Let´s find out!

Hello again! 

This time I want to show you some banks of resources we can find online. In our daily work as teachers, we need to find as many resources as we can in order to improve our lessons. For these days in which your creativity is out of the loop, here you have some "Content Curation Tools" or banks of resources: 

• Pinterest
• Symbaloo
• Pearltrees
• Listly

In my case, I usually use Pinterest. It is very intuitive and easy to use. You have just to create an account and ... magic!! You will see lots of resources available and ready to be used. This webpage works as follows: 

After creating your account and your profile, you use the search bar to write what you are looking for. Then, you will see all the options available. By clicking in them, you will see them bigger and you can choose in which of your pins you want to keep it. When talking about pins in Pinterest we mean different folders in which you can organize your resources. 

The only tiring thing is that if you want to download something, you have to go to the original website (Pinterest provides you with the link) and sometimes they are not totally free. 

Anyway, even if you do not want to pay, Pinterest will give you lots of ideas that you can create on your own. It is like a magic pocket in which you can find everything you imagine. For me, it helps me a lot when preparing my lessons especially when working on arts and crafts. 

Here you have my Pinterest profile where, as you can see, I have been working on the digestive system:

This is all friends, see you next time!

Walking through the savannah... what can you see?

Hello everybody! What's new?

Today in my CLIL lesson, my pupils (first graders)and I have gone to the savannah! We are starting a topic related to animals and, can you imagine a better place than Africa to see them? 
To start the class, I have shown them the following photo:

Image by: Maríamichelle CCO Creative Commons

I have used this picture in order to introduce our topic. I have asked my students to be explorers and to tell me what kind of animals they can see. One of the main objectives of the topic is for them to distinguish among different kinds of animals according to their diet, that is: carnivorous, herbivorous and omnivorous. So with this picture I am going to grasp prior knowledge and to check what they already know about animals. 

Another important fact that I am going to introduce is the knowledge about different habitats around the world starting in this case with the savannah and grasslands. 

Photos are a great tool to introduce topics to our students and to make them think. However, when searching for photos on the internet, we have to bear in mind one thing: not all we find on the net is valid.

We have to be sure that the photos we are using can be used because they are free for us to use them, which means that every time we use photos we have to check if they have a license to be used. 

As you can see, under my photo you can find the author (Maríamichelle) and the license (CCO Creative Commons). This photo does not have a title, but if there would be a title, it would be before the author´s name. 

There a lot of webs we can use to find photos with license ready to be used. In this case, I have used Pixabay . You just write what you are looking for and in just a second you will find lots of images ready to use!

See you soon! 

Woof woof!!!

Hello everybody!

Today I am going to introduce you my best friend, Floki: 

He´s a golden retriever and he´s 5 years old. His main occupation is to guard everything that happens in the blog.  He is always running around here! He loves running after the ball, biting my trainers and burying socks in the garden. If you click here, you can listen to what he has to tell you!

I have created it with an app called Voki. In this webpage you can find lots of different designs. First of all you have to create your avatar. You can choose from many different profiles (famous people, animals, monsters… etc.) Then, you can give it voice! There are different ways of doing it. For example by adding an audio file from your computer or just by writing what you want it to say. I have used this last option.

The web is very good and the avatars look real. However the main problem I have found is that if you want to use the avatar embed code to put it on your blog, you have to pay. In the free version of the app it is not available 😓😓. It is maybe an important reason to take into account. 

Of course there are lots of apps to create avatars. Before using voki I have tried with bitmoji, digibody and build your wild self. 

This last one is amazing! You can create an avatar with different parts of animals and it is really funny. However, avatars in these pages cannot speak so that is the reason why I finally chose voki.

You might be thinking… Why using avatars? Well, we can use them if we have a web page at school, or if we have a class forum or an online platform in which the pupils can keep in touch with each other.

But from a teacher point of view, I think that the most important thing is to show the students that when surfing the net they do not have to be themselves, they have the opportunity to be whoever they want to be: their favourite superhero, a famous singer, an alien from other planet! By doing this we are teaching them the importance of taking care of our own identity in a place where everybody can see us. 

As I am working with the little ones of the school, I think that they will like this! It is true that with young students we will have to guide them in the creation of the avatar, but it will be worth the effort when they see all the options they have, they will be very motivated. Not to mention the oldest students, they are good at new technologies and even they are better than we the teachers! Let them know the great variety of characters they can be.

That´s all for today!

Write you soon and remember, Floki is waiting for you!!!

Let´s start!

Hi there! 

Welcome to teacher Jenny´s blog! I´m Jenny, a Primary English teacher currently working in CEIP Fuentes Claras, in Cubas de la Sagra. 

The purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with teachers around me, to share experiences in this amazing educational world and... why not? To let you know all things I´m learning in my life as a teacher. 

Apart from teaching little ones my passion is travelling, I really love it! 

See you soon, 
Jenny.