Effective RESEARCH

Do you remember when you were a student?!??!??!?!

Certainly you do!

DO you remember how painful it was to perform research, and worst of all, choose the correct sites and paraphrase the information, otherwise you will have a ZERO for copying and pasting?????

Well,  everybody knows that researching is not that simple, but there are ways to make it easier and better: quicker! YES!!!!!

In this video, I share with all of you some tips and strategies to use when you have a school paper OR simply a quick research assignment.

This video contains:

GOOGLE TIPS:

-GOOGLE has some shortcuts that filter your results according to your entries. 

WHAT IS PLAGIARISM and HOW TO AVOID IT

WIKIPEDIA: IS IT TRUSTWORTHY?

RESEARCH TIPS

PLEASE comment!!!! and SUBSCRIBE!!!!

Enjoy!!!!

WeVideo review - tutorial

Hello again!

 this post is dedicated to explain the coolness of WEVIDEO.COM. It is an online video editor with easy, simple to use features such as GREEN SCREEN, TEXT, AUDIO RECORDING, GRAPHICS, IMAGES, AND TRANSITIONS.

This quarter my students have been working with the History of Ancient Olympic Games in Greece.

For this purpose,  they re created the origins and beginning of such big event by using STOP MOTION.

First they did a research about the most important events, the dates, places, and requirements to participate.


Some pictures here:

TUTORIAL VIDEO FOR WEVIDEO

Middle East Project using Pinterest and Blogger

This quarter,  students will work on a MIDDLE EAST - Pinterest and Blogger Project.

Using GRASPS, this project will look like:

GOAL:
The goal is for students to learn to use social media apps and sites such as PINTEREST with an educational purpose.

ROLE:
Students are going to act as political journalists researching about the current situation of the Middle East countries and the terrorist group ISIS or ISIL.

AUDIENCE:
Other students and teachers around the world and immediate community.

SITUATION:
The political journalists will research about ISIS in the M.E and the implications of ISLAM  looking to answer: how it is affecting the world.  Students will use Social Media to track down recent events and statistics to write about it and later, discuss the topic in a Socratic Seminar.

PRODUCT:
Each journalist owns a Pinterest account in which they keep track on ideas, articles and news about ISIS in the M.E. They also own a blog in Blogger in which they will create entries about the units researched. They will draw conclusions and express them during a Socratic Seminar.

STANDARDS:
This will look like individual Pinterest Boards with pins directly linked to their blogs. The blogs will contain articles with facts and statistics about ISIS in the Middle East Countries and the implications of ISLAM.

First:  Create a Pinterest Account.

Second: Create a Blogger Account  (I took this video from YouTube, I do not own its rights)

Third: While researching, pin articles, images, videos, websites and more to your Pinterest Board.

Fourth: Write complete articles about the research topics and pin them to your board.




The rubric Here:

RUBRIC Pinterest- Blogger Assessment

Green screen and iMovie Tutorial

Hi again!

I recently decided to try out a HOME MADE green screen. I bought  2mts of green fabric to hang on my classroom's wall and recorded a video using them.

The product was amazing!

iMovie does all the work for you, it even has an option for you to just OVERLAP VIDEOS OR PICTURES.

This is very easy to do. Just follow this steps.

1.- Record using a Green Screen. It is very important that the objects or people you are recording are not wearing anything green.
2.- Download a video you would like to use as a background.
3.-Open iMovie.
4.- Import your green screen video and background video.
            File- Import Media- Select your file(s).
6.- Drag and drop your GREEN SCREEN VIDEO in the first row.
7.- Drag and drop your BACKGROUND VIDEO in the second row.
8.- Select your GREEN SCREEN VIDEO from the first row and on the upper part of the "preview screen" there is a button that has 2 squares being overlap. Click and choose GREEN SCREEN from the drop down menu  and VOILÁ!!!!!!!!!!!!

My next project will definitely include a Green Screen element!!!!!!


Here is the final product: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B53WxaRRYL2zR2FJYmNmMUwwWEE/view?usp=sharing




Comment, share and +1


Gina

Google Slides- collaborative tool for Social Studies

Hello again!

This week  during our Social Studies class, the students worked in a collaborative environment using Google Slides. We have been studying the Ancient Greeks and their Architectural Elements.

For this purpose, I used a Google Doc with the instructions for session. This way, every time they had a question about -what to include in their slide?-  they were able to re visit the Google Doc and clear doubts.

I really liked how this worked with my 6th graders and they LOOOOVE working with Google Apps.

Please SHARE, +1 and comment!!!!

Gina

Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning

This is one of my LEARNING GOALS.  Struggling with engaging students into topics and classwork is hard. Differentiation and PBL can actually work together.



I have been trying lots of strategies and yet, I have not found one that I can say it is the best. But definitely PBL works. I created a lesson plan for a Performance Task with my 7th graders and included a differentiation component.



As the article states, by "giving students a voice" the engaging process and at the same time the learning environment changes.  Therefore, I decided to come up with a "MENU project on History of Nuevo Leon" Students were able to choose what they wanted to use to show and apply their knowledge and understanding about a sub topic.

I made a menu and a checklist that included what each project or item should contain to exceed expectations. I also handed them a rubric with the grading criteria.



This was something that I really enjoyed because they had the chance to be creative and also choose what suited them best.



For this reason I will continue looking for options and research articles about PBL because it WORKS!!!!!



I am sharing with you a copy of the Menu project, so you all can have an idea.

This site is really useful: 6 Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning: Blogger Andrew Miller offers six simple, effective approaches to differentiated instruction in project-based learning.

ZAPTION review. - Cool for Social Studies!

Hello everybody

Yesterday I found out a cool site that enables us teachers to check student's comprehension while they are watching a video.

ZAPTION is an online tool that works with videos called "tours" that become alive... yes! ALIVE!
This means that we can upload a video and add MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS, TEXT, IMAGES, and OPEN RESPONSE BOXES to the video. Students will begin watching a video and suddenly a text box will show up to their left or right part of the screen with questions about the content they are actually watching!!!

How cool is this!!!

I believe this works great as a Flipped Classroom strategy. Not only students come prepare with a background knowledge on a topic or unit, but we as teachers can test to see if they are understanding or not.

ZAPTION also has an ANALYTICS feature that enables users to analyze data from viewers.
We can see questions or sections students struggle with and focus our attention on those.

Truly a great tool for Formative Assessments, differentiation and learning styles.

Here is my recent created ZAPTION TOUR!

http://zapt.io/tm4nc3ps

I shared my tour with students, so they could practice and review for our 1st Semestral Geography Exam.


Later I will let you know what they though about this new tool!



Cheers,

Gina