Journalist's post.

Hello! I'm Rosana and this week I have had the journalist's role.

The first day that we met, we started reading the different topics. When we read one topic, we thought in some questions that we could do. 





In this way, we were able to make note of the main things that we wanted to highlight.

Fortunately, we only had to meet twice. So the second time we met, we could do all the questions. Each member of the group contributed with different ideas, and in this way, it was very easy choose the questions that we wanted do.

When we had all the questions ready, we read everything in order to sure that it was okay.





Finally, we went to the class on Thursday and we had to evaluate the cards of our classmates, with the collaboration of 'Give me 7'. In this photos, it's reflecting how each member gave his point of view and all together we could decide the scores that we thought more adecuate.

 

To sum up, I would like to say that for me it have been a pleasure to be a journalist, because I love photography, so it was a nice week to me and I'm very happy with my group. Thank you, and best regards.

Translator Post

Hello everyone! I am Maria Dolores, the translator this week in my group.

For this task, we had to choose four questions of the six topics which Linda sent us. These topics are about the changes in the last law of education, LOE and the current, LOMCE. The week before, each group did a conceptual map and then, we uploaded a complete conceptual map with the ideas of each group. Through these conceptual maps we choose four questions of each topic. According to this, the 5 most important terms that I have learnt on the week are this:

Law, it is a regulation applicable to the people by some authority. If someone breaks the law, he or she would punishment by judicial decision. Through the correct laws a country would become organized in a good way.

Education, it is a form of learning, here the skills, knowledge and habits are transmitted through teaching. Education usually is transferred by someone, but in other occasion we can learn by ourselves. Education is divided in different stages: preschool, primary school, secondary school and finally the college, university or apprenticeship.

Questionnaire is an instrument which is used to make a series of questions; the purpose is to know the kind information which we want to get. Many times is used to know the knowledge of people, for example, the exams of students.

Question is a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or the request made using such an expression. The information requested may be provided in the form of an answer.

Answer is a reply to a question or is a solution or a response that is relevant to the said question. An answer is an assertion in opposition to someone or something.

To conclude, I have to say that in this task we have learnt more about each topic, because in the last week we only did two conceptual maps of two topics. However, this week we have to read the six topics to extract the perfect question with the correct answer, so now, we know more about the changes between LOE and LOMCE.    

Stars Post

Hello, dear readers!!! We are Esmeralda and Blanca. Today in class we have to vote from 0 to 10 the different aspects that we have to take into account for evaluating the questions of the changes between LOE and LOMCE.

Us, “The Little Ants” with the assistance of the group “Give me 7” as supervisors, had to mark the questions of all the groups of the Topic one: “An Overview of the Educational System”.

The questions we have to evaluate were:

C'mon Tutankamon:

-        What are the two features that the Educational System needs to combine?

-        The Spanish Education offer Specialised Education, inside Specialized Education, what subjects appear?

-        Basic Education is divided in...?

-        How many types of provision there are in the Educational System?

Brainstorming:

-        Can you "repeat" grades in the "ESO"? In which grades and how many times?

-        What is needed to access the "basic training cycles"?

-        Can you "repeat" grades in primary education? In which grades and how many times?

-        Are the two cycles of primary education free? Why?

Step by Step:

-        What are the main objectives in the Primary Education System, according to LOE and LOMCE?

-        Once we have finished ESO, what options have we to continue studying?

-        If you are less than 14 years old, what do you need to access to the intermediate level of language part in Upper Secondary Education? And if you are over than 16 years old?

-        If my father, who is 45 years old, wants to study, what kind of school could he go?

Education Rush Hour:

-        What can a student who gets the Lower Compulsory Education Certificate do?

-        Why can we go from training to employment and vice versa?

-        Apart of the 5 principle studies the Spanish Education System provides, What three types of Specialized education offer the Spanish Education system?

-        What kind of autonomy does school have?

Give me 7:

-        What percentage of knowledge does the government set to maintain the common training throughout the national territory?

-        What two core competences are evaluated in the diagnostic test that is completed at the end of the third year of Primary Education?

-        What subjects are relevant for the average mark of Primary Education, that weren't in the previous law?

-        A 12 year old boy has failed all his exams and had to repeat the year. Can this child receive a scholarship? Why?

The Little Ants:

-        After what degree of education you obtain your first official certificate?

-        In which two main principles focus the law the quality of school?

-        What two possibilities offer Upper Secondary Education?

-        Apart of these studies: Pre-Primary Education, Basic Education, Upper Secondary Education, which more offer the Educational System?

The Teachleaders:

-        At what age can the adult education and training start?

-        The Upper Secondary Education is provided by secondary schools, what are the possibilities that you can choose?

-        We know that one of the characteristics of the Spanish Educational System is the flexibility. So, what does it means leaving the theoretical framework of lifelong fixed by Spanish Educational System?

-        If you finish the provision of the Spanish Educational System, including masters and doctorates, can you follow the studies?

 T8T:

-        How could the LOMCE face up a disadvantaged school where there is a wide diversity of students?

-        Is a seventeen years-old student able to access to the adult education, according to the LOMCE? Explain why or why not.

-        According to the LOMCE, is all the education free until the bachelor?

-        According to LOMCE if you have the Lower Compulsory Secondary Education certificate what do you need to access to Advanced vocational training?

Hide & Seek:

-        What are the most important features of the Educational System? Describe what the Educational Authorities want with these characteristics. 

-        What are the basic competences of primary education?

-        Who supervises the schools?

-        Apart from Upper Secondary Education, Higher Education, and Adult Education, what type of training can I do after Basic Education?

To sum up, we must say that in spite of having little time to evaluate the questions, we think we have chosen them right.

Greetings.

Analyst Post

Hello! I’m Blanca and this week I have the role of Analyst. I have to evaluate the work of every member of the group and make a reflection about the task. This week we started the part of the subject of Educational Resources and the task, as you know, consists on the changes in the Spanish Educational System.

This week we have to compare the two lasts laws, LOE (Ley Orgánica de Educación) and LOMCE (Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa). At first, I found this task a bit difficult because it was the first time that we deal with this kind of laws. We saw it in the subject of Planificación de la Acción Educativa, but with this task we really understood how it is.

On the one hand, the best part of the activity was to analyze, examine and vote three conceptual maps and do a new one with all the information. With this, we realized how to be critical, new perspectives and ways of thinking and madding conceptual maps. We also learn that this subject is more than learning content; we have to develop new competences by our own with assistance of our teacher. For these reasons I think it was the best part of the task.

On the other hand, the worst thing is that it was a bit difficult to put the marks of the conceptual maps of the classmates because each member of the group thinks about different aspects. But finally we take into account everything and we carried out with our work. Moreover, we should encourage more comradeship among classmates to be better in class.

With this task, we have learnt the main differences between LOE and LOMCE. We understood how was and actually is the educational law of Spain and the main characteristics. It is a very important thing for our future as teachers because we will use it all along our work. We also learnt with this task and with the other ones, how to work cooperatively and with autonomy organizing our own ideas of the differences between the laws with conceptual maps. I think it would be very easy to us understand the laws with conceptual maps which contains the important information. But one thing I want to remark, how we are going to use all these knowledge we are acquiring in our future work as teachers?

I think we need to conserve our dedication and implication with every task. We do our best to improve every week. In my opinion, I think we are very united with an objective: learn as much as we can!

As far as I am concerned, we have to improve the presentations of our tasks because we are always nervous. We have to speak louder and put more enthusiasm in everything we do. Although our work is well done, we can improve!

The content of this task, as I said before, is related to the one we learn on the subject “Planificación de la Acción Educativa”. Then, I have to say that the law is going to be present all along our future as teachers, because we need to know the framework in which we are going to develop children’s knowledge and our own knowledge too. We are going to deal with this content the rest of the degree.

In my opinion, there are some evident social connections of this content in the recent protests we saw in television because of the new educational law, LOMCE. This situation entails people who is in favour or against of it. For example, I think it is a bad implementation that they remove music from the subjects of Primary Education. It seems to me that it should remain compulsory.

I have found this post in a blog of a school which consists on what I have explained before: http://ampapaulofreire.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/manifestacion-por-la-musica-en-la.html

Greetings!

Differences between LOE and LOMCE

Hello everyone! 

This week we have started with the part of this subject called, ‘’School Organization’’. So, during these five weeks we have to developed this work which is based on the Educational System in Spain, this week the winners of the game will have a price, 1,5 plus in the portfolio, for the first winner, and 1 plus for the second winner. This first week we have worked with two laws, LOE which was the previous law and LOMCE which is the current. We have known better the laws, LOMCE didn´t change all the aspects which were in the LOE at all, but it does some changes for example in the part of administration schools have more autonomy in order to elaborate their curriculum. Also about the previous law, LOE, we have studied the differences between them and also we have studied some things which have not changed respect to the topics.

To show these changes, we have had to do two conceptual maps about our topics, Linda sent us some basic tips, and there she wrote each group and two of the topics which we had to do. Our topics were number 3, organization of primary school and number 6 administration and governance at local and/or institutional level II, below of there appeared the main aspects which we had to treated in our conceptual maps.

According to this, the stars of each group had to present the conceptual maps in class. In the presentation we have to evaluate all the conceptual maps and only two groups can win, and that group will have their prices.

But in the class of Monday was different for our group because we were divided in two and some of us went with “Hide and Sick” and other with “Give me 7”. While other group had to evaluate other conceptual maps about a topic we had to be supervisors, this means that we have to see that they evaluated other conceptual maps in an objective way. Some of us treated one of our topic, organization of primary school, but on the other hand, the other members had to evaluate other topic, the primary school, which we didn´t know very well, despite of this we learnt some aspects of this new topic because we were awake to evaluate three of the conceptual maps. In short, half of our group were the supervisors of "Give me 7" and the other part made a global conceptual map with "Hide and Sick" about the Organization of Primary Education. Here you can see it:

We have done a big effort to do two conceptual maps clear and beautiful because the groups which reach this prize will have easier in the exam and they can be more relaxed.

To make our conceptual maps we used the next web page 2.0 which had all the tools which we wanted to use and it was adapted to our desires.: ExamTime.

https://www.examtime.com/es

Here we show you our conceptual maps, we chose fun colors, red and green to make them, red color to number 6, administration and governance at local and/or institutional level II and green to number 3, organization of primary school.

https://www.examtime.com/es/p/693136

https://www.examtime.com/es/p/678772

Journalist Post

Hello!! I am Raquel and this week I am the journalist of my group, ‘’The LittleAnts’’. I am going to tell you the story about our work during this week.

On the first day, we didn’t know very well what we had to do, because Linda explains the task every week, and with this explanation we can have an idea about it. However, we have to decide how we can do our work in the best way and once we have chosen it, we should decide the tools that we can use. So, first of all, we were discussing about it, and finally we decided to make a comic to show our work, because we think that it is a good way to send this message about textbooks.

In addition, we decided about what the message of our comic would be, and we wrote the dialogues between the characters of the comic. We were also looking for some photos with creative common licenses on flickr to make our comic, although we found some photos, we really thought that it would be better if we took our own photos, or in this case to make our own drawings and then digitize and upload them to flickr to achieve exactly what we wanted.

On the second day, as I have just said, we thought about the possibility of making our own drawings and digitizing and uploading them to flickr, so on the second day we made all drawings that we needed and upload it to flickr. We were exploring about the tools that we could use to make our comic online, we tried different ways; however, we didn’t know how to do it. So we didn’t do it online, we carried out both comics, the first one in English and the second one in Spanish. We knew that probably we would have to change it, but we couldn’t do anything.

One the third day, the first thing that we did was to show our work to Linda, because we knew that we should do it online, and as we imagined Linda told us that we couldn’t show our work in this way because we had to do it online. Because of that, we had to change our hole work, the first time in English and the second time in Spanish.

On the fourth day our starts showed our work.

Although we had worked twice, now we are very happy, because we have done our work in the correct way, and as far as I’m concerned it has been a nice and interesting experience, because we know these things about textbooks, however, we ignore it in our daily life and when we reflect on it, as we have done with this task. We really realize that there are more resources, that teachers are doing a bad use of textbooks and that they base their classes on them, and we have to change it. We have to fight against this power of editorials and the politicals ideas which are represented on textbooks, we have to achieve an education based on the power of the teacher’s methodology, on their ideas to use different resources to interact with their students and also to get that they learn on their own.

I have also commented in our twiter about the task and finally, I have commented in a blog of my classmates, in the Brain Storming's blog,

http://7brainstorming.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/feli-as-journalist.html#gpluscomments

and in another blog that I have found, which is really interesting, and also it talks exactly about the same aspects of our task of this week.

Mercedes Ruiz's class

Hello everyone! On Monday we had a very special visit in our #SOyER1314 class, Mercedes Ruiz (@londones). She demonstrated us how is possible teach the children in a very different way as the usual. 

As resource, she used just a skirt, gloves and a hat, with this she told a story, it was very interesting. With the gloves, one blue and one red, she explained the reality of our country and the political situation in it. We liked too much her class, we realized that the teacher is also a story-teller and she has to innovate other ways of teaching in order to do dynamic classes and motivate their children. After she sent us a funny task, we really enjoyed doing it,we took a photo outside the class and chose a slogan for it. 

Our slogan was ‘Together for the same  goal’, we think is important to work in groups and support in others, mainly with all have the same goal, in our case, being teachers.

https://twitter.com/LittleAnts95/status/442972975105863680/photo/1

Here, you have some photos about the making off:

 

Mercedes also explained us that a teacher has to know how to work without text books, just use it like an extra help, not focus their lessons on it, the students only learn from a point of view with it, and no think by themselves, just memorise for the exam and after, they forget all the knowledge learned.

To finish, we want to say thanks to Mercedes Ruiz for her lesson, we will never forget it, she helped us a lot to open our mind and understand the necessity of being good teachers and professionals in our work. Also we want to say thanks to our teacher Linda for bring us this opportunity, it was fantastic and very useful for us.

Best regards. 

Stars Post- Esmeralda and María

Hi! We are Esmeralda and Maria, the stars of this week. The last Monday, we presented an exposition about a topic of primary school, one of the properties of the water- density and objects which float, and objects which sink.

Our topic, as we have already said was about water. On one hand, when we explained why objects float, we put a cork and a leaf on the surface of the water and we could see how they do not sink due to its low weight material. On the other hand, we could see how a coin and a stone sink when we put them on the surface of the water.

In our presentation we decided to do some experiments because we think that it is an effective method for children to learn in a more interactive way. Sometimes students have to accept what the teachers told them without any reason for believe it. So, if we prove as the same time that we teach them it will be easier for them to memorize and internalize this content.

Here you can see the presentation we used last Monday:

http://www.slideshare.net/TheLittleAnts/float-and-sink

Also, you can find each photo of our presentation on flirck.com. We have uploaded it because maybe some of you find our photos interesting so, you can download and use them.

During the presentation, we used a set of slides to illustrate our ideas. We used some tips in order to make the slides more attractive to the class. For example, we tried to use only one sentence in each slide and we tried to put only one image in each slide but including their respective creative common licences. Moreover, we acquire new tips about how to make a presentation properly. Summarizing:

- Images must occupy the entire size of the slide in order to make them more impressive.

-When we do some experiments is better to accompany them with professional images. 

-At least, it is better to use big letters than use bold letters.

Finally, with this activity we learnt that doing a presentation is a good way to show children why learning is not boring. In addition, we learnt a lot of other group's presentations; for example we discovered that it is very interesting teaching through a tale and also that we can do a type of game in order to facilitate the internalizing process of the content.

We hope you enjoy it! 

Esmeralda and Maria. 

Translator Post

Hi, I'm Esmeralda! I'm the traslator this week and, as many of you know, the traslator's task is to  find the five most important terms that we have learnt during the task of this week and I have to define each term with my own words. Well, we have been working on the topic "TPACK in education" so the five terms that I have chosen as the most important are TPACK, content, technology, pedadogy and integration.

In order to define each of these terms I have based my research on an specific article that the teacher gave us. Then, I will put the reference of the other article in the end of my post because maybe, it is interesting for some of you.

  Maybe, the most important term of the task is TPACK. 

- TPACK stands for Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge and it is also the interaction between these three bodies of knowledge. TPACK is described as a frame where the goal is the integration of the use of technology (both analog and digital) in training future teachers. The use of TPACK has as a result an effective teaching on the part of the teachers.

- When we talk about Content Knowledge (CK) we referred to the subject matter that teachers must know so that they can teach others in an adequate way. Each subject has a different specific content.

- Technology Knowledge (TK) refers to the knowledge of differents technologies and the aplication of this technologies to the educational context. We can distinguish between (1)traditional pedagogical technologies (a pencil); and (2) digital technologies, such as computers.

-Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) consist of the knowledge on the part of the teachers of the appropriate processes and methods for an effective teaching and learning. 

-I will define the term integration in relation to the TPACK framework. We talk about the integration of the three bodies of knowledge which form the TPACK. It means, integration consists of putting together the content, pegadody and technology on an specific educational context in order to create an effective teaching. 

This is the reference of the article that the teacher gave us and I have used it as the base for definining the main terms:


Roselmina Indrisano, Lee S. Shulman, Matthew J. Koehler, Punya Mishra, and William Cain, Storey Mecoli, Mary Elizabeth Matthews, Michelle Carney and Roselmina Indrisano, Laura M. Jiménez and Kristin K. A. McIlhagga and Laura Callis. (2013) “JOURNAL OF EDUCATION volume 193, number 3, 2013 Pedagogical Content Knowledge”

I have also used other sources, here you have the references: -Royce Kimmons. (2011-03-22). "TPACK in 3 Minutes". Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wGpSaTzW58

 -Schmidt, D. A., Baran, E., Thompson, A. D., Mishra, P., Koehler, M. J., & Shin, T. S. (2009). Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK): The development and validation of an assessment instrument for preservice teachers. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 42(2), 123.

I hope you enjoy it! 

TPACK in education

This week we have been working with the topic “TPACK”. In order to describe our work, we are going to explain what we know about TPACK.

As a summary, we can say that Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is the complex interaction between the knowledge of technology, pedagogy and content. Also, the goal is the integration of the use of technology for future teachers.  At the heart of the TPACK framework, it is the complex interplay of three primary bodies of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK). As it must be clear, the TPACK framework builds on Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

Nowadays TPACK is growing in the scholar framework.

To achieve an effective teaching it is needed a good access to technologies and knowing very well the content of each subject which the teachers have to teach. TPACK is not a new idea. Other scholars have argued that good teaching requires an understanding of how technology is related to the pedagogy and content.

Mishra and Koehler (2006) argued that “TPACK was derived from three key knowledge sources i.e. technological knowledge (TK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and content knowledge (CK)”. There are two viewpoints about TPACK’s epistemological nature. The first one is the transformative viewpoint as one where TPACK was a synthesis of TK, PK and CK, so that the influences of each have to be interrelated. On the other hand was the integrative viewpoint, where TPACK did not exist as a unique body of knowledge; but it was a simple combination of TK, PK, and CK that came about during teaching. There is another transformative viewpoint where TPACK exists as a unique body of knowledge.

Firstly, Technological Knowledge (TK) refers to the knowledge about various technologies, to apply them in class. Secondly, Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) refers to the teacher’s knowledge about the practices, methods and strategies of teaching and learning. Thirdly, Content Knowledge (CK) refers to the teacher's knowledge about the subject which is being taught.

Technological and Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) is the relationship which refers to the understanding of how teaching and learning can change when technologies are used. The second relationship we find is (PCK) Pedagogical and Content Knowledge refers to the knowledge of pedagogy which teachers apply to teach a specific content. The third relationship is (TCK) Technological and Content Knowledge which refers to the understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence one another. Finally, (TPACK) Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, is the relationship among all the components. TPACK framework has offered several possibilities for promoting research in teachers’ education, teachers’ professional development, and teachers’ use of technology.

Now that you know the basic description about TPACK, we are going to explain the last class of Organization we had last Monday. The Star of each group explained to the class what they know about TPACK. We will do a little assessment of each group:

THE EIGHT TEACHERS: The poster was very original with the different stickers which were put by the Star of the group, Alba. She explained the theory and at the same time she added new information.

BRAIN STORMING: What we liked the most of this group was that the Star of the group, Rosana, contextualized the concept of TPACK. She explained the history.

TEACH LEADERS: This group had two Stars, Nerea and Gloria. They were fluent during the exposition and we enjoyed it a lot.

GIVE ME SEVEN: The Star, Javi, explained the theory very clear. The exposition of the group was related to the practiced we did on the previous week. He used some images to explain TPACK.

EDUCATION RUSH HOUR: Carmela, the Star of this group, was very original because she used a lot of examples in order to explain better the concept of TPACK.

STEP BY STEP: Yolanda was the Star of the group. She explained the theory very clear and she accompany the explanation with examples of the subjects we studied the previous semester.

HIDE AND SEEK: It was original, because it had relief. The explanation of the Stars, Rosa and Ana Cristina was fluent and they explained well what they wanted to say.

C’MON TUTANKMON: We liked very much this presentation because the Stars of the group, Lola and Carolina, explained the theory as if we were children of primary education. In this way, the explanation was perfect.

On the other hand, some of the Stars must speak loudly in order to listening to them better. Most of the Stars had learned the explanation by heart and also they did not talk about the context of TPACK.

Finally, if you do not have clear the concept of TPACK, we are going to upload a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2sD3K3daq8

To sum up, we learnt a lot about TPACK because we did not know what it was and we enjoy it a lot.

See you soon.