Monday 29 February 2016

SHARING SHARING AND SHARING

MY BOARD ON PINTEREST

Hello teachers :)

OMG I have lost my materials

I have a question for you, as teachers, have you ever found something really interesting surfing on the Internet and few days later you don’t  know what was it about or where do you downloaded it? It happened to me and I’m sorry to say that we might have lost lot of interesting materials.

So here I am, ensuring that it never happen again ;)

In this post I’m going to talk about a web that allows us to put our “teacher’s thoughts” in order… Pinterest!
Pinterest as an organizer webtool
This webtool works as a real board in which you can organize and keep your information (which are not only referred to Education) as you prefer. A brief description and a representative picture is added to the “Pint” material, I think that this possibility is really convenient since allows you to have a slight idea about what are you going to see.Moreover, this organizer is now widespread on the Internet, so you can take the most of other’s contributions. It has also increased the number of pages which have added the “Pinterest Bottom” which allows you to keep the material immediately. I really love this option.
I would like to share with you my board on Pinterest, it is called “Learning through CLIL” (click on my board's title if you want to take a look). As you can imagine, in it you will find resources related to CLIL and Education. I also recommend you to check the collaborative Pinterest’s board that my classmates and I are preparing.

I really love the idea of sharing information with others because it will enrich us as teachers since million of minds work better than one single person. I have seen some of our resources and they are just great, it's nice to realize that if you need any information or material, you will probably find it in a specific place.
Here you have the link to our collaborative board: https://es.pinterest.com/mjgsm/open-clil/ 

Hope you find this post interesting and don't hesitate to make suggestions and comment! 
Ana.

SHARING WHAT WE KNOW

BANK OF COMMON RESOURCES


Hello teachers :)
In this post I’m going to talk about a collaborative board that my class hosted on Pinterest.



My classmates and I were asked to post six resources related to Education that might interest others, but we have to take into account that these resources must be Creative Commons Open Educational Resources (OERs), which means that these materials are allowed to be shared on the Internet.
This is the most important point of the task because not all materials on the net can be shared with others, and here lies the question: how can I find out if a specific resource can be used freely?
First of all, as I explained you in the previous post, you can read the license or Terms of Use of the web page, but this requires time enough to check every single point and sometimes, they are not very clear.
That’s why I use a list of ORES resources that our teacher Mº Jesús provided us in which you can find lot of useful materials. Here I leave you the link in case you want to take a look: http://list.ly/i/554140 
Of course, the idea was to find new resources, that’s the reason why I recommend you to use the advance search in Google, where you can limit your search with many filters making them more precise.
Following these steps, I found some resources that I wanted to share with my class, such as:

  • http://www.edhelper.com
A web focused on developing English abilities, like writing, spelling, vocabulary… although you can also find materials related to Maths or Science. Plenty of worksheets are available for you to download and what I like the most is that you can find worksheets of important days like Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day…
Who said that history must be bored? This is an incredible visual video which explains the history of Ancient Egypt. It mixes cartoons with real images what makes it really catchy and motivating. Besides, I think that this sort of concepts, that are quite abstract, are easier to understand with a visual support.

  •     -  http://www.eslgamesplus.com
This web provides you lot of materials and resources for English lessons. Sometimes students, above all younger kids, feel unsettled in class due to the English content, through games, they will be motivated enough to keep learning, finding English as an amusing subject.

  •      - https://es.pinterest.com/pin/376472850081583047/
I saw this resource in my Practice School. They use this sort of messages to encourage students to use punctuation marks. Sometimes, even adults forget how to use them! So we need to inspire students to use them by facilitating resources like that.

  •       - https://kidshealth.com 
I discovered this page in my school, where they use this web page to complete the teacher’s explanation about Natural Science in a visual way. They usually use them to show us difficult concepts like how the body works or the different body systems.

  •    -   http://www.themeasuredmom.com/teaching-spelling/
My favourite web. On the Pinterest’s board I shared this specific link which is about spelling, but the web is just a must for teachers. We can find plenty of original resources, materials…regarding all subjects. I would highlight the projects they develop and also that they provide you worksheets and materials to complete your projects.

I really hope you find this post useful and see you on the next one!

Ana.