Hi bloggers! I am Silvia García Martínez and
this week my role has been the analyst!
As probably you have seen in the other posts
this week the task has been based on “The dark side of the textbooks” a topic
that, in my opinion, has been very interesting and has helped me to know other
perspectives and realities about one important instrument for all the teachers
currently. But we are going to go step by step.
From my point of view I must say that the best
part of this activity has been to do the comic, in part because we have learnt
a new tool that we can use in our future to do more interactive and fun classes
considering that, like we can see in the blog Macinstruct and as The Washington
post’s article explains, the comics can be used as a new method for
teaching, taking into account the popularity that they have among the children.
In addition, apart from this reason, the
other important factor that has influenced me to say that the comic has been
the best part of the week (and I can say that this has been the best moment in
group of the week too) is that I loved how we coordinated to do it. That moment
was wonderful because we did a brainstorming without to try it, simply, we
started to give our ideas spontaneously. In the same way, as we did not know
how to use the tools from the web 0.2, we had to help each other and to work
together, an aspect that was very funny because we have to investigate and to
do a lot of tests that we enjoyed a lot.
By contrast, all the activity was not totally
perfect and, although I think that this has been one of the best and funnier
activities that we have done until now we have had some problems too. The main
problem and the worse part of this activity has been that on Monday 09th,
when we tried to send Linda the link of the web page in which we did our comic
we could not do it, above all because we did each vignettes separately in order
to can print it in a bigger size. I think that this has been the worst part
because after a great week we felt a bit overwhelmed and worried because we did
not know how to do it. In my opinion our fault was that we did not think that
Linda could want to see the entire comic on the web 2.0. In the future we must
try to be prepared for these things and not feel overwhelmed about them, above all
because we are going to confront this type of situations (as in our career as
in our daily life) so we must learn to deal with them. When I talk about the
work in group I am proud to say that this week we have done, in my opinion, a
very good work even if we cannot meet all together, because in that situation we have been capable of divide the work and do all the same amount of work (more or
less).
So, as I have said, one of the most important
things that I have learnt is how to use new tools that can help us in our
future. But other important thing that I would like to emphasize is that,
thanks to this activity, I have learnt that the textbooks, an essential
instrument in education currently, maybe are not so good or indispensable as we
have always thought. With this I want to say that with this activity I have
realized how (at least in my opinion) the textbooks always have been seen as a
tool that is going to be always there, even caused that the students (and not
only in primary school) do not pay attention to the teacher because the things
that they must know for the exam are in the book. And I must recognize that I
understand them, if the teacher is only going to ask you the contents that are
in the book and, above all, if he or she only is going to repeat the things
that are in the textbook (and in some occasions you must give thanks if he or
she changes a little the words), why are you going to pay attention? Besides,
thanks to this activity I have learnt more reasons for thinking that, maybe, it
is time to find an alternative for the textbook, an alternative cheaper, that
must be an accompaniment for the teacher, not a content that they should accomplish.
But, above all, I think that the main characteristic that this instrument must
have is that it has to allow to the children to participate in it, it must be
interactive and enjoyable (as much as possible in each subject).
Taking into account all that I said I think
that we already do a good job as a group and we must conserve it in the next
weeks to continue doing the activities with the same motivation. In my opinion
to work in group with a good environment is essential to achieve good activities
and I think that we are doing a good work in this aspect. However, I think that
there are always things that we can improve as, for example, that we usually
have some things to do until the end of the week, and in some occasions, only a
person or a few of us must finish the activity because we cannot do together
considering that we do not have enough time or only a member of our group
dominates the tool that we must use, so in my opinion we must be more
foresighted in some aspect and always that it is possible in order to improve
and to work always the same in all the aspects. In addition, if we do not learn
to use the different tools because (as we have not time) if the same person
always do it in order to finish earlier, the rest of us are not going to learn
suitably something that can be essential for our future.
Now, to finish, I am going to analyse the
connection that the content of this week can have with our degree or with the
social life. From my point of view and as I have said before this task can be
essential as to our degree as to our daily life as well as it has helped us to
understand that we cannot trust in all that we see. With this I want to say
that thanks to this activity we have learnt that there are other methods for
teaching and that not all the traditional instruments are goods for learning.
In this new century the technology has progressed a lot and this, in
combination with our imagination, must serve us to develop new techniques that
help us to do more participative the classes as well as to save money, to
recycle… In the same way this activity has helped us to realize that the
content of the textbooks are not confident, a reality that, in my opinion, we
can also apply to the TV, the newspapers and so on because in many occasions they
are influenced by a determinate ideology, religion or even politic. So we must
be very careful and critic with all these things in our daily life.
References
Thacker, C. (2007, August 3). How to use comic life in the classroom. In Macinstruct. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.macinstruct.com/node/69
Mui, Y. (2004, December 13). Schools turn to comics as trial balloon. In The Washington Post. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59964-2004Dec12.html
Being
the star has been a good experience. I thought I would be more
nervous than I actually was, so I could reply questions without
getting crazy.
