Lesson Plan with Applied Technology

APPLIED TO ENGLISH TEACHING

LESSON PLAN

By Ana Barro

WARMER

Taking into account the fact that students have already been working on Clothes, today they will make a revision about clothes. To do this, they will first access this Quizlet Set in order to play and revise the key terms. They can play individually or in groups. They will have between 10 to 15 minutes to do so.

After that, the teacher ask them some questions:

What do you like wearing?
What is your favourite piece of clothes?
What are the typical clothes here in Buenos Aires?
Do you think that we wear the same clothes as the people in Bariloche? And what about Salta?

The students will engage in a whole-group discussion. They will talk about their favourite clothes, the ones they typically use and the ones they never use. This will be a starting point for the second and following part of the lesson (Web Part).

WEB

In the second part of today’s lesson, students will first watch a Video about the Climate in Argentina. (Taking into account that students have already dealt with the different climates so they know about the topic)

While they watch the video, students will work in groups of four. They will watch the video twice. The first time, students will have to pay attention to it. The second time, students will take down notes using Evernote. Once they have finished, all members of the groups will try to put ideas in common, talk about what they understood and share what they learnt about it.

During this stage, and after the students have taken down some notes, the teacher will try to guide them so that they relate the topics seen during the Warmer section and the Web Section. (This means that the teacher will make a link between clothes and weather.)

WHAT NEXT

In the last part of this lesson, each group (formed by 4 students) will have to choose an Argentinian area (from the ones they saw in the video) and imagine they were living there.

Task: Try to imagine: What is the typical climate in your place? What types of clothes do you usually wear?

Final Product: Create a video using Vyond Tool using characters, dialogues bubbles, props. Make it visually friendly! Your characters should explain the clothes they usually wear according to the place you have selected. Besides, your character can also say which clothes they never wear and their favourite ones.

For this, students will have a preparation period in which they will sketch their dialogues, choose the weather and clothes they will talk about, etc. Once their sketch is ready, students will create the video collaboratively. This will be done at home (They will have one week to create and complete the task)

Once all the groups have created their videos, the whole class will have a look at them together. Classmates will evaluate and pay attention to others' works.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

Supporting the Technological Enhancement

SAMR MODEL

The SAMR model is theoretical framework with four main parts:

Substitution
Augmentation
Modification
Redefinition

It could be used as a support of the lesson plan, specially if we took into account the Substitution and Modification stages of it. Why? Because the substitution stage is present in the Web part of the lesson plan, where students have to use the technological tool Evernote to take down some notes while watching a video. In this case, the technology provides a substitute for a learning activity but there is no functional change. What this means is that the activity could have been done without the use of Evernote. However, the technological tool provides students with the experience of carring out an activity in a new and different way.

What is more, the modification stage serves as a support of the What Next section of the plan. In it, the students create something completely new, something that would be impossible to achieve without the use and incorporation of technology. Consequently, technology allows the activity to be redesign completely.

THE TRIPLE E

The Triple E is the second theoretical framework that could support the previous lesson plan. Why? Because the triple E provides teachers with meaningful ways to understand how students learn, what they learn and how they make sense of what they have learnt. For this, the Triple E is divided in 3 major parts: Engagement, Enhancement and Extension. The lesson plan could be supported with the second part of this framework. That is to say, the Enhancement part.

The Enhancement part poses question such as: Does the technology create scaffolds to make it easier to understand concepts or ideas? Does the technology tool aid students in developing or demonstrating a more sophisticated understanding of the content? (creates opportunities for creation/production over consumption) Does the technology create paths for students to demonstrate their understanding of the learning goals in a way that they could not do with traditional tools?

If we took into account the previous lesson, we could answer all these questions by a simple YES. This is due to the fact that the lesson plan provides students with a new use of technology. Students do not have to carry out research and only incorporate information from it. Rather, they use of techology relates to the production and creation of a new product that will show the students' understanding about the topic. The creation of a final product with the aid of technology enhances and develops a more sophisticated understading of the concepts and topics in the lesson plan.

BLOOM'S TAXONOMY

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is a framework the fusion of the traditional framework (Bloom's taxonomy) and theories with technology in order to enrich the learning experience.

The framework provides a hierarchy thinking skills, going from the higher thinking skills to the lower ones as follows:

Creating
Evaluating
Analyzing
Applying
Understanding
Remembering.

The previous lesson plan could be related to this framework, specially because:

The Warmer section provides a use of lower thinking skills: remembering. Moving forwards, the second part of the lesson maked student understand, evaluate and analyse the content in a video. Finally, the what next section involves the creation of a new video, taking into account their previous analysis and also the use of higher thinking skills such as evaluating (clothes and weather according to the place they live) and creating (a video in which they put everything into work)

TUTORIALS

EVERNOTE

STEP 1

Access Evernote by clicking on this button. You will be directed to Evernote's Home Page.

STEP 2

Once in Evernote, click on the button "LOG IN". You will have the chance to create a new account or o access using your Google Account.

Step 3

Now you can start taking down notes! It's very easy. You can jot down as many ideas as you need!

Step 4

Finally, you can share your Evernote using the link provided.

VYOND

Step 1

You can access VYOND by clicking on the following button. Once in Vyond, you will see this Home Page.

Step 2

Click on the top button "Free Trial". In order to access the app, provide an email or use your Google account. Remember this app is not free, so you will only be able to use it once.

Step 3

Choose the style that you like the most. Remember that your video should be explanatory and visual-friendly, so it would be useful to choose a clear and nice style.

Step 4

After choosing a style, you will be able to create your video. For this, click on the bar on the top left that will allow you to choose characters, backgrounds, props and many other things.

Step 5

Once your video is ready, click on the "SAVE" button. You will then have the chance to download and share the video.

Step 6

By clicking on "VYOND" you will be redirected to your main page, in which you will see your own creation (or creations)

Some Research on

Technological Tools

QUIZLET

Quizlet is a web-based application developed to help students study information through interactive tools and games. It provides a platform for students and teachers to create and share their own learning materials, including flashcards and diagrams. Some teachers find Quizlet very useful because it engages students in the learning process. Here are some teachers' opinions:

"One benefit of flashcards is the process of creating them. While that’s easy to do on the Quizlet website, it’s much tougher here, leading to a possibly more passive user experience." - Patricia M in the website Common Sense Education.

"Quizlet gamifies the studying process, allowing students to play different games and compete with each other to get the highest score. I've seen increased test scores on multiple choice assessments from students who use the regularly. Students LOVE it, I think partially because there are a lot of choices." - Maria L. in the website Common Sense Education.

"It should have a broader colorscape to appeal to younger users." Carly M. in TrustRadius.

Some cons of Quizles relate to the fact that not all the features in Quizlet are free of charge. Besides, features for uploading and reviewing flashcard sets are limited on the app and better supported on the Quizlet website.

EVERNOTE

Evernote is a free app for your smartphone and computer that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of, like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list, or even a simple typed note. The app works brilliantly, keeping everything in sync between your computer, smartphone, or tablet. Some teachers' opinions about this App are:

"Evernote is used as a tool to organize various documents and enhance collaboration across teams working on the same documents or project simultaneously. We use it to take notes from our brainstorming sessions and whiteboard discussions and then sharing and accessing the content from anywhere. All types of files like Word, Excel, pdf, PowerPoint and media files can be stored and shared from Evernote. " Tapan J. in TrustRadius.

"It's simple to use and setup. There's no unnecessary functionality or things in the way of the user yet it's powerful enough to categorize and maintain a long term personal log of notes. It helps me get things done." Jose M. in GetApp.

VYOND

Vyond is a cloud-based animation solution designed to help organizations create professional animated videos for training, marketing, and HR purposes. Key features include team collaboration, asset management, data visualization, remote access, data import, and a whiteboard tool. Here are some opinions based on Vyond's users:

"It is very simple to set a scene, and create animation that looks far more difficult to pull off than it is. It creates very dynamic scene possibilities that help get our message across in an attractive manner." GetApp

"While I love that Vyond holds webinars aimed at helping users improve the content they create, they tend to be a bit slow and stick to the very basics. I'd like to see more advances topics and an approach that doesn't assume the user has never used the platform before." TrustRadius

REFERENCES

Quizlet Inc (2020), Learning Tools and Flashcards for Free. Retrieved from https://quizlet.com/en-gb

Evernote (2020) Accomplish More with Better Notes. Retrieved from https://evernote.com/intl/en/

VYOND (2020) Make Your Own Animated Videos. Retrieved from https://www.vyond.com/

Puentedura, R. (2006). Transformation, Technology and Education. Retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014/06/29/LearningTechnologySAMRModel.pdf

SAMR Model. (2017). SAMR Model Retrieved from https://www.schoology.com/blog/samr-model-practical-guide-edtech-integration

García, ML (2018) Chapter 8, Differentiated learning: teacher’s pathways to meaningful technology Integration. In Adapting to meet diverse needs in ELT. Selected Papers from the 43nd FAAPI Conference. Retrieved in September 2019 http://www.faapi.org.ar/downloads/FAAPI2018SelectedPapers.pdf

Common Sense Education (n.d) Common Sense Education: Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/

Trust Radius (2020). Software Reviews You Can Trust . Retrieved from: https://www.trustradius.com/

GetApp (2020) 10 Years Recommending Software. Retrieved from https://www.getapp.com/

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