished them all without delay nor any time-related issue to take into consideration, though it is also necessary to mention that the splitting of tasks turned out to not be the best, as the creation of the infographic was actually quite que complex procedure that took way more time and effort to what we expected, as well as some technical difficulties that never get old in this modern times, and mostly in this moment of necessity in which we can only stay at home.

Or course, we all have endless things to learn, so many that this entire life of ours just isn´t enough to take it all in. However, that doesnt´eliminate the posibility of us still learning, we are humans after all, we adapt to our surroundings and survive through intelligence, learning all that is to be known all around us until we are unstopable, so much that we even get to be a threat to our very kind, so imagine just how much we can learn. Now talking about what we have learnt for this week, well, we have developed our abilities in many areas such as teamwork, coordination, task division, summing up of information, development of an infographic through research of objective information and formation of drafts through given applications and so on, so much on... at least related to general skills that is, if we got deeper into the facilitated document into teahers being digitally efficient in this contemporary age, then so much more can be taken out of it, even though most won´t even notice just how necesary these are given their ebident ignorance, or just lag of interest.

This one week, as any other, has been a week of apprenticeship alongside our classmates, each one of us showing what we are capable of, making choices that will result in future consequences, learning from what we do, or not, though all the same, a chance to develop ourselves as human beings none the less, human beings that will share a future into the world, within all of its curiously invented values such as society, politics, morals, ethics, economy industry, justice, evil, good, nuclear energy...

Such a being... such potential... thus most now wasted in foolish unnecesary necessities and costumes that do no more than harm...

This has been my second and last non-critical reflection, I shall walk alongside those so called giants, but never to their shadow, I shall learn from them indeed, but never depend on them for my own research, for we small people are there, and we are growing...thank you very much.