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.