The analyst by María Moreno

This week the stars have played the game, and firstly I want to congratulate all of them because they did it their best. Cristian and Rosana were our stars and although they answered properly all the questions we did not win, but it is not our fault.

I think that this game is not the perfect way to decide if we know the answers or not, because only two people can participate on it, while the rest of the group is only clapping and looking at them. Also, if you know all the answers but when you roll the die, only small numbers appear, you will not win. I think that this game is enjoyable, but not a fair play.

This is my last time as the analyst, so I want to say that with this subject I have learnt a lot of knew things and I have discovered that without any printed book, papers or teachers help, we can learn things better, because we have to investigate by ourselves, reading different pieces of information and summarizing what we consider the most important.

What´s more, I think that taking the different roles is a very good idea, because we can work in a different way each week and also we can help to our colleagues when they have to do a role that we did before, so we collaborate helping us and doing it our best.

So, CONGRATULATION to Brainstorming and remember this two words: WE CAN!!!

The analist by Cristian Paco

Probably this is the worst role of this activity as we have to evaluate our class mates and not many people love to be the hangman of somebody, then the person who is executed plus his or her friends are complaining, pointing and gossiping the hangman. BUT

Who is the bad boy of this movie?  the hangman or the king?

In my opinion none of them. Everybody knows that when the police caught you driving and drinking you are crap and the hangman punish you because of the low made by the authorities. so this is so simple, FOLLOW THE RULES.

For that reason I have to say that this week no one of my team have fail the week as every one has done as much he or she is able to do, building the questions, choosing the good one and checking the mistakes in order to get outstanding questions for a good understanding of the educational law so, to me the best part of the week is the way we are understanding the changes in the LOMCE by discovery learning but the best of the best part is that we are learning that we can teach a piece of pure text with no memorization at all, this is the way I want to teach my student in the future.

In my opinion the worst part is the little feedback we are receiving from Linda as we are not sure if our understanding of the law is correct or it can be improved.

About the best or the worst moment in this week I can say that the visit of  Jordi was very rich and also was a prove that Linda is not the only pedagogic that have that  opinion about new technologies and education, the worst part was the rush we have to take to finish the chosen questions and I have to say that we didn't choose it properly as we didn't had all the resources to do it in a right way.

As a group we have to conserve the hard working, the unity, the positive spirit and the smiling in our faces and for the few next week we have to improve in the understanding so everything, I think we have to force our brain to the understanding, after that we'll be able to think clear and understand better.

As my mate Fernandito says in the last annalist’s post it's clear that the good understanding of the LOMCE will be more than useful in the race but the more useful part for the race and for our entire professional life will be de knowledge we are getting looking into the BOE.

We all know that our future job will be very sticky to the government that is way there is an obvious connection between the activity and the social context, in other words, the LOMCE will affect to the social context and the right knowledge about how to trait the LOMCE will make the difference between the good and the bad teaching.

Analyst role by Fernando Tortosa Cutillas

I have been the analyst this week and first of all I have to say that all my partners have done the work great and I’m very proud of all of them. Especially of Cristian who was the facilitator this week and who has offered us help to explain us some concepts and also has helped us to organize our concept map.

What was the best part of the activity?

The best part of the activity in my opinion has been when on Monday in class we had to compare the others groups maps of the same topic and unify them all together. And also we have learnt to organize concepts in a conceptual map in a simple way using a program called "Inspiration 9".

What was the worst?

The worst moment was when we have to start reading the LOE and the LOMCE because we were not used to work with that and it was a little difficult to understand at first.

What was the best moment of the week (group work)?

The best moment was when we had to evaluate ourselves in a fair way because we have a group supervising us, so we ask them for opinion and we agreed with them.

What was the worst?

The worst thing this week has been was the difficulty of the activity; we are not too much familiar with the educational laws, so at first I have been a little difficult to understand. But Cristian as facilitator this week has helped us a lot to organize each part of our conceptual map.

What have you learned?

We have learned to see our own mistakes comparing with others group perspectives to organize and make things clear with the conceptual maps. But we have also learnt some principal concepts about the educational laws LOE and LOMCE and its changes.

What is needed to conserve, as a group for the next few weeks?

Well I think we are doing the things right and that we have improve a lot since the start of the course and we also have get used to work in group and to help each other.

What needs to improve, as a group for the next few weeks?

We dont have to do just the activity, we have to investigate and try to learn also about other things related to the topic that will help us in the future as teachers.

How this has been related to other content in the course and in the race?

Well it’s obvious that knowing the educational laws is very important for us because we have to know our limitations and the things that we can do in each situation at school.

There is no obvious social connection of this content (news, politics, etc.)?

All the aspects the educational laws in Spain at least, are related with politics, depending of the political party governing they can make changes in the educational law but this is not fair at all because they are all time changing the laws and this cause many problems, like with the change of textbooks.

Analyst by Feli Travieso.

Imagine that two people are carving a six-foot slab of wood at the same time. One is using a hand-chisel, the other, a chainsaw. If you were interested in the future of that slab, whom would you watch?

The best part of the activity we had to perform this week, was the opportunity to learn a wide variety of paths to search and create your own information with innovative tools, in order to successfully synthetize the skills that we have acquired during this period. I have to say that not only has it been quite motivating, but also has helped us to get gradually more confident with new ways of transmitting knowledge.

Technology is not only on the rise, but it is also dramatically spreading and evolving, so discovering a new tool like Moovly has been exciting as it is a very useful application to use with children being visual and helping on catching their attention to transmit the message.

On the other hand, the most ghastly part was that in order to be proficient in using a video program as Moovly or PowToon among others, requires not only time (scarce this week), but also patience, and constancy( features not well developed).

Using this new method is a way to acquire or trying to achieve a new skill, which is to be able to foresee in a near future a good way to control time in a classroom when we have to be faced with a wide variety of diverse students. Why? Because going through this new and challenging task has taught us that in order to be proficient when given a lesson to future students in a class without surpassing the time, we as professionals, have to invest time and effort to transform a 50-minute class in a productive and rewarding experience for teaching-learning.

The best moment of the week was during the presentation, seeing that two groups, Come On Tutankamon and T8T, have done a great job and achieved the goal. They have been able to synthesize the contents in a clear, cohesive and attractive presentation and in the given time, which states they have worked hard and together as a team. It was a pleasure to see their faces were they were scored as the best ones on the class.

On the other hand and at the same time, the worst part of the week was when  realising our work did not achive expectations. This was for clear reasons, to name it: incoordination, lack of interest of some integrants, working at the very last moment running like chickens with not head.

Another bad moment was to witness that even though  the work done by giveme7, which  on my opinion it has been the best group all this time, was not scored as I was specting and I could clearly see some signs of langhisment among some of the integrants, due to the fact that they work so hard on this project.

These facts send as a clear message to learn: working in groups is important as long as all the members are playing at the same court.  Leonardo Messi would not be a football star if he did not receive his teammates unconditional support. Therefore it is necessary to put all members capacities together in order to create synergy, but sadly, teamwork is understood as splitting the work, and that fact will affect the way we are learning this subject as well as other subjects working with the same system.

For that reason, the main goal would be to understand that working in groups does not mean splitting the tasks in order to become more proactive, on the contrary, as a team we all should clearly being acquainted and share all the information we find in order to help our classmates in case that one or more if for for any reason are not able to perform as good as they should any of the remaining integrant are able to substitute them without problems.

In order to get better, we really need to work as a group, as if we were ONE PIECE belonging to a device, setting above the group before personal interest. Everyone should work for the group and do not expect the group to work for him/her.

This content is very related to the course and the whole degree as it can be applied in any subject, as mentioned above.

And finally, every step, every though, every effort we make to progress in this subject is increasingly connected on the same direction society in general should cope in order to be capable to exceed other’s expectation.

Work as Analyst (Rosana Yepes)

This week I am the analyst and I have to admit that I feel fortunate because the topic of this week, The Dark Side of the Textbook, is a topic very interesting with many things that I can extract and comment it largely.

My work consists on the one hand, marking my partners´ work; on the other hand, responding different questions. However, now we are studying a subject where the most important is the creativity. So, am I going to respond these systematic questions? I don’t think so. I am going to present a comment about my point of view about this topic where I am going to integrate all the questions.

I will start by the beginning, last Monday when we saw the activity: The Dark Side of the textbook and we thought: really? Do Textbooks have dark side? Then, I have been all my student life in the dark side. Later, our teacher, Linda showed us her position about this, and little by little we realized to things we didn’t know. So, I could say that this moment when I opened my eyes was the best part of the activity.

In this way, our facilitator, Raquel divided the work and each one had to investigate about any concrete topic. Here, I realized that there is much information about this and I didn’t know it, so in this moment I felt a bit frustrated, why haven’t I heard about this before? I could say that it was the worst part of the activity, when I realized that I have so much interesting information and we don’t have enough time to dedicate it, because we have more subjects. Notwith, to be honest, with a good organization and enthusiastic everything is possible.

Later on, brainstorming group had to decide how we were going to present our work. We´d rather do the fable because we thought that we can represent better the topic. Writing a fable is not easy at all. Moreover, we have a lot of information to add in a fable and especially it must be adapted for children. So, it requires have the five senses on it, and above all time, it requires time, and it is something so scarce at this date of the semester… Notwith, we created it as our group name says, as brainstorming. Each one said one thing; other improved it and so on. However, at the beginning it was pour, but we didn’t know how to improve it since my bulb started and the fable was modified hardly. With this change all of us cheered because we already saw everything clearer. So, it was without a doubt the best moment of the week, when we saw the light and we were directing to the correct way. 

And finally, when our star told the fable there was a nice environment to tell it, and then we played at kahoot app was a moment incredible, because it was some different and funny to motivate students. So this moment was a success.

Here we can see a graphic which show us how we have felt this week.

Brainstorming´s Feelings

Well, this has been our process and our progress this week, but the most important thing is to know what have we learnt in reality? because each work has his objective. And how are we going to put in practice?

I have learnt many things. Firstly, I have learnt the existence of the dark side of a textbook. Textbooks are the best business for editorials. Editorials manipulate us as they want. They show us their ideology, steal our many, reduce our creativity, our critique sense, our capacity to decide, and foremost, our opportunity to learn. We are paying something that makes us less intelligent, less skilled and more useless. The Government, editorials, schools, headmasters, teachers, parents are promoting this. And why? Why? It is very sad, but it is true. The main cause is the money. All of them are richer with the use of textbooks, the government and editorials earn huge amount of money; teachers don’t have to worry about anything, because in textbook everything is redacted and explained, they only have to reproduce what textbook tells; parents feel better when their children follow the book and they do their homework and so on. Certainly, textbook is a comfort for everyone, and a real business for editorials. Unconsciously or not, we are paying our stupidity. How much political interests there are in text books...

To deep more, why do teacher use them? Because the school require them? Oh my God, what lack of personality! All teachers have been studying during years to carry out their job as well as possible, and now am I going to reduce everything I have studied in a textbook? No, darling no. My time and my professionalism are worth more than this. When  I finish my degree, I hope to be capable of develop my classes in the best way, I won’t need some textbook that will say me how I have to carry out my class.

All of these arguments are some of we have been able to detected only in a one week. However, I am sure that if we still investigate about this topic we will be able to be specialist in it and the most important thing, we are making aware to avoid textbook. Now, we know the dark side but, what can I do to promote it? Probably, the most of the teachers had never heard about this point of view. Firstly, we must give publish at our discoveries by tweets, blogs, and whatever. Next year, when we will do our practices in a school, I will promote a different way to learn, without any textbook, using several resources and strategies. We must feel fortunate for living where we live. We have free and quick access at the information; we have uncountable recourses to use, why do we resign ourselves with the worst? It can seem a bit contradictory, but unfortunately it is true.

We mustn’t be narrow-minded, technological develop increase, why don’t we do the same? Aren’t we living in the same society?

The Analyst by Rocío Ramón Belmonte

This week my role was to be the analyst, if I start to reflect on the work done throughout this week , the first thing I think about is the pressure that we have had up to try to make things right , however as a result we have obtained many creative ideas, we have improved the blog and design, we have much more organized and attractive. With regard to my group work my colleagues are very effective and efficient doing their job and give all you can make. This work will help us to learn and of course to get a good grade. For example, the star of this week my mate Feli which in my opinion has done a great job but has become a little nervous when she was presenting , it seems that her work has been magnificent because she worked hard on it, the job was aimed at children of the age of her daughter and thanks to the images and photo with her explanation and emphasis I think she has achieved what the group  was intending. Cristian this week was the journalist with Raquel but apart from doing their work they  had helped a bit to Maria our facilitator blog this week , Maria also has done well and all have had outstanding performance at all times , as the other fellow was a more personal work. The implications of her work are good and hope we continue to strive every day to achieve the goals of each week.

What was the best part of the activity?

The major part of the activity this week has been for some aesthetically improved blog that has helped us to organize many major and see things more clearly, thanks to the sharing of ideas and especially Cristian is that more work is done . It was the best because it is a small step that can make us all the task.

What was the worst?

The worst thing was the lack of communication in relation to other activities. Also one of the biggest problems has been to reference the images and we did not have to clear that each image or each slide but our companion Feli, the star this week has managed to correct that mistake and have done great.

What was the best moment of the week ( group work ) ?

The best time was after the presentation of our star, to see that we have done well and we've improved during these weeks, and that fact motivated the whole team. I think we have been more pleased to see that things were done fine.

What was the worst?

The worst moment was when our twitter was eliminated for the second time, we have to make a new one and we lost all the info we have twitted. And when we have to choose theme for the presentation, because there were plenty of fantastic topics to choose. Also changing the roles every week is stressing. keep in mind that each week we continue working with a new role that we had never before made.

What have you learned ?

We have learned to work together, to talk, to organize , to strive more and a little more. Joint work on how to make a slideshare also how to prepare a presentation for children in this case about recycling, using creative commons . Also on the issues raised by our colleagues from other groups. In short this week has been rewarding in terms of learning.

What is needed to preserve , as a group for the next few weeks ?

As a group we must follow the example of the efforts of many of our colleagues about their creativity and good intentions.

What needs to improve , as a group for the next few weeks ?

From here on we must listen each other, the effort is the same for all I try to work every day and looking forward to become better working in groups.

How this has been related to other content in the course and in the race?

Of course , along the course and all the grade we need to reference all the things we use, pictures , articles , news , web pages . It is also important presentations for children as our race is about that, to explain to children that they understand and have a good time learning. It also serves to take away the shame when we have to talk in public as well as practice and other subjects and real life.

There is no obvious social connection of this content ( news, politics , etc)?

Yes , because first of all you need to know how to raise any issue of public interest, in our case recycling, to children, because they are the future and need to be informed and prepared to be good citizens and care for our planet, they also need to become persons with ethics and high values in life.

The Analyst by Raquel Pelayo

a   a)    What is the best part of the activity?

The best part of the activity was when we had to compare the three different projections in the sense that we could see the three different projections that there are, the distortions of each projection, how we could teach children those projections and which one could be the best one to explain children the world, because in a future not too far, we will have to teach them and we must to know all this type of things.

b)  What was the worst?

The worse part of this activity has been when we had to discuss with our classmates to decide which project was the best to teach children, in the sense that we had to put ourselves in the position of a child of primary school and which was the projection that we could understand the best. And we had very different points of view and different opinion because each of us think that a projection is better than other, in our case we were more focused in choose the Robinson projection or the Azimuthal projection. And I think that it is the worst thing for all the groups, be everybody agree.

c)   What have you learnt?

We have learnt that exist some different projections of the world in a map, and some of them are wrong, in the sense that, the proportions of the countries aren’t the same of the reality, in other words, there are some distortions of some areas and are different in each projection. Personally speaking, I think that most of us, including me, didn’t know the existence of those distortions because when we are children, at school, teachers don’t tell us that the map is wrong with the size of the projections, and it is true that it occurs because we are children and we wouldn’t understand it.

d)   What was the best moment of the week (in the work of the group)?

The best moment of the group this week was when we were discussing about which project was the best to teach children of primary school, our journalist, Rosana, was with her tablet and her  “microphone”, recording us and asking us some questions about our role and our work of this week. This was a little joke and where, a part to be stressed, a moment like that is welcoming.

e)  The worst?

The worst thing is when we have to be every member of the group agrees to do the exposition of the star and the information that we have to take and distribute our work, and at the end when we have to send all the information to the others, because the star that is the one that has to expose, must to learn all what has to say and if everyone send the information the last days it’s a more difficult for the star be well prepared.

f)   What have you learnt?

What we have learnt is that the majority of the work mustn’t be done just for one or two people, and we must collaborate every one and help the others that we think that have more work than us, and if we finished with our work, ask to the others if they need our help, because it must to be a group and don’t see who can escape the first one from the job.

g)  What do you need to conserve –as a group- for the next weeks?

What we need to conserve as a group for the nest weeks is the capacity that we have to improve each day, more and more, because, at the beginning is a little difficult in the sense that it is new for us and all those things, but when we have everything structured and ready to continuing working it will be easier and we could improve in the things that we are worse, or that we don’t know very well. I think it is just the beginning and if we put a little of us, we could improve a lot.

h)  What do you need to improve –as a group- for the next weeks?

Personally speaking, I think that we don’t have to do the things the last day and don’t give too much work to one or two persons, because a work with 7 people is not the same than a group of 2 or 3, and if the 7 that work very hard it will be easier for everybody and we don’t overburden others.

i)   How this content is related to other contents in the course and in your degree?

This content is related in how children can observe the world and how to explain it, there are some projections that are wrong with the dimensions and children can have a wrong perception of it, and not only in this aspect, in other aspect of the live, for example, today he have made an activity to teach children what is fiction and what is reality with example of cartoons. Some children can take the fiction like reality, and we have to help them to difference between the fiction and the reality.

j)   Is there any evidential social connection of this content?

Yes, the evidential connection is the media. The most important of this aspect is internet, in the sense that we can find all type of information in documents, videos, pictures… about the projections maps and it could be very useful. 

The Analyst by María Moreno

 ANALYSIS SHOULD BE A COMPETENCE FOR EVERY TEACHER

What was the best part of the activity?

The best part of our activity was the result. Because while we were doing it, we had lots of questions that we have to solve in order to complete our work. We also made a great effort trying to do our best, but it was the first time that we had to do something like that, so we were a bit lost!! For that reason when on Monday Rosana exposed it and we knew that we have finished it and that the result was great, we felt that it was the best part of our effort.

What was the worse?

The worse part of our activity was when the first day we had to start working and we didn’t know what to do, we were confused, with lots of ideas and resources. It was horrible, because we were completely lost

What was the best moment of the week (in the work of the group)?

The best moment of the week was when we all had our roles and we could start to work without any problem, helping each other. It was fantastic, because we understood the meaning of TPACK; what the teacher wanted in our work; and the most important thing, how we had to do it.

What was the worse?

The worse moment was when we have to start working, searching information on the Internet and trying to understand what TPACK was.

What have you learnt?

We have learnt a lot about TPACK, because before doing these work we didn’t know anything about it’s existence, and we think that it is very important to us because the educational system and methodology are changing, so if we want to be good teachers, we must teach using TPACK.

What do you need to conserve -as a group- for the next weeks?

As a group we must conserve our comradeship, because together we’ve worked, with a very good harmony. Also we should conserve our kind of dedication to work, because with motivation and effort we will pass more easily this subject.

What do you need to improve –as a group- for the next weeks?

For the next week we have to improve the working time that is that we can’t send everything the last day to the facilitator, because we are annoying him. We have to help each other and make the work easy to everyone.

How THIS content is related to other contents in the course and in your degree?

It is related to the course because depending on the kind of subject that we study, it can be Content knowledge; pedagogical knowledge or technological knowledge. So the TPACK model organize the different subjects in groups depending on his function and content.

There is any evident social connection of this content (news, politics, etc.)?

Of course that it is evidence, because technology is developing day to day, so we have to be ready to teach our students with the new methodologies and technologies, because children will be professional of computers, tablets... and we have to be ready.