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

Piktochart, Canva and Google Docs for a Social Studies Project.

Hi again!

It's been a while since I published my last post.!

During last week and some days from this one, my students were working on a project. The topic was EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. We have been practicing with PURPOSE GAMES their capitals and physical features.  So, as a "wrap up" activity, My students were divided into 5 big groups, randomly chosen.  Each group was assigned a country and researched about it.

I worked with GOOGLE DOCS again, because it is engaging and easier for me to edit and check documents. Besides it's GREEN teaching and learning.

Every team created a folder in which they had to upload every item requested for the project.  The project was called: "Travel Agency" and each team created INFOGRAPHICS, POSTERS AND FLYERS to promote traveling to a European country.

They learned about CULTURE, GASTRONOMY, LANDFORMS, LANDMARKS and applied the 5 THEMES OF GEOGRAPHY too!

At the end, each team brought a typical food recipe from their team's country and the whole class tasted them.

It was a cool activity combined with technology integration!

For the INFOGRAPHIC, the students used 2 tools: "Piktochart and Canva".
I really liked PIKTOCHART because it is easier to use.  The icons and tools the website has makes it friendly for student's and teacher's use. The only "bad" thing I may say, it has is that the FREE version does not allow you to change the font color.

Canva is another site, pretty much the same as Piktochart, but the BIGGEST DIFFERENCE is that you may change the FONT color.
I have read other reviews and teachers prefer CANVA over PIKTOCHART.
I am definitely going to try Canva some more to prove this.

Ciao!

Gina

Inquiry Circles- 6th grade

Hi there!!!!


I want to share  about a collaboration strategy called: INQUIRY CIRCLE .

I loved this!! Project based learning helps students create their own understanding and knowledge.
The whole project starts with ASKING questions.

The topic I chose for this activity was ANCIENT INDIA.
Students were divided into 5 groups. Each group had a big topic ( Religion, Lifestyle, Society, Government, Kingdoms), and each member was in charge of a subtopic.

Therefore, each student was able to develop their own subtopic with questions to base their research.

After they have created the questions they searched for answers. The whole point is for them to come up with OPEN ENDED questions that allows them to fully explain and describe the topic chosen.

Once every student is done with their QUESTIONS and ANSWERS, altogether they created a presentation using PREZI to present and show results and findings.
Also, at the end they wrote the words the learned during the process of the Inquiry Circle.

The cool part is that since every student had their own subtopic, they were able to teach others, making it somehow like a "jigsaw learning" practice.