Let's tell the story of the week!

Hi bloggers! I'm Anthea, the journalist this week. As you already know, my work consists on telling the day by day of the group and, at the end, recommend two blogs: one of my classmates and another one from outside, but related to education. 

The activity this week was about doing two mind maps connected to the Spanish Educational System, each one about one topic, ours were 1 (An Overview of the Educational System) and 4 (Organisational Variations and Alternative Structures in Primary Education: Rural Schools, Itinerancy and non-regular schooling, Bilingual Teaching and Distance Education).

Firstly, on Monday, after Linda explained the work for the week, the facilitator divided it so that we could start doing the project. Afterwards we decided to meet on Tuesday, because it wuold be better preparing the information and having clear ideas before we start working. In this way, we could save time the following day by having everything read.

Secondly, on Tuesday, we were at the library completing the mind maps for being able to show them to Linda on Thursday, in such a way, we would have the chance for correcting the mistakes we could have committed while we were doing them.

We thought that it would take less time, but the reality is that we can say that we closed the library... as you can see.

We wanted to do what we had though at the beginning, so we had to spend all the needed time there. But it doesn't mind, we make the effort and we did almost everything.

Finally, on Monday, we had to work with the star of the group Busy Bees (Ana) and a half of the group Keep Calm and Keep Organized (Elena, Noelia and Ángela). This day, we had to look what was right and wrong of the topic four's mind maps and mark them by using an online questionnaire provided by the teacher. In addition, we had to complete the Busy Bees' mind map.

Now, the second part of my role. I have to choose two blogs.

The first one is... the Busy Bees' blog!!! This group has a very fun, organised and clear blog. It's understandable and  easy to read and find last posts.

Congratulations guys, you have a really good blog. I enjoy reading your posts and... what's more! Not only the post, but also seeing your expositions, which are great! Go on working like this! Good work.

Blog's link: http://busybeestakeiteasy.blogspot.com.es/

And to conclude mi post I want to recommend an educational blog which talks about the education in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There is not a quality education there, so in this blog they fight for it, they want children to receive a good education. For this reason I can't stop admiring them. Maybe they won't achieve anything, but they try. An that's what has made me suggest to you the blog.

Blog's link: http://blogs.iadb.org/education/

Hello everybody, the translator is here!!

Law: It's a system of rules which are enforced through social institutions to the correct govern behaviour. The two laws we have worked this week are LOE, which is the old one and LOMCE which is the one we have now and which changed in order to improve the previous one.


LOE: Is the state organic law which regulates the Educational system in Spain. This law cesed to be valid when the government approved the LOMCE.


LOMCE: LOMCE is the " ley organica para la mejora de la calidad educativa ", is also known like Wert's law, which modifies the LOE in some aspects in order to have a better education.


Educational system: An educational systems contains everythings related to education, like school resources, educational laws, but this educational systems only have state schools.


Organization: Is the way through which one, people divide and organise the things. In many cases like in the case of education, the organization was governed by educational laws.


REFERENCES:

Law. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/law

Organization. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organization?s=ts

Education System (2013, August 29). In The Glossary of Education Reform. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://edglossary.org/education-system/

Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_Org%C3%A1nica_para_la_Mejora_de_la_Calidad_Educativa

Ley Orgánica de Educación (España) (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_Org%C3%A1nica_de_Educaci%C3%B3n_(Espa%C3%B1a)

Analyzing not only the LOMCE, but also how we work!

Hello bloggers! I'm Alba García and this week I'm the group's analyst. As you know from previous weeks, the analyst is in charge of analysing how we have worked as a group and also as individuals, and also what we have learned.

The task we have had to do this week has been about the Basics of the Spanish Educational System. We have analysed the LOMCE, which is the new Spanish educational law. As it has been recently introduced, we only knew some aspects of this law, which actually were very few. As future teachers, this activity has helped us to know how the situation will be (if the law stays the same) when we arrive to the classrooms, what we will have to face and deal with. It is true that educational laws don't stay the same for long, but even if they change some aspects of it are likely to stay the same (as it has already happened between the LOE and the LOMCE, for instance), so it is never a bad idea to know about them beforehand.

It is vital to know about the law, about what will be demanded and expected from us, and what we will have to do with our students for them to achieve their best in the current educational system. This also happens in any other job. This way, any employee will have to know the business' rules and what will be expected from him or her so that person can perform his or her best in the role they are performing at work. We can't just act freely. In order to succeed, we have to stick to the rules  and try to don't go beyond them or otherwise we will have to face the consequences of not doing what we were supposed to do.

Thanks to this activity we have also realized that we don't have to read the hundreds of pages a law contains, but we can instead look for official websites which offer an understandable and complete summary of the law we want to know about. Besides, this can also be done with thousands of other topics. This way we won't have to spend too much time reading a document which we hardly understand because of the complex vocabulary. 

The best part of this activity was, without a doubt, getting to know how things at schools are nowadays, as they are very different from when we were at school (which wasn't long ago). Otherwise, we wouldn't have had the initiative to read a document about the new educational law and know a bit about it. On the other hand, the worse part of the activity was having to read so many documents, especially for topic 1! But, luckily, as we are six members in the group we divided the documents between us so it wasn't as tiring.

As a group we almost always tend to agree on what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. However, sometimes we discuss a bit because one of us thinks that doing a different thing is better, but I suppose that happens in every group and it will also happen when we become teachers at a school. This week's activity hasn't been a problem with that aspect, as we all knew how the programme we were going to use (Cmap Tools) worked and we all had a common idea of how we could do the conceptual map for each topic. 

Furthermore, dividing the big group in two smaller groups of three members each was a great idea as we could work on both topics at the same time and profit better the time. But not all that glitters is gold. As one of the topics was longer that the other, one of the groups had to read and analyse more information than the other group, but overall we all worked hard on the topics we had to do.

 Because of that, although we tend to work well together, something we could improve on is looking well at the documents and what the task is about before dividing the work among us, as at first sight it may seem longer or shorter than what it really is. This way, we will make sure that the work will be divided equally between us.

To finish with I would like to stress the idea that for doing our best we have to know what is expected from us and how we are expected to do it not only in the professional aspects, but also academically. And remember, you can always improve what you do. The sky is the limit!

Here is the CURATOR - FARMER!

Hi bloggers! I am Silvia García and this week my role has been the curator-farmer.

The activity of this week has been based on the creation of a Mind Map about two topics related with the LOMCE. In our case, the topics which we have worked have been the topic 1(An Overview of the Educational System) and the topic 4 (Organisational Variations and Alternative Structures in Primary Education). As this activity has been focused on looking for information, we have not got images or music that we must reference, but here you can find all the websites and books that we have used.

Jefatura del Estado, . (2013). Boletín Oficial del Estado. Retrieved from https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2013/12/10/pdfs/BOE-A-2013-12886.pdf

TOPIC  1: An Overview of the Educational System

BOOKS:

Eurydice – Facts and Figures, . (n.d.). Organisation of school time in Europe Primary and secondary general education 2014/15 school year. N.p.: Education and Training. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/facts_and_figures/school_calendar_EN.pdf

Eurydice – Facts and Figures, . (n.d.). Recommended Annual Taught Time in Full-time Compulsory Education in Europe 2012/13. N.p.: Education and Training. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/facts_and_figures/taught_time_EN.pdf

Eurydice – Facts and Figures, . (n.d.). The Organisation of the Academic Year in Europe 2014/15. N.p.: Education and Training. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/facts_and_figures/academic_calendar_EN.pdf

WEBSITES:

Educational Support and Guidance (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Educational_Support_and_Guidance

Funding in Education (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Funding_in_Education

Management and Other Education Staff (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Management_and_Other_Education_Staff

Mobility and Internationalisation (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Mobility_and_Internationalisation

Ongoing Reforms and Policy Developments (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Ongoing_Reforms_and_Policy_Developments

Organisation and Governance (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Organisation_and_Governance

Overview (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Overview#top

Primary Education (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Primary_Education

Quality Assurance (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Quality_Assurance

Teachers and Education Staff (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Teachers_and_Education_Staff

TOPIC 4: Organisational Variations and Alternative Structures in Primary Education

WEBSITES:

Organisational Variations and Alternative Structures in Primary Education (n.d.). In Eurypedia: European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Organisational_Variations_and_Alternative_Structures_in_Primary_Education

DEFINITIONS:

DICTIONARIES:

Law. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/law

Organization. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organization?s=ts

WEBSITES:

Education System (2013, August 29). In The Glossary of Education Reform. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://edglossary.org/education-system/

Ley Orgánica de Educación (España) (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_Org%C3%A1nica_de_Educaci%C3%B3n_(Espa%C3%B1a)

Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_Org%C3%A1nica_para_la_Mejora_de_la_Calidad_Educativa