Miguel A. Alvarez

Last day - 5th of july

Today we have had the last lesson. I am really surprised about how fast the time has run out. Only 30 hours course, but with lots of new ideas to use in class.

First of all, I must say, how confortable I have felt in this course with my classmates and teacher. I´ll miss a lot Satu (from Finland), Yolanda (from Barcelona), Luchiana (from Croatia) and Lorenzo (from Italy). Probably they will never read this few lines but I only can say them thanks for the really nice time we have spent together.

I have learnt a lot from them, they are really competent people and teachers. I have noticed how the love their job and I'm sure about how lucky their pupils are.

About the course, I must say that we have worked with to cool H5P.ORG funcionalities:

Virtual Tour 360: An interactive 360 activity in wich you can integrate all kid of contents, video, photo, questions...
Branching scenario: An incredible tool to create activities with differnt options depending to the options the user choose in each moment. For me, this is the most sophisticated tool, because you need to plan all the possibilities before devolping it and you must be careful with do not leave any spot hole in the story.

In the last part of the day, we have been testing the Clickteam Fusion software. This is a pc or mac tool to create real games. You don't need to have any programming knowledge to use it, but is quite complete. It's not difficult to use, but you must understand how does it works, because you must know the correct workflow to prevent getting lost in the big amount of options it already has. We have created a videogame in which a space rocket must land from one platform from another.

Day 4 - 4th of july

Another inspirating day. Today, it's been the H5P.ORG platform time.

I'm not sure how to describe it, because it's awsome. You can create absolutley master pieces for education, the limit is your imagination.

It's free and can be connected to moodle or other LMS to get the results.

On this website you can create A LOT OF interactive activities on a very easy way. Multiple choice, drag and drom, fill in the blank activities are allowed (of course, this is not something new), but you can also create 360º activities with enriched elements, flipped classroom activities with interactive videos. You can also include some of this interesting activities inside others. The amount of possibilites is huge and I must repeat, absolutely free.

I only can tell you that if you try it, you will be adicted to it.

I prepared some activities for testing, using only a few of its functionalities. You can see them in the following links:

Lorenzo asked us to make a 360º photo for the class. This is mine. I'll see what he pretends to do with it!!

Day 3 - 3rd of july

When I thought the things couldn't be more interesting, Lorenzo told us about deck.toys. This is a website to create board-games to play in class.

You only need a board on wich you can add activities and games. It has a free version, fully funcitional, but limitated to 3 decks.

It's easy to use, really easy, and powerfull.

You can create a path to follow and lock activities wich must be open with codes, riddles, keys... As you can see it's a whole game constructor.

You can syincronize it with quizlet to get the flashcards to play with and with classroom to send the game to your students. I'm really excited with the incredible possibilites of this website.

I share my game in order you can test their options (I prepared it in around 15 minutes)

During the rest of the class, we have been testing different solutions for augmented and mixed reality like google expeditions, art and culture and many other. All of them have different contents to show to your students and are suitable to work with them in class.

How to separate fact and fiction onlineBy the end of this talk, there will be 864 more hours of video on YouTube and 2.5 million more photos on Facebook and Instagram. So how do we sort through the deluge? At the TEDSalon in London, Markham Nolan shares the investigative techniques he and his team use to verify information in real-time, to let you know if that Statue of Liberty image has been doctored or if that video leaked from Syria is legitimate.

The teacher has metioned this interesting video about how to separate fact from fiction in the news we are reached by nowadays. I found it interesting and for this reason I've decided to share it.

It's a video from TED talks. I have found it really clarifying. I recomend you to watch it.

Day 2- 2nd of july

Today has been the quiz game day. We have been working with some of the most interesting websites to build up quizies for our students.

We have worked with Quizlet, Lyricstraining, Quizizz, Socrative and Kahoot. They weren't new for me but I have learnt new ways to use them in the class.

I think, I have undervalued the Quizlet App, I thought It only was a flashcard generator app to review vocabulary or definitions, but, actually, it's a powefull tool to create really funny and targeting activities to play in groups in a cooperative way. As you can see, I have changed my mind radically about this App, and I'm sure I'm going to explore all their possibilities.

Another interesting new form me is the possibility of creating your own lyrics in lyricstraining.com website. I have used this website before, but I haven't used this function yet.

GREAT DAY, TODAY!!!

MIT APP INVENTOR

Day 1 - 1st of July

This first day has been really interesting. I have met four nice people, who I'm going to share these few days with.

Lorenzo, the teacher, is a very competent person. He transmits passion and confidence on what we are working with.

We have started telling the other participants and the teacher something about our possition in our schools. I have found really impresive, the way my classmates' schools have found their own way to teach children and teenagers. I think, all of them have ideas I would like to use in my own school.

I have found specially usable, the website MIT App Inventor. This is is a site developed to facilitate people to build their own App. It's got the same philosophy of blocky or scratch, but allows to build quite sofisticated Apps for Android. I'm wishing to test it a little bit more, because I think it's a powerfull tool for a class in wich you can work transversely the codification-

DAY 0- 30Th of june

Today, I've just arrived to this beautiful city and I've been preparing the first day. I wonder what kind of people I'm going to meet and what new experiences we are going to live together. I have choosen the course "Digital Game Based Learning - Europass Course Firenze" because I want to explore the possibilities of digital games and augmented reallity in a class.