The JOURNALIST is here!!!

Hello bloggers! I'm Rebeca Cascales Ribera and this week I am the JOURNALIST!

First of all, I will tell you what this activity is about:

The activity consists in the Treasure Hunt and the cartographic projections of maps, according to the different ways of seeing the countries depending on the maps; for example, why Germany in one map is in the centre of the Europe and in the others is in another place. And also, how this affects in media. 

Firstly, we should know the different map projections of Robinson, Mercator and Azimuthal. When we dominate this aspect, we have to choose two countries of the world and tell what is the best projection of the three to represent it. Thirdly, we have to find a resource to teach the pupils, where it happens the same as in the different projections. Moreover, we have to find a blog with an activity of a Treasure Hunt and the content should be academic. And finally, we should make a conclusion as a reflexion of "Media are not neutral" regarding our project. 

On Monday 16th, when the expositions of TPACK finished, our teacher showed us the new project called "Treasures  Hunt: cartographic projections" with a video and explained us the steps that we had to follow.

The facilitator of this week (Silvia García) decided that we had to look for information about the three authors and the Treasure Hunt at home and we would meet on Wednesday to gather the whole information together.

We met in a study room in Luis Vives' library on Wednesday 18th and we put together the information of the three map projections' authors and we did a guideline with the relevant information. When we had it, we decided the two countries to investigate. At the beginning, we thought in Italy, Belgium and Australia, but finally, we decided to do it about Germany and Australia.

To choose what the best projection for them is, we made a little schema in the whiteboard and we decided with it, as you can see here:

Then, we used a blog of a Treasure Hunt that is about mathematics, but the questions weren't appropriate as they asked to look for someone who knew the answer. So, when Linda said on Tuesday 19th that the Treasure Hunt should have academic questions for children and they need to guess the answer to keep on, we had to change the Treasure Hunt, and we found another one with questions about "Cuentos de autor". 

 

 

This wasn't the only thing that we changed, on Wednesday we chose the Resource that like projections also shows distortions, but we didn't know if it should be about academic or whatever content. Therefore, we did it about the false profile in chatting where people lie to someone else saying that he's someone that he really isn't. As we weren't sure of it, we asked Linda in the last class and she told us that it had to be about school curricula and how we would teach it to the pupils in a future. We changed it and we spoke about the different versions of History in textbooks depending on the editorial's ideology, the place where it's written, etc.   

On Thursday, we came to the class and we decided the way to represent it in class the following Monday.  Well, the three map projections about the two countries would be represented in three different posters, so we bought three blue cardboards and green, yellow and red EVA foam; and the other parts of the activity would be represent it in a Power Point. 

We divided every part of the project and in the weekend we did it at home for the exposition. The three maps are different from one another depending on the shape:  the Azimuthal one would be a circle, the Mercator one a rectangle and finally, the Robinson one with its own shape. Every map should have marked Australia and Germany in different colours to highlight them. And the Power Point should be very interesting and original, specially  the part of the Treasure Hunt.

Finally, on Monday 23th, the star (Marina Crevillén) exposed our project in class but she didn't do it alone, she shared the role of star with two stars  from other groups: Platypus Soyer and Meerkats. At the beginning, it was difficult because each group had different countries, different examples of media, different treasure hunts, etc. but finally, we decided to take a part from each group and it had been a good presentation between the three stars. 

This week, the journalist had to add another part in the post which is the perspective of the other group's journalists about their groups. They have coincided in the same trouble, they had told me that the most difficult thing for them had been to meet together because they are from different towns or cities. And for example, in the Platypus Soyer group, the majority of them go to the conservatory, so they can't all meet together, and finally they decided to share the task and each member of the group would do something at home. The other group, Meerkats told me that they couldn't meet together and a person who couldn't meet with them in the chosen timetable had done the whole poster alone to contrast the job with their classmates.

Another duty of the journalist is to choose a blog from outside the class and a blog from our own class. So, first I'm going to show you one from outside the class I like:

http://www.demoslavueltaaldia.com/?gclid=COej2Pbt-MMCFQTKtAoda30Atw

I have chosen this blog because I really like cooking, knowing news recipes and eating new flavours. So, I wanted that the blog was of food. Apart for this, I would like to show the presentation of the blog, which is very interesting, beautiful and attractive. On the top of the blog, you can find the option to register yourself or to access into your count. Then, you have different options as home, recipes, daily live, clues, courses, recipe's videos, competition and to participate. While you are taking down, you can see last new perspectives and lots of aspects related with that.

So, eaters make a note of this and try to cook one of their recipes!

As a final point, I recommend the ItsChOOL's 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. In my opinion, the photography of the back is very interesting and clear to show the pedagogical part of the education, what we are learning, I mean how to teach children. Apart from this, the different parts of the right side are also complete with the Instagram, Twitter, every archives, etc. I hope you like this blog and you enjoy reading it, it's very interesting. 

 The blog's link is: 

http://organizeyoureducation.blogspot.com.es/

  

The BOSS has arrived!

Hi everyone! I am Silvia García Martínez and this week I have been the facilitator of the group.

First of all I am going to tell you who has done the different roles this week:

Alba garcía subiela – farmer

María García Zamora – analyst

Marina crevillén Fernández – star

Anthea clemente Sharp – translator

Rebeca cascales ribera – journalist

Silvia garcía martínez – facilitator

Secondly I am going to talk about the activity of this week, which was based in how the media is not neutral and the consequences that this can have in the education. In the activity we have had to investigate about three types of map projections (Robinson, Mercator and Azimuthal), the differences between them and their influence and use in the society. After that we have chosen two countries, explained how they are represented in the different projections and, finally, decided which projection we would use to represent these countries. Thirdly, we had to find another media that also distorts the information depending on if you use one version or another. Afterwards we have looked for a “Treasure Hunt” activity and, finally, we have had to do a reflexion between this activity and the slogan “Media is not neutral”.

We started with this activity the last Monday. After Linda explained it in class I read the information about the activity and informed the rest of my group about what we had to do and search for. I suggested them that we could distribute the work or search the six about all the information to understand it better. Finally, we decided to do the second and planned to meet the on Wednesday to put it together. I must say in this part that, although we all did our part and looked for the information, I realized that probably to divide the work between two or three people that explained their part to the others would have been more productive, because at the end we lost a lot of time putting together all the information, but it is a new thing that we can take into account for the next activity. Then, the next day, we used Linda’s hour to develop the exposition of the activity, which we decided to make part with posters and part with PowerPoint. After decide it, as we couldn’t meet more, I divided the different parts that we had to finish. First three people of the group would do the three map projections’ posters, another would change the part of the media that we had wrong and, finally, another person would make the power point of the “Treasure Hunt”.

As I have said we have had some problems with the organization although, in my opinion, we worked together to resolve them and lastly we could do a good activity and we can use these problems to know what work or doesn’t work for us, as we can do the activities faster and easier and, in summary, to improve.

Finally, I have had the opportunity to speak with the facilitators of other groups, especifically María from the group “Meerkats” and Ana Isabel from the group “Platypus”.  Both have used a similar strategy, which has been to divide the information that each member of the group had to search and after to explain it to the others and to unite it, as I have said that our group could have done to not lose so much time. But the curious thing is that they have been a bit overwhelmed too, but not for dividing badly the work, if not because, in my opinion, their mistake was that although each member looked for a part, they did it when they were together, not before they met, so they lost a precious time doing it. This is the only advice that I give to my classmates because it can be very useful to do the work faster when they are together, although in my opinion they have had a very good organization as I have seen in their works, and they have known how to divide their functions in a good way, a thing that we know that we must improve for the next activity.  

Let's go to analyse this activity!!

Hello everyone! I am María García and this week I have been the analyst! My role consists in analysing the work of this week! I hope you find this task interesting and you read our blog every week!
 
a) What was the best part of the activity?
The best part of this activity was doing the posters of the map projections in three cardboards because we had to work with different materials. We divided the three different map projections: Robinson, Mercator and Azimuthal. It was fun but at the same time weird show the different views of the world and observe how two different countries are shown in each map projection. So, in conclusion, we thought that the best part was working with materials as cardboards, EVA foam, felt-tip markers, etc. It was dynamic and enjoyable. Finally, it was great when our star had to explain the presentation with other stars and we had to share with the other components of the groups our experiences in this task. In a short time we had to mixed our information and did a common presentation for the class and it was interesting.

b) What was the worse?
Without doubt, the worse part of this activity was to look for a topic about a resource that distort the vision of students about something and the information about it. We had to change the topic several times and look for the information about it again. It was difficult to find good examples about our topic for this part of the activity.
 
c) What was the best moment of the week (in the work of the group)?

I thought that the best moment was when we thought about how we can show this activity. It means, when we were meeting, we collected the information that we needed for this task and each of one of us said a way to explain the activity and how we can do this in an original and enjoyable way. It was like a brainstorm and it was great because between all we took good ideas and we were happy because we saw that our work can be great.

d) What was the worse?

There aren't bad things in the work of the group but it was difficult because we had to agree in the days that we had to meet and not always all of us can meet. Moreover, not always we were agree with some ideas, but we try to do the best that we can do and listen all the ideas and then we decided which one is the best.

e) What have you learnt?

In this activity we learnt that there is several kinds of map projections. Each of the three authors had different ways to see the world and they had a different purpose. We can observe how two different countries are shown in the different map projections. Besides, another part of the activity included the fact that some topics are distort and in this activity we can observed how this occurs in education. There are places where several materials or teachers explain one incident in the way that they want. So, the information that it is given to some children in many places is not neutral. And it is something that we don't realized but it is real. And we had to try to stop this kind of fact. We can learn how this fact happens and we saw some steps to stop that.

f) What do you need to conserve -as a group- for the next weeks?

I think that we always have to maintain the eagerness of working because it so important to do the activities with motivation. When you work with eager beaver and you do the best of you, the work will be great and you pass good times doing it and you learn with it. Moreover, we have to conserve the team spirit and the encouragement and support that we give to the group. We have to continue supporting each other and help between all of us. These are the things that I think we have to conserve every week in our group and in our lives.

g) What do you need to improve -as a group- for the next weeks?

We would need to improve the organization for doing the task because this week we thought that in a short span of time we can do the task and at last we were overwhelmed. Also, we had to organize better the session of meetings and collect all the information as well as possible for the days that we will meet.

h) How this content is related to other contents in the course and in your degree?

The content that we saw in this activity is related with the fact that we as teachers have to make sure that the content that we will explain in the future has to be neutral. Moreover, this activity is related with the subject Spanish because in our treasure hunt we chose one that had questions of Spanish. The content that we learnt in this task I think is related with our course but not specifically with all the subjects. It is more general because this task showed us how some things as the maps can be projected in different ways and how each of one had different purposes. It is good to know that not always all the contents are developed as they had to do. And this fact is important in our degree as teachers.

i) There is any evident social connection of this content (news, politics, etc.)?

There are many social connection with the content of the idea that ''media is not neutral''. Our group chose the topic about history textbooks because in many places the books of history explain a lot of facts in different ways depending on the place. Some history books include the ideologies of the authors and this is not neutral. Besides, other media as TV or other media communication have a distortion because they show many news that are not always as they said it. We found a new that shows how a Texas' school books promote climate change and downplay segregation:

This week the activity was more difficult than the last week but finally we developed it good and we did it in original ways as the treasure hunt. We had to make a bigger effort because we had to think more about what we can do and we had to choose and collect information that it was unknown for us. Also, we didn't organize as well as the last week.

The day of the exposition we had to present the activity with two other groups of the class. Also, the each role of each of the three groups had to share the problems and the experiences that his group had. For example, in my case, the analysts of the groups that we were joined had to share our experiences. I talked with the analysts of the Platypus' and Meerkat's groups. Platypus said that they had problems with the organization of this week's activity (each component of the group have different schedules) and that in the beginning they were confused about the content of the task. However, they asked and they understood the activity and they know that they have to organize better for the next activities. Nonetheless, they did the activity well and they got had a good presentation.

The other group, Meerkat, had problems with the organization too. They had insufficient time to meet with all of them. It was because they had different schedules and not always they can meet. However, they divided the work and they did the activity well. They think that they had to organize better and they had to divide the work equally.  

Hello, this week I have been the STAR of my group!

Hello everybody!!

This week I have been the star of my group. I have to say that the day before, I was very nervous because I didn’t do an exposition alone previously, but I felt relax when the teacher, told us that we have to do the exposition each three groups. I had to do it with the stars from the others group, Fran from the group “Platypus” and Paloma from the group “Documenting a long trip across #SOyER1415”. It was a great experience working together because I saw the different ways to do this activity, and I think that is better to know how the other group working because we can take good things of the experience.

To start working in groups, the teacher told us that we had thirty minutes to prepare our global exposition and it had to be a mix of the three exposition. At the beginning the component of the three groups were so stressed because we didn’t know how we are going to do a mix because we had different things, but at the end we decide on how we are going to do it.

To do the exposition, the three stars of the groups said the two countries which we chose, (in the case of my group we had chosen Australia and Germany), and after that I explain the treasure hunt, and Fran explain the other resources that his group and the mine looked for, to show people that media is not neutral. I think that Paloma, Fran and me were a bit nervous because we wanted to say many things but we didn’t have enough time, so we have to sum up much of the content that we had. But finally I think that the exposition was very well because we said all things that we had to say.

Our materials used in order to do the exposition are:

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-REFLEXIONS OF 2 COUNTRIES.

Australia will be better represented in the Mercator map projection because this map shows a more realistic view of the sea and Australia is an island situated in the middle of the sea, far away from the land. We have dismissed the Robinson and Azimuthal maps projections because they are distorted in the Poles and their representation is smallest that it really is.

Germany will be better represented in the Robinson map projection because this kind of projections show distortion on the meridians, becoming grater as you get near the Poles, so the centre is more realistic. We have dismissed the Azimuthal map projection because he shows Germany in the centre of the map and this is not realistic, Germany isn't the centre of Europe, we have also dismissed the Mercator map projection because this kind of map is for navigation and Germany is far away from the sea, it's inside.

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-ANOTHER RESOURCE WHICH ISN'T ACCURATE. HOW TO STOP IT

There are lots of resources that are different from what they really are. We are going to focus on the History textbooks because although the contents are the same, we can  see how a problem or war can be explained in different ways depending on which country the textbook is from.

The ideology is something very important everywhere and it can also affect how the thing are expressed in the textbooks. For example, depending on the editorial's ideology, the textbooks will take one side or the other regarding the historical facts. Another important thing could be the religion and the nationalism of the place, and depends on this, they will be and believe in a way or into another.

Another example could be, the World War II, where many people could blame  Germany because of the Nazism, which destroyed good part of the world; but Germany, for instance, they would blame EEUU because they could think they needed to defend themselves or whatever like that.

To stop this, we could start telling the story in a general view and telling who was the first to act and who they acted against them, etc. We should also show the children every perspective of seeing the world and empathize with every country, ideology and value. When we had done this, it's their responsibility to believe on what they want, or think what they prefer.

-TREASURE HUNT.

The chosen treasure hunt is about children's stories. To complete the treasure hunt, the children have to answer eight questions and ''a big question'' at the end. They can consult several pages to answer all the questions.

The questions they have to answer are the following:

1. What is a ''cuento de autor''?

2. Which are the characteristics of ''cuentos de autor''?

3. Which story was written by Andersen?

4. Which steps do we have to follow to write a ''cuento de autor''?

5. Who was the author of ''Cinderella''? Do a short summary about this story.

6. Which story belongs to each author?

- Perrault                                     - "The wolf and the seven young kids"

- Felix María de Samaniego   - "The cicada and the ant"

- Grimm          - "The phoenix"

- Andersen      - "Tom Thumb"

7. Which of the last stories do you want to live? Why?

8. What moral does the story of ''The Emperor's New Clothes'' transmit?

To conclude this treasure hunt, children have to answer ''the big question'' that is:

What would happen if the ''cuentos de autor'' didn't exist?

The purpose of this activity is to introduce the students to ICT so they get familiar with it. This treasure hunt improves the reading comprehension and helps the children to know how they can use the Internet as a source of information.

And to conclude, I have to say that I want to repeat this experience because I liked so much work with other groups, and because I think that it is very useful to our future like teachers.