Friday, January 25, 2013

Telling stories through comics

Digital Storytelling for Young Learners - Week 2

This week we are exploring comics and cartoons that can be used in the English class. We're starting from an inspiring presentation by Janet Bianchini.

Browsing through the links provided by Janet, I found this fantastic presentation providing many wonderful ideas on how to integrate comics in the classroom.

Tap Into The World Of Comics #2:Comic Version from S. Hendy

For this week's task 4 I have tried Marvel Kids Comics Creator to design my strip. You can easily create a strip without having to sign in and then you can save it as a pdf file.
This is the final result:


I also tried a comic creator by the British Council which I'm sure my students - who are also great football fans - would love.


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Just for fun!

Digital Storytelling for Young Learners - Week 1 Task 5 - Play in the Sandbox

Instructions:
Feel free to explore the various storytelling tools in our sandbox. If you feel comfortable, please use one of these tools to complete your 3,2,1 Introduction. When you are finished playing with one of the tools, post a reflection of your experience in the Edmodo group. This way we can learn from each other. There are numerous incredible storytelling tools that we will not be able to explore. The sandbox is a way to get to play with these tools and see if they will work for your classroom environment.

This is my first experiment: a cartoon strip. I think my teenage students will love it!



Garfield Comics Lab is easy to use and can work for many classroom activities.


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Digikids - 321 Introduction

As anticipated in my previous post, EVO 2013 has just started. Course participants are introducing themselves, often with 321 introductions.

The following is my 321 Introduction Flipbook for the Digikids course. I used snacktools.



Saturday, January 12, 2013

EVO is back!


EVO 2013 is going to start in a few hours. All the courses available are really interesting and even though I know I will need a lot of time, I chose three that I find particularly useful and stimulating.


I will  post some of the activities in the blog in order to keep track of what I'm going to learn.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

The beginning of a PLE?

EVO 2012 - PLE & PLN for Lifelong Learning

EVO 2012 has come to an end. But I have decided that this will be only the first of my EVO sessions. This blog has worked as my e-portfolio so far and it will become (or already is?) part of my PLE.
As I could not take part in the PLE & PLN for Lifelong Learning course final webinar, I decided to embed here the final presentation that Letizia, one of our moderators, kindly shared with us. It will help me to wrap up this amazing learning experience and I will thus be able to share it with other colleagues who could not join the session.

Thanks to Letizia, Daniela, Susan and Sandra. You've been great moderators ad mentors.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

My first e-book

Classdigitools - Week 5 - Final task

Publishing an e-book

That's the final task. I'm a bit sad because the course is getting to an end. I must admit I became addicted to the tasks and the daily contact with all the teachers taking part in this wonderful experience.

I chose one of the activities proposed and this is my first e-book: 4 things I'm sharing with you

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Working with plays

Classdigitools - Week 5 - Task 2

Using Plays to teach about characters, plots, setting and conflict in Dramatic Tragedy

Instructions for this task:

1. Read through this wonderful lesson plan Happily Ever After? Exploring Character, Conflict and Plot in Dramatic Tragedy.
2. Think of you own teaching contexts. Which story would you choose to work with your students?
3. Share with the group how you'd adapt the original lesson plan to use with your students. Include in your post the plot you'd choose, and how you'd carry out the reading/writing activity with your students.
 
This amazing lesson plan provided a lot of interesting tools to be used and activities to be carried out in class but most of them are not suitable for my lower secondary students whose skills range from elementary to pre-intermediate.
If I were to adapt this lesson plan, I would choose Macbeth.
I would have my EFL pre-intermediate students read the tragedy - an abridged version adapted to their level – together in class. Each of them would have to play a character of the play. 
Then I would probably have them watch together the BBC animated version of the play. Images could help non-native speakers to better understand the plot and the audio could give them a hint of the musicality of Shakespeare's language.

  
After that, I would divide the students in groups of five and ask them to:
  • create a timeline of the play’s main events with ReadWriteThink Timeline interactive tool.
  • work on the Plot Tree worksheet; they would have to determine the plot turning point, discuss alternative outcomes and choose one by one the outcomes that lead to a different ending.
As their final activity, they would produce a comic strip of the play’s revised version using ReadWriteThink ComicCreator interactive tool or another tool of their choice (Pixton, Toondoo, Bitstrips, etc.).