Tuesday, February 28, 2017

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE 3

Made with Padlet

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE 2

Made with Padlet

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE 1

Made with Padlet

Module 5: Assesment

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE



STEP FOUR: ASSESMENT
  • Use kahoot to create a survey to asses the activity The Super Short Story Challenge.
  • The students will previously instal the app in their phones.
  • Once the stories are written and they have chosen the best ones, the teacher goes through the survey questions to check students' understanding.
  • Project the questions on the digital blackboard so that students can easily read them through.
  • The students open the app on their phones.
  • The teacher gives the students the game code and they start answering the questions.
  • Finally the whole class analyze the results.




Module 5: Implementation

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE

STEP THREE: IMPLEMENTATION.

SESSION 1: 55'
ACTIVITY PRESENTATION
15'
    Activity presentation: How to use The Story Dice app.
  • Tell the students they are going to write a collaborative story in class and that to do so they are going to use a mobile phone app called Story Dice.
  • The students are going to watch a video to learn about the app.
  • Give the students worksheet 1 with the video transcript (Annex 1).
  • The students have to listen and watch the video and fill in the gaps with the missing words.
  • Go through the vocabulary in the box to check students' understanding.
  • Play the first part of the video (up to minute 2:52) twice and then correct.
10'
    Writing the story: Using charts to create the main character and the plot.
  • Give the students a copy of worksheet 2 (annex 2) and explain how to use the chart to create the main character and the story plot. Go through the document to check student's understanding.
  • Divide the students into groups of 4 to do a practice. Try to have well balanced groups in terms of their English level.
20'
    Practicing: A Story Dice simulation. (The Super Short Story Challenge)
  • One student in one of the groups taps on the screen of the teacher's phone to roll 5 dice to create their character. The teacher writes the vocabulary of the pictograms on the blackboard to check students' understanding.
  • They have 5 minutes to complete the chart with the information of their main character.
  • Another student will then roll 5 dice to create the story plot. They will follow the same procedure, they will have 5 minutes to write the story.
10'
    Choosing the best story: Votation.
  • Each group reads their story and finally the students vote the best story to be the winner.
  • Tell the students that in the following session they will create stories using the mobile app and they will publish them on the padlet app.
  • Ask them to instal Story Dice and Kahoot in their phones before they come to class.
SESSION 2: 55'
    The Super Short Story Challenge and assesment of the activity using Kahoot.
5'
    Getting started.
  • The students are divided into the same groups as the previous day.
    They all receive the document with the charts to create the character and the story plot.
20'
    Creating a story with the Story Dice app: The Super Short Story Challenge.
  • One student in each group taps on the screen of the phone to roll 5 dice to create their character. The teacher writes the vocabulary of the pictograms on the blackboard to check students' understanding.
  • They have 5 minutes to complete the chart with the information of their main character.
  • Another student will then roll 5 dice to create the story plot. They will follow the same procedure. They will have 5 minutes to write the story.
10'
    Votation: Three stories are choosen to be posted on padlet.
  • Each group reads about their characters and their stories and finally the students vote the best 3 stories to be the winners.
  • These three stories will be published on the padlet app.
20'
    Assesment on kahoot.


  • The students have previously installed the kahoot app on their phones.
  • They are going to answer a questionaire using kahoot to express their opinion about the Super Short Story Challenge activity.
  • Before starting with the survey, the teacher goes through the questions to check students' understanding.
  • Project a document with the questions on the digital blackboard so that students can easily read them through.
  • After that, ask students to open the app in their phones and give them the code number to complete the questionare.









Module 5: Design

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE


STEP TWO: DESIGN

Session 1: Presenting the story dice app.

  1. Activity presentation: How to use the Story Dice app.
    In order to present the activity the students watch a demonstrative video which shows the app features as well as explains in detail how to use the app to create the story. For an effective viewing of the video the students will be given a text with gaps to be completed as they watch the video (annex 1)
  2. Writing the story: Using charts to create the main character and the plot.
    To write the story the students will be given a document with two charts. Using the dice on the app they have to complete the charts to create the main character in the story and the story plot, from start to finish. (annex 2). At his point the teacher shows the studens how to use the charts so they become familiar with them before starting the activity.
  3. Practicing: A Story Dice simulation.
    To practice writing a story and to establish a group dynamic the students will do a storytelling simulation using the app. The group will be divided into 4 groups of 4 students each.
Session 2: The Super Short Story Challenge and assesment of the activity (Kahoot).

  1. Getting started.
    The students are divided into groups of four. They all receive the document with the charts to create the character and the story plot.
  2. Creating the main charater.
    Students will first create the main character in the story by using the Story Dice app on the phone and the character chart (Annex 2).
  3. Creating the plot.
    Students will then create the plot of the story by using the Story Dice app and the story plot chart (Annex 2).
  4. Sharing and voting.
    Each team will read their story for the rest of the students and then a class votation will determine which three stories are the best.
  5. Writing the final stories on the padlet.
    The students/teacher will write the final results on the padlet app.
  6. Assesment.
    Create a survey on kahoot to evaluate the activity results. The students will express their opinion about the development of the activity using this app.





Module 5: Planning

THE SUPER SHORT STORY CHALLENGE


STEP ONE: PLANNING

  • The first thing to decide is the group of students you are going to do the activity with.
  • I chose a group of students in 1st of ESO.
  • As the class is divided into two groups I have a small group of students: 16. We will carry out the activity making smaller groups of four.
  • The parents are asked to allow their children to bring the mobile phone to class one day to do an activity. The students are also asked to instal the Story Dice and the Kahoot apps in their phones.
  • The activity is planned in two sessions of an hour.
  • The first session is used to present the activity, to teach about the app features and the creation of stories using the Story Dice app and finally to practice writing a story with the app or with the story cubes (in case there aren't enough phones in the class).
  • In the second session the students create their stories with the app, write the three best stories on the padlet app and do a survey about the development of the activity using kahoot.



Module 5: Storytelling using phone apps

This module consisted of creating a storytelling activity using phone apps.
I've created an activity using a phone app called Story Dice, it's a very simple app which can be asily used with young secondary schoolers. Personally I have used it with my students in 1st of ESO.
It was good fun but it requires thorough preparation.
My students were quite excited at the possiblity of using their phones in a class activity though.
I'm pretty happy with the results and now I'll try a more advanced version with my students in 2nd of batxillerat.
Both apps, Story Dice and kahoot proved to be very successful and I would like to learn more about this app.
Below you will find new posts with the steps I followed to create my activity: The Super Short Story Challenge.




Monday, February 13, 2017

Module 4. Collaborative Storytelling.

FOLDING STORIES




Here is a post of a collaborative storytelling I arranged with my students in 2nd of Batxillerat. I asked them to participate writing a story as an optional activity to do from home.

The first thing we did was go through a few of the stories which were posted on the "Folding stories" web page and make sure the students understood how to edit and use the tool.

To start the story, we used the "story cubes" in class to choose the main character in the story "the sheep". Another element we chose by throwing the story cubes was the concept of music (the sheep could sing) and then we added an adjective, which was a colour "brown" (the brown spot on her eye). With these words we built up the basic traits of our heroine, to whom we named "Lola" (as a tribute to the sheep Lola in the film Night on Earth by Jim Jarmush).

Once we had the main character, we wrote the first sentence in class together and then we agreed that they would follow the story from home.

A few students did it and we also found a few folds written by unknown writers, which was quite exciting as well... someone got interested in our story!!

Below you will find the link to our story, we hope you like it!!

foldingstory.com/2e65o


PADLET


Padlet is a very basic and easy to use tool which is very appropriate for younger students who might not have an e-mail account. I've used this tool to create stories with my 1st of ESO students.


I have used the same story to build up a padlet to show to my students. After reading the story on the padlet I asked the students to create their own padlet at home as we couldn't count on the school computers.

We also used the story cubes in class to create a few characters and the students chose the character they liked best to write their stories individually or in pairs. The students were given a few days to write and hand in their stories so that I could correct them before publishing them on the padlet.

once I have corrected the stories they will be able to publish them on the padlet web page.

https://padlet.com/pilscaldentey/rjingfjp7cls



Sunday, February 5, 2017

Module 3. Comics and avatars.

One of the language resources I like to use to practice pronunciation is tongue twisters. I've used a comic stripe using ToonDoo to teach my students a tongue twister. Next activity for them will be creating their own cartoons to teach tongue twisters to each others.

Here is my cartoon on ToonDoo.



You can also create an avatar to teach your students tongue twisters. Below you'll find a link to my avatar reciting a tongue twister:

http://tinyurl.com/zmufk4a