The textbook nightmare!

Sorry, our star forgot to upload the comic in both languages.

Here you have it!

You don't have to wait more. The star is here!

Hi! I'm Anthea, the STAR! This week, we have taken part on an "Art gallery" with other eight groups, so I have not had to explain anything about the exposition, but I had to answer questions if someone asked me.

The explanation of the comic, which has been created on the webpage: www.toondoo.com, is the following:

In the first vignette, you can see how children from different cultures express their opinions about texbooks. Depeding on the place, books have some contents or others. For foreign children it is a confusing situation, because they know what their parents tell them, but their books say something completely different.

In the second one, teachers don't always teach as the book does, and children ask them why they don't say the same. It's difficult to explain a child that there are more than one way to do some things. What's more, teachers must have resources to know how to explain contents in different ways, so that children understand well what they have to learn.

In the third vignette, you can see a Moroccan family in which the child tells his parents that his religion textbook says that the Christian God is the only one. This is wrong, because each culture has its God or Gods, so why don't teachers say that there are some religions and, depending on that, God changes? What happens with the Moroccan child? What is he going to think? These inflexible textbooks confuse children, they are making narrow-minded children.

After having problems at home and school, the discussion is going beyond, now it's not only at school and home, it's going further, it's in the newspaper and, as people read the news, they become more aware of the problem caused by editors, the exclusive use of textbooks, and the necesity of change.

In the fifth one, people is getting nervous, and they decide going on strike. Now, people want a better education, they demand new ways for teaching, new and better ideas. They want to finish with the monopoly of traditional books, and start from the beginning by using new technologies and being open-minded.

Finally, people are at the court. There is a conflict between two groups: citizens and editors, because citizens demand changes in textbooks and the use of other instruments to work in class. It means, there are more ways to teach and textbooks don't always say the truth.

Editors are just interested on earning money, they don't care about book's contents or what they say, they only want money, even if it supposes lead children to wrong ideas.

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.

This kind of exposition has positive aspects, as well as negative ones because if I had had to explain it, I would have known what I had to say, but, in this case, I was exposed to everything, I did not know what I had to say until the moment people asked me. This is the reason why I was more worried about.

To conclude, I want to say that, apart from what I have mentioned above, I have liked being the star and I would not mind having this role twice. 

Powerteachers’ live broadcast! From the University of Murcia throughout the World! Here is... the journalist!

 

 Hi bloggers I’m Marina, and this week I have been the journalist. I am sorry about we only met one time during the week, and I don’t tell you too much. But I hope that this task, dear bloggers, is your pleasure.

 

 

 

Fist of all, the Monday 2nd, after Linda explanied us what we had to do this week, we used that hour to divide the work and the facilitator (Alba García Subiela) told us what we had to look for, to have clear ideas on Tuesday

Secondly, on Tuesday we met without what to do. We were thinking to do it an info-graphic, however, we thought that it will be interesting and funny doing a comic, and that was how we decided to do a comic. We don’t know really what about the comic were going to be, but as we developed the activity we did the story about the comic was. Each person of the group did a vignette except Maria who did two vignettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, yesterday, our star, Anthea Clemente Sharp, had to explain and answer questions about our comic. Linda told us that we had to do like a gallery in the class with all class’ works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I chosen this blog, since, first of all I would like to be an English teacher in a future, and I think that nowadays every teacher should have a blog, in which their pupils could ask questions to him/her, and in which they would be able to look for some resources, which ones, the teacher explain in his/her English lessons. And secondly, because I like so much the structure of the blog, since how you can see, it has different sections, like grammar, vocabulary…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a final point, I recommend the Platypus’ blog of our class. I would like to add that every blogs are very good and very complete but this has something that has kept my attention. I found very funny the Cartoon that they have in the blog and I liked so much their info-graphic which were explained by Megan.

I see you soon!!!!!!!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho!! Let's go and collect all the references!

Hello bloggers! 

I'm María García and this week I have been the curator farmer of Powerteachers! The purpose of this role is to collect the references that we have used for developing our activity. Moreover, I had to do a mindmap where I divided the references according to topics (information about textbooks, comics and definitions) and different resources (literature, papers, audio and website documents). I don't include the topic ''information about textbooks'' in the mind map because it is the main topic of the activity and I think it is known what are the references about textbooks with the title of the activity. However, the references about comics and definitions have included these titles.

So, these are the references!

Literature:

Adell, J. (2010, June 6). Carta a los editores de libros de texto . In elbonia.cent.uji.es. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://elbonia.cent.uji.es/jordi/2010/06/06/carta-a-los-editores-de-libros-de-texto/

Adell, J. (2011, July 18). Lecturas sobre libros de texto. In elbonia.cent.uji.es. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://elbonia.cent.uji.es/jordi/2011/07/18/lecturas-sobre-libros-de-texto/

(Comic): 

 

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

Papers:

Apple, M. (2000) Cultural politics and the text. Official Knowledge, 2nd edn (2000), London: Routledge, pp. 42–60

Crawford, K. (2000). Researching the Ideological and Political Role of the History Textbook: Issues and Methods. International Journal of Historical Learning Teaching and Research 1, 1
Audio:

D, A., & Roy, S. (2014). Falcon 69. On Nightwavs [Online sound recording]. Retrieved from www.jamendo.com

Website documents:

Textbook . (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 9, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook

(Comic):

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

 

(Definitions):

 Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Textbook. In Oxford Dictionaries . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/textbook


Goslin, G. (n.d.). definition of textbooks. In The history of textbook. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://courses.educ.ubc.ca/etec540/May08/goslina/researchtopic/Definition%20of%20textbooks.html


Ideology . (n.d.). In Thesaurus.com. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/ideology


What is an ideology?. (n.d.). In Sparknotes . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-and-politics/political-science/political-ideologies-and-styles/section1.rhtml


Resource. (2015, March 4). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource


Rouse, M. (2005, September). eBook definition . In TechTarget. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/eBook


Fallacy. (n.d.). In Vocabulary . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/fallacy


Fallacy definition . (n.d.). In Literary Devices. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://literarydevices.net/fallacy/

 

Finally, I have showed you the mindmap of this task where the references are organized. I hope you have enjoyed with our task and that my post has been of your pleasure!

 

 

 

It's time to analyse the week!

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 09^th, 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

You don't have to look for the words into a diccionary... I'm here to solve your doubts!

Hello, I'm Rebeca Cascales Ribera and this week I'm the TRANSLATOR.

I'm going to explain the main vocabulary of this week's project and I hope you understand the five words I'm going to show. 

1.  Text Book

There are many definitions for Textbooks. The main description is that it is a printed object where you can find aspects and ideas  of a particular subject. Textbooks aren't like other books, generally they aren't written by a single author  and they keep on a curriculum for a school system organization depending on the place, so they don't leave free way for imagination. 

Goslin, G. (n.d.). definition of textbooks. In The history of textbook. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://courses.educ.ubc.ca/etec540/May08/goslina/researchtopic/Definition%20of%20textbooks.html

Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Textbook. In Oxford Dictionaries . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/textbook

2. Ideology

The ideology is a belief, a feeling, a creed, a line or a philosophy that someone follows. A person's ideology shows the most closely part of values and explains the acts. For example a kind of an ideology could be the religion, because this will affect the person's point of views of whatever they live in daily life. Depending on the ideology, books will be in a way or into another. 

Ideology . (n.d.). In Thesaurus.com. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/ideology

What is an ideology?. (n.d.). In Sparknotes . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-and-politics/political-science/political-ideologies-and-styles/section1.rhtml

3. Resource

The resources are materials, knowledges, tools that produce benefit in some cases; for example in a process, as an experiment, or in a presentation, to help the presenter to introduce the subject. The utility, limitation and availability are common into the resources. There are lots of kinds of resources and a book will be one of them to help the teacher to explain. 

Resource. (2015, March 4). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource

4. eBook

An eBook is an electronic report of a traditional printed book that can be read by using computers, tablets and eBook readers. The trendiest method to download it is from the Internet, into Web Sites; the procedure will last around five minutes. Nowadays, eBooks are used more and more to introduce the ICT in Education.

Rouse, M. (2005, September). eBook definition . In TechTarget. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/eBook

5. Fallacy

A fallacy is a mistaken argument based on a falsehood and lies. There are lots of types of fallacies such as the Ignorance, Authority, Popular Opinion, etc. A fallacy related with textbooks could be when children obey what textbooks say before than what teacher says.

Fallacy. (n.d.). In Vocabulary . Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/fallacy

Fallacy definition . (n.d.). In Literary Devices. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://literarydevices.net/fallacy/

 

Our "Little Art Gallery"!

Hi bloggers! Today we are going to take you on a tour around our “little art gallery”, titled “BOOKS: FALSE FRIENDS”. 

First of all we can see a piece of work done by Keep Calm and Keep Organized group, which we have titled “Textbooks war”. This is a fun exposition (with music included) and its creativity is the best way to attract visitors. 

In the second place you can see the piece of the group The Umpalumpas, “The environment of textbooks”, that thanks to its clear and global ideas can help our visitors to understand better the topic of the exposition.

Now, from this part of the exposition on, info-graphics and comics have been alternated in order to make it more interactive and dynamic.

Thirdly, we can find the “School’s reality” from the Meerkats, which with good and clear images and dialogues represents actually the children’s “dreams” about they would like to have at school.

Immediately after that, we can find the piece “Book Big Bang” from the Platypus, an info-graphic with a clear representation of the ideas and a star who knows exactly how to explain them for their public in case they have any doubts.

Now, we can see the “Little Red Riding Hood and the mystery of books” from the Power Puff Teachers, a creative, fun and original piece of our museum with a really good metaphoric representation of our topic that can move our public closer to it.  

After that, the info-graphic created by the group ItsChOOL, “Book storm”, shows a lot of interesting information with clear images that represent it too.

In the seventh place we can find the “Book lie” from 7Up, a colourful, fun, original and above all international comic that represents clearly one of the most distinguished problems from the textbooks and that we usually forget.

Just before finishing our exposition we can find the last info-graphic of Busy Bees: “The lining tower of Textbooks”, whose star has a really good control of the exposition and that have a good and original representation of our topic, a good way to finish the exposition with a summary of all.

To finish our tour around the exposition, we can find “The textbooks nightmares”, from the Power Teachers that represent the consequences that the topic of our exposition could have in society, speaking a bit of different problems that we have already  seen.

Song reference:

D, A., & Roy, S. (2014). Falcon 69. On Nightwavs [Online sound recording]. Retrieved from www.jamendo.com

Let's organize this a bit!

Hello bloggers! I'm Alba García and this week I've been the facilitator. My job has been to organize and distribute the activity about The Dark Side of Textbooks among my group-mates to make the activity easier and faster. In my opinion, the most important thing I had to do was distributing well the time so all of as were working at the same level and profited the time the better we could.

The roles for this week have been the following: 

Rebeca Cascales Ribera – translator

anthea clemente sharp - star

marina crevillén fernández - journalist

silvia garcía martínez - analyst

alba garcía subiela - facilitator

maría garcía zamora - curator / farmer

This week's activity has been quite fun, so we all worked very well together and did our job correctly. We had to do a piece of work using a Web 2.0 tool which illustrated the dark side of textbooks, and we chose to do a comic. Doing a comic was a great challenge as none of us had done one before, so we were really looking for it.

First of all, we had to read some documents in order to draw the key points on which we would base our comic. So we didn't spend too much time reading, I decided to devide the different documents on Monday in a way that the six of us had to read more or less the same as the others, and we all read the same. This way we profited better the time.

Then, when we met on Tuesday and we put together what each one of us had read and noted down the main points common between the different documents. I found this method of dividing the information and then doing a brainstorm to put together the main information very effective as we all knew what the topic was about and could talk about it, and we didn't "lose" time reading things that one of our collegues could read and explain to us. 

Then, once we had developed a common outline with the information, we decided what the comic would be about. We thought that going beyond the information and interpreting it would be interesting, so we decided to represent an extreme situation caused by "the dark side of textbooks". I planned the comic in a whiteboard by making an schema of the different vignettes with what we would include in each one of them. 

As we are six components in the group, I decided to divide each vignette for each component, so we all worked on the same things and took more or less the same time. However, one of the components had to leave earlier, so we did her vignette and, as she was the star, I told her to write an outline of what each vignette was about so she know what to say in the exposition.

It is very important and worthwhile to organize ourselves and learn how to work in groups, as for our future job, being teachers, we need to organize very well every lesson and plan different possibilities in case one method or explanation doesn't work for our students. We also need to know how to work in groups and be the leaders. For instance, in schools there are different departments for the different subjects and each department has a "boss", who is responsible for coordinating the members of the department, just as the Facilitator coordinates the members of her group.