Learning Diary: eTwinning Event: Tools to enhance collaboration

Learning Diary

by Emiliana Rufo

eTwinning Learning Event

"Online Tools to enhance collaboration"

December 2018

https://learninglab.etwinning.net/77882/home

Expert: Maxime Drouet

My Presentationin the Introduction page

Hello! I'm Emiliana Rufo. I teach English as a Foreign Language in a Secondary School in Rome. I've been teaching English for 16 years. I'm specialized in developing ICT in the classroom. I like learning new things, I think life-long learning is the aim of a good teacher. I like trying new methods to make my lessons interactive. I am an active etwinner, I've started using eTwinning since 2015. My web site: https://emilianarufo.wordpress.com/

Module 1: create a decision-making activity

Sometimes in projects we need to have pupils discuss about a choice they would have to make. We don’t want them to simply vote. We want them to argue. It is much more interesting as it forces pupils to think about their choice, and also it helps to improve their arguing skills.

Tricider

https://www.tricider.com/home

The 1st Activity

My entry in the Tricider received a lot of votes!

My entry in the Tricider

It is one of the most famous monuments in Rome. It is an amphitheatre of Roman time. It is still possible to visit it inside.

Knowledge of famous monuments in important cities. Study its use in the past and how is it today.

My entries in the forum:

I have already used Tricider in eTwinning project to decide topics of the Project together with partners at the beginning or for Logo voting with students. I used it with my classes at the end of the year to have a feedback of my activities. Such as the one I post here: https://www.tricider.com/brainstorming/2cwHHBguMMV

Other online tools I use to create surveys or discussions - voting are: https://www.mentimeter.com/ https://answergarden.ch/ http://www.anonvote.com/

It sometimes happens to receive "access denied" when you try to post on tricider or you try to save an image.

Ideas to Use Tricider

Other online Tools

Difficulties

Module 2

Write Collaboratively

During project, we often need to be able to write collaboratively on a page. This kind of writing tool is called a “pad”. A pad is an online collaborative text editor. The contributions of each user are indicated by a color code, appear on the screen in real time and are recorded as they are typed.

https://pad.disroot.org/

Pad Disroot

Trying the tool as Students

My EntryITALYColosseum, Rome Uffizi Gallery, Florence Venice Alberobello and Trulli Mole Antonelliana Castel del Monte, Apulia The Ravines of Castellaneta Milan Cathedral Capocolonna in Archeological Site

https://pad.disroot.org/p/SerbSETD8w

Exercise 2

My PAD

https://pad.disroot.org/p/Testing_this_Tool_-_Emiliana_Rufo#

about the difficulties you have met in using this tool:

I haven't any difficulties in using this tool

Here are some links to my students padlets: https://padlet.com/emiliana_rufo/tripUSA3c https://padlet.com/emilianarufo/australia3c2018 https://padlet.com/emiliana_rufo/musicandteenagers2d2017 https://padlet.com/emilianarufo/rules2c2018 https://padlet.com/emiliana_rufo1/surprisingenglish1c2018

What other tools do use to write something collaboratively?

I like using padlet/lino.it because it gives the chance to add links, photos and the wall is full of colours, images and icons. You can change the URL to be easiily found by students.Mentimeter and AnswerGarden give the chance to create collaborative word clouds and they are really appreciated by students. I don't like MeetingWords because they are only coloured sentences and it creates a bit of confusion. On Google Docs you can collaborate easily, you can add pictures and different fonts.

- Padlet- Meeting Words - Google Docs - Dotstorming - Mentimeter - AnswerGarden - Lino.it

Do you have any other ideas of activities that could be done using those tools ?

I use Padlet the most of the time. I have created lots of Padlets for different activities: presentations, a collection of Avatars, descriptions, recipes, learning diaries of courses, collections of links with my students projects. There's no limit to the activities you can do with Padlet, it is my favourite. Unfortunately, it is possible to create only three each account now and I'm really sorry for this.

Module 3

Create a Poster

A very nice way of communicating about a work or a research with other people is to create a poster. Posters are easy to use because there are lots of tools and it is something pupils are familiar with. It doesn’t take much time to create, nor too many materials are required. It is easy to share a poster,too.

https://www.designcap.com/

Activity 3: My Poster

I've created a poster about Suomenlinna Fortress in Helsinki, Finland. I have visited Helsinki and I love Finland.

My entries in the Forum

I didn't find any difficulties in using this tool. It is really easy to use for pupils because they do not have to create accounts.

To create Posters I use: https://piktochart.com/ It is very easy to use, with lots of free templates. It is not possible to save the image, but you can share or save a photo of the screen. I've also used: https://www.easel.ly/ https://venngage.com/ https://spark.adobe.com/ https://bighugelabs.com/ But the easiest tool to create posters is the one I learnt in this activity. Thank you!

Other ideas to use posters:I use posters to show places, my school, activities we organise at school, such as Open Days and Musical concerts.

Module 4

Create a Collaborative Map

Pupils don’t know very well European countries, they are not very good at localizing them! One thing to do in project is to create a map on which we can localize things we work on. For example, we can localize the countries we’re working with in the project. That really helps pupils see where our partners are coming from. It is fun to see how far we sometimes are from each other!

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/

There is only one issue: when you used it for your project: if there are two users connected at the exact same time, if they both save their work, sometime one of the two works isn’t saved.

My Activity 4

I added Name, Description, my Poster and a video of Suomenlinna Finnish Fortress, Helsinki Finland. Here is the link to the map:

http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/our-learning-event-map_271590#

My entries in the forum

No difficulties after watching tutorials. Thank you. I was looking for a new tool to create online maps and here it is! Unfortunately Zeemaps isn't free anymore. After 100 views you have to upgrade the map by paying. I used it before, so I preferred Google Maps for a while. Now I have this new tool, easy to use and free! Thank you. You can create a tourist guide of the best monuments in your town, for example as my students and I did for this year project. We used Google Earth, first we pinned the sites and then we created a tour by using the Google Earth video app. It was fantastic. My students learnt a lot! I've created a video with iMovie at the end. Here is the result. I hope you'll like it!

Module 5

Create a Game

To have pupils create games about the project they’ve been working on. And then share those games with partners. There a few reasons for that. First, it is fun! Pupils enjoy playing games, and usually, they don’t even realize that they’re actually working while playing! It allows to check what they have retained from the project. Second, when pupils create their games, they need to review all the material created during the project, they need to think about it.

https://kahoot.com/

Activity 5

My Kahoot Game

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/6aa7f27e-c307-46d4-9624-7e3f9098423b

My Entries in the Forum I knew this tool so I haven't found any difficulties in using it. After a bit of time I didn't use it I found some changes and new features in creating the games, such as free photos to add to questions. It is a really useful tool and pupils found no diffuculties in using it but you have to have a device for each student and this is not so easy in Italian schools. I sometimes ask my students to use their own device (BYOD) and their data connection, too. There are some other tools I can suggest but they have already been mentioned, such as: https://learningapps.org/ I used it to create quizzes but you can create different kind of excercises too. https://quizlet.com/it is really easy to use and you can create more than quizzez. Another tool I use to create quiz and have immediate feedback is Google Modules https://www.google.it/intl/it/forms/about/, you can assess with points and marks close questions and create questions with open answers, too. It is really useful. I used Kahoot game to revise Irregular Past Simple Verbs in English: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/d2c8501b-e5e4-48f3-aefb-085473fa2fba I used it for Culture test. Here is one about Canada: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/55890932-11c6-4f11-80f6-d0178c466668 I've created other quizzez with different tools. This one is about Cultural Heritage in Italy, for my etwinning Project of this year, I've created it with my students: https://learningapps.org/display?v=p99n8adw218 This one is a Culture Test about The USA created by using Google Modules: https://goo.gl/forms/FjfdrNdZPcmgkB8F2

Creating the game about Cultural Heritage sites of our Learning event Map was a way to see other participants' entries. Now I know a lot of places I would like to visit one day.

Thank you!

Contact

https://emilianarufo.wordpress.com/