During August 2021, as part of our school's KA1 project S.T.A.R.T. - 'Successful Teachers Achievement Ready Teachers', I participated in the Inovative Skills in ICT course through collaborative and project based teaching and learning held in Alcala de Henares, Madrid.
The course is designed to help teachers realize the potential of innovative methodology by using collaborative work in everyday classroom practice, exploring the added value of the project approach. This course is intended for anyone who wants to improve their knowledge by using a practical methodology that brings technology to the classroom.
The content of the course is not limited to teachers of a particular subject. It is open to teachers of all subjects and levels. The aim of the course is to train participants to use activities using ICT through a collaborative methodology such as Webquests / eTwinning that will maintain and improve language interdisciplinary testing and the use and creation of collaborative teaching methodology.
The course is designed to help teachers realize the potential of innovative methodology by using collaborative work in everyday classroom practice, exploring the added value of the project approach. This course is intended for anyone who wants to improve their knowledge by using a practical methodology that brings technology to the classroom.
The content of the course is not limited to teachers of a particular subject. It is open to teachers of all subjects and levels. The aim of the course is to train participants to use activities using ICT through a collaborative methodology such as Webquests / eTwinning that will maintain and improve language interdisciplinary testing and the use and creation of collaborative teaching methodology.
Sequence of work in the training
The course had an introduction in which we toured Alcala de Henares, the oldest university in Spain, near Madrid, where the course was held. The whole city is under UNESCO protection, it is the birthplace of one of the most famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Alcalá de Henares, September 29, 1547 - Madrid, April 23, 1616) and has retained many houses and details from the time when there lived side by side Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The very turbulent history of Spain was breaking down on and in that area. With expert guidance and a tour of the historical museum, we got a great insight into the history of the place and the region.
This was followed by an introduction to cultural and tourist attractions, from dishes (tapas), customs, nightlife, traditions and the like.
The course had an introduction in which we toured Alcala de Henares, the oldest university in Spain, near Madrid, where the course was held. The whole city is under UNESCO protection, it is the birthplace of one of the most famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Alcalá de Henares, September 29, 1547 - Madrid, April 23, 1616) and has retained many houses and details from the time when there lived side by side Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The very turbulent history of Spain was breaking down on and in that area. With expert guidance and a tour of the historical museum, we got a great insight into the history of the place and the region.
This was followed by an introduction to cultural and tourist attractions, from dishes (tapas), customs, nightlife, traditions and the like.
After a rich insight into the space and time of the place we were at, we set off with the professional part.
What do we mean by working together? It was the first question we discussed after getting to know the group members. After the presentation of the participants and the exchange of common expectations, we formed groups in which we stayed until the end of the course and within which we did daily practical work. This was followed by a short theoretical introduction to collaborative work and what are its advantages, schedules and strictly assigned and defined tasks of students in the group.
In the practical part, we worked in the application for working in the online classroom ClassDojo, then Flipgrid, an application for recording and sharing short videos.
A group is formed and within it video tasks are shared and reviewed, for example some exercises from TKZ that are easier to show than to describe.
Likewise, students can submit their performances. Next, we did an exercise of creative story writing in groups, but so that each group first writes and reads the last sentence of their passage, and gets the first sentence from the previous group. The exercise can also be done online.
During the work we used Padlet, work on a common online board where you can leave texts, pictures, links, etc.
The next day, the topic was WebQuest in the classroom. We answered the questions we asked ourselves and wrote down at the beginning of the exercise :
- what is WebQuest
- advantages of webQuests
- essential parts of webQuest
- themes to be used in WebQuest
- why use WebQuests in the classroom and finally there was again a workshop of practical simulation.
In short, WebQuest is an application that provides examples of a query-oriented lesson format in which most or all of the information students work with comes from the web.
They can be created using a variety of programs, including a simple word processing document that includes links to web pages. We also used Canva as an auxiliary tool for creating posters and collages, and Genially for creating interactive tasks.
The next group topic was learning through play using online tools. So we made tasks for the "wheel of fortune" Wheeldecide, quizzes with the help of Quizziz, then Playfactile in which the questions are arranged from the easiest to more difficult and for each correct you get a certain amount of money and for incorrect you lose, then we also did a Jeopardy quiz and so on.
Finally, we met the Classcraft program, which just as a video game guides students to choose their avatars and then in different situations have to answer questions that lead them further into the game or in case of incorrect answerscomplicate your way through the game.
We also got acquainted with PlayProdigy, a game similar to Pokemon game but which also incorporates teacher-mentored questions. Scrabble Tittles, for making crossword puzzles, TabooGame, English language exercises, Pictonary game which makes one group draws for 5 seconds and the other respond for 10 seconds, so whoever guesses what’s in the drawing first, plays in front of the whole class.
Finally, we did examples of using blogs in the classroom, using Edmodo in the classroom, and getting a brief introduction to other social media tools like Twitter and Weebly.
This was followed by a workshop on eTwinning Desktop tools and eTwinning TwinSpace, as well as the development of a specific eTwinning project on given original forms.
Here's the summary of the course objectives:
The objectives of the course are divided into different levels of teaching in different situations:
• Provide teachers with practical ideas on how they can incorporate collaborative work into their existing lessons.
• Defining the use of web-based questions in education with its benefits, providing teachers with practical ideas on how they can include them in their existing lessons.
• Introduce teachers to current Internet trends
• Providing space for the exchange of experiences and good practices among people coming from different countries working in the same area
• Greater motivation to stay on task by working in small groups using Web 2.0;
• Developing active and constructive involvement of students in class work;
• Encouraging students to take ownership of their learning;
• Improving teamwork by fostering the necessary skills to launch a strategic partnership (KA2) under Erasmus +;
• Exchange of experiences in the cooperative and collaborative learning process, as well as in creativity and innovation;
• Sharing best practice in teaching and learning, enabling teachers to become confident and competent enough to create a shared, interactive classroom experience for their students.
The course contains a mixture of theoretical and practical knowledge. Participants were given the theoretical information they needed to effectively create and implement their own learning solutions. Using this theoretical knowledge, organized and practical tasks are designed to show the importance of collaborative work. Each course participant is eventually trained to apply their new skills in the classroom but also in collaboration with fellow teachers from other countries on new projects.
The objectives of the course are divided into different levels of teaching in different situations:
• Provide teachers with practical ideas on how they can incorporate collaborative work into their existing lessons.
• Defining the use of web-based questions in education with its benefits, providing teachers with practical ideas on how they can include them in their existing lessons.
• Introduce teachers to current Internet trends
• Providing space for the exchange of experiences and good practices among people coming from different countries working in the same area
• Greater motivation to stay on task by working in small groups using Web 2.0;
• Developing active and constructive involvement of students in class work;
• Encouraging students to take ownership of their learning;
• Improving teamwork by fostering the necessary skills to launch a strategic partnership (KA2) under Erasmus +;
• Exchange of experiences in the cooperative and collaborative learning process, as well as in creativity and innovation;
• Sharing best practice in teaching and learning, enabling teachers to become confident and competent enough to create a shared, interactive classroom experience for their students.
The course contains a mixture of theoretical and practical knowledge. Participants were given the theoretical information they needed to effectively create and implement their own learning solutions. Using this theoretical knowledge, organized and practical tasks are designed to show the importance of collaborative work. Each course participant is eventually trained to apply their new skills in the classroom but also in collaboration with fellow teachers from other countries on new projects.