THINGLINK TUTORIAL

Check out How to Create Engaging Content With Thinglink by Rocio Luna on Snapguide.

Learners As Creators: A WWW Lesson Plan

Getting to end of the year, it's time we encouraged students to CREATE and apply everything they have learned! Here's a lesson plan in which students make use of a Web 2.0 website in order for them to come up with a final product. It follows the WWW lesson structure suggested by Dudeney and Hockly (2004). I hope you like it and please dare to adapt it to your own class. :) 

This lesson plan should take place into the ICT room since one computer for each student is needed apart from one projector connected to a computer so that the teacher can show how to use the Web 2.0 website. It is important to highlight that the whole task will be completed after two lessons. On the first lesson students will be doing research by exploring websites preselected by the teacher. They will also be drafting the information they have retrieved and selected to include in their prospect presentations and editing after receving feedback. (Click HERE to have a look at lesson plan #1)

On the second one students will be using a Web 2.0 website to create a INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION.

Topic: Animals description

Objective: Create a interactive presentation describing and classifying animals

WARMER

The teacher will divide the class into groups of 3-5 students. T will deliver several strips of paper for students to write on them as many names of animals as they can in 2 minutes. Once time is up, a representative of each group will come to the board to stick the strips of paper in an appropriate column, which the teacher has previously written on the board with different labels (they have already learned): CARNIVORES, ANPHIBIANS, OMNIVORES, MAMMALS, INVERTEBRATES, HERBIVORES.

WEB

Teacher will tell students that in order to carry out the following step they need to learn how to use THINGLINK. The teacher will provide students with the following TUTORIAL so that they are acquainted with the website before using it. T will explain that THINKLINK is a website that lets them create an interactive presentation. T will also emphasise that it allows them to include any type of media they like to their interactive presentations. She will provide them with this EXAMPLE in order to show that they can include text, audios, videos, gifs and other websites.

Instructions provided:

Go to https://www.thinglink.com and create your interactive poster include all the information you collected in your draft. Then share it onto our Edmodo wall so that students can visit it and learn from it.

WHAT NEXT
Teacher will ask students to explore their partners' presentations and to choose one that they have found really interesting in order to leave a comment on their posts.

Instruction provided: Choose one of your classmates’ presentation and comment on it saying what you have learned from it.

RATIONALE BEHIND USE OF WEB 2.0 WEBSITE

It is essential for teachers to be able to justify their choice of website in their lesson plans. Make sure you always have a purpose for making your learners use a certain website. In this lesson plan students are engaged in creating an interactive poster which seems imposible without using technology since it is not an ordinary poster on a cardboard. Its objective is to provide the rest of the students with 

According to Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, by using Thinglink students are constructing a new product as result of synthesizing past knowledge (what they have learned about animals and how to classify and describe thm on the previous classes). Therefore, it can be stated that students are at the the top of the pyramid suggested by Bloom, where the higher order skills. They will be ANALYSING and EVALUATING when drafting but during this lesson as they are mere creators they will be only CREATING.

Furthermore, the choice of Thinglink can be justified by relating the TIC, TAC and TEP terms.

First, TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación) refers to the technologies that facilitate the transmission and exchange of information. The aim of this task is to pass on knowledge as students will be creating an interactive poster containing what they have previously learned while doing research. Hence, the objective is that the rest of the students get benefited from each student's creation.
Second, TAC (Tecnologías del Aprendizaje y del Conocimiento), refers to the use of the TICs as teaching tools. When teachers choose to make use of the TICs, they also aim at moulding students as future users of the virtual community, in other words, they also seek to foster students digital citizenship. Using Thinglink will promote 21st century skills such as creativity and critical-thinking which students will require to succeed both inside and outside the classroom.
Thirdly, TEP (Tecnologías para el Empoderamiento y la Parcipación) emphasises the role of technology as a tool to foster the cyberdemocracy, that is to say, that users will take advantage of technologies to convey ideas and set tendencies. In other words, technology allow students to have 'a voice', which will result in the students' self-actualization. By creating an interactive poster about an animal they feel curious about by using Thinglink, students may feel empowered since they will be able to choose the content they want to share and they way they want.  In addition, the task in What's Next stage in which students have to explore their students work and comment on it also empowers students in the sense that they will be able to give their opinion on something. To sum up, technology allows them to raise their voices and be active participators on the Web. 

Finally, the choice of website in this lesson plan can be justified by the SAMR model suggested by Puentedura. 

Using Thinglink to create an interactive presentation is a task that can be associated with the Transformation Steps shown in the picture below mainly with the Redefinition step as creating an interactive poster is only possible with the use of a website such as Thinglink. Therefore, the task is totally transformed and impossible to be carried out without this type of technology.  

CHECK OUT THIS TUTORIAL ON THE CHOSEN WEBSITE. 

IT IS THE ONE PROVIDED TO STUDENTS.

Check out How to Create Engaging Content With Thinglink by Rocio Luna on Snapguide.

Tutorial: How to Create Flashcards with CRAM

THIS IS A QUICK TUTORIAL TO USE CRAM

STEP 1: SIGN UP USING A FACEBOOK, GMAIL OR TWITTER ACCOUNT.

STEP 2: CLICK ON 'CREATE FLASHCARDS'

IT WILL ASK YOU TO PROVIDE A NAME AND A DESCRIPTION FOR YOUR SET OF FLASHCARDS.

NOTICE THAT YOU CAN UPLOAD A FILE FROM GDOCS.

STEP 3: NOW CUSTOMIZE YOUR FLASHCARDS. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SIZE AND UPLOAD PHOTOS. IF YOU UPGRADE YOUR MEMBERSHIP, IT OFFERS MORE TEXT PROCESSING OPTIONS SUCH AS CHANGING THE COLOUR OF THE FONT. 

STEP 4: ONCE IT'S DONE, USE THE 'SHARE' OPTION TO SEND IT BY EMAIL OR SIMPLY COPY THE LINK URL.

STEP 5: CLICK ON THE TABS TEST IN ORDER TO BUILD AN ACTIVITY. YOU CAN CHOOSE DIFFERENT OPTIONS SUCH AS MATCHING, TRUE OR FALSE AND MULTIPLE CHOICE.

STEP 6: HAVE SOME FUN PRACTISING VOCABULARY WITH YOUR OWN FLASHCARDS. YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO TRY THE 'GAMES' TAB ONCE YOU FINISH PRACTISING!

Enhancing a Lesson Plan with 2.0 Websites

In this post, I'll show you how you could improve your lesson plans by encouraging students BE CREATORS! How can you do this? Simply by using a 2.0 Website. Here's a lesson plan for a revision class on describing animals. In the previous lessons students carried out more restricted activities in which they put into practice descriptions of animals  by using the verb to be and have got, adjective and vocabulary on parts of animals' body. In this revision lesson plan they will apply everything they have learnt in a more creative way. At the end of this post you will find the rationale in order to justify my selection of the website by taking into account three different frameworks. You will also find a tutorial so that you get acquainted with the website. Hope you find it useful!

ENHANCED LESSON PLAN

Grade: 7th form

Time allotted: 80 minutes
Communicative Goal: describing animals

Grammar Focus: REVISION Verb to be, have got (affirmative, negative, interrogative) 

Vocabulary Focus: REVISION  Adjectives: fast, slow, big, small, beautiful, dangerous, thin, fat, funny,
friendly. Colours.

Recycled Language: animals: lion, tiger, giraffe, elephant, hippo,monkey, frog, parrot, penguin, snake,cat, dog, bird, turtle. Prepositions: opposite, next to, between. Grammar: can/can’t. Verbs: climb trees, swim, jump, fly, run, eat, walk.  

Classroom Routine: “Greeting song” and “Weather song” Students stick pictures about the date and weather on the board. 

Activation (5 min) 

T will stick 6 flashcards of animals on the board. T will divide the class in two teams and tell them they are going to play a guessing game.
T will read a description of one of the animals. Sts have to guess which one it is, go to the board and take the flashcards.
If their guess is correct, the team wins 3 points and the other team 1 point. If they choose the wrong animal, they win 1 point and the other
team has the chance to win 3 points.Before starting the game, T will give one student of each team a small paper flag. The sts with the flag
are the representatives of the teams. The representative will change in each round, T will select them. There will be three rounds. 

Application (30 min) 

Focus: reading and writing

Group scheme: in groups

Pre-description: sts will create and play a guessing game using CRAM

This activity will take place in the ICT room since a computer per group is needed and there should be a projector connected to
a computer so that the teacher can show how to use the website they are supposed to use.  The teacher will encourage students
to create their own guessing game and to compete in teams. Firstly, she will introduce the website with the students and offer them
a quick tutorial so that they are acquainted with the tool before using it. Teacher will ask them to divide in groups of three or four
students in order to foster collaborative work. She will also highlight that they will be able to print their own customized flashcards
at home for playing and practising at home. Finally, the Teacher will give the following instruction in the course’s Edmodo wall:

Get into teams of 3 or 4. Go to and if necessary consult with this TUTORIAL to learn how to register and create a set of vocabulary.
Choose 6 animals and create online flashcards with the tool in order to share them with another group and play a guessing game.
Make sure the front side of the card contains the name of the animal and a picture of them and that the back side of the card provides
clues such as their food preferences, their physical description and their abilities. You can make your animals talk and use the pronoun “I”.
Make it as fun as possible! Before sharing, ask your teacher for feedback and make any correction she suggests. Once ready, copy the link to your set of flashcards and share it onto our wall so that one team access to it. Choose a set of flashcards from a different team and play the guessing game by clicking on “TEST” tab. Compare your results with other teams. Who’s the winner?

Reflection (5 min) 

T will stick a poster on the board with several sentences. Sts have to identify the sentences describing animals and tick them.

• They’re green and brown.
• They are friendly.
• They’re opposite the penguins.
• They are fat and small.
• They are smaller than a hippo.
• They like water and insects. 
• They can swim but they can’t fly.

RATIONALE BEHIND CHOICE OF WEBSITE

Everytime teachers implement technology in their lesson plan, they should be aware of their choice and be able to provide a reason why they have made such decision. This section of the post seeks toaccount for implementation of CRAM in the lesson plan.
Firstly, we can rely on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy which classifies different levels of human cognitionin different "stages" which take different places in a pyramid. They take the following order from bottomto top: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. Different action verbs can be identifiedin each level:

CREATE: students design, invent and construct a new product, which shows what they are capable of as result of

synthesizing past knowledge, to put it simpler, learning.

EVALUATE: they critique, monitor and judge an outcome and they are able to justify a decision or a course of action

ANALYSE: they compare and organise data. They also establish relationships between them.

APPLY: students implement the knowledge they have learnt in new situations

UNDERSTAND: they interpret new concepts and attempt to explain, classify and exemplify them.

REMEMBER: students recall facts by listing, identifying, naming and locating.

Apart from this, Bloom's Digital Taxonomy also emphizes the importance of promoting 21st Century Skills such as

critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

By using CRAM, students will be mainly make use of the higher order human cognitive skills which include the first ones

in the list: CREATE, EVALUATE, ANALYSE. This is because students will be producing a new outcome (a set of flashcards) by

choosing critically what information about the animals include in order for the other team to gues. This involves analysing

their past knowledge they have acquired on previous lessons and select how to organise that data.. Moreover, as they will

be working collaboratively, their teammates will be monitoring and evaluating their teams' work.

which is one of the 21st century skills promoted by this model.


Secondly, we can justify this choice by using Puentedura's SAMR Model.

As shown in the picture, in the lower steps: Substitution and Augmentation, technology is used in a less sophisticated way. Namely, using word processors or e-readers to carry out activities that could also be done without technology (in the case of Substitution) or for activities that require a slight functional improvement (Augmentation) such as using a word processor's corrector or dictionary of synonym or listening to an e-book.
On the other hand, the higher steps: Modification and Redefinition seek to tranform a task through the use of technology. That is to say that task could not be performed without technology.
 We can say that using CRAM to customize flashcards and create a game with it to practise is something that in inconceivable without such website. Hence, using CRAM can be classified as a REDIFINITION of task.

Finally, the use of CRAM can be justified using PLANIED MODEL which aims at fostering 21st century skills such as creativity, collaboration, autonomy, problem solving, and communication. First of all, in the lesson plan students will be divided into team in order to create the flashcards, this will mean they will work collaboratively and use dialogue before coming to a decision. What's more, the task encourages students' to print the flashcards and play the game at home. This promotes autonomy since they will be able to perform the task at home every time they want to study.

Here's a TUTORIAL for you to use CRAM.