LEADERS: ANALYST' POV

Hello I am Paloma, the analyst of this week and I am going to try to analyse objectively the develpment of the activity of this week.

This week, we had to create 4 profiles in Fakebook, so 4 of us had to create a profile representig 4 different leaders.

The best part of the activity I think that it was the exposition of our star, Noelia, who did a good work representig the participative leader, together with Gracia, the participative leader of Busy-bees. Also I think that it was te best moment of the week. 

The worst moment maybe was the moment of divide the profiles, we had to flip a coin to stablish them to every member of the group. 

With this activity, I think that we have learn about the different types of leaders that can govern us. We have learn the methods, actitudes and principiles of every type of leader. Thanks to this activity, now we can recognize if a leader is authoritarian, participative, transactional or transformational and we know the advantages and disadvantages of every type of leader.

This is all this week! Thank you to our readers!

COEXISTENCE PLANS: ANALYST

Helloooo dear bloggers! As the analyst, this week I have to remark some different things, so let's do it!

First of all, I would like to say that initially, we became afraid when Linda explained the activity because we are in the end of the course and need a lot of time to study. But then, we realized that this was not so difficult. On the contrary, it was really fun, specially the moment of recording the video. Maria was laughing and we laughed with her, however, the two actors were very implicated in their roles and did the work easily.

Other good moment was when we saw the complete video with some outtakes, we were impressed with the video and its explanations and we felt proud of our work, including the script, the actor and the video editing.

Maybe, the"worse" part of the week was to see that we could have made other interviews or amplify the perspectives but we wanted to focus in an specific type of report so we think it is nice.

An important aspect of this activity is that with it, we have learnt a lot of important thing for our future. When we start to work, we will have to follow a coexistence plan to act in a fair way with children and parents. In that way, the activity helps to introduce us in these documents and learn about them step by step.

Also, it is related with all the contents of our course. Each institution must have a coexistence plan, so involuntarily, we are following it all days. However, this connection goes beyond and frequently we have to watch in the news real cases of conflict in schools. This is case of the recent information about the child who killed his teacher with a crossbow.

Finally, I would like to say that as a group we are improving a lot and this have been a good week. Each week, we collaborate more between us and do an equilibrated job.

Best regards, Ana.

DAY-D, SNAKES AND LADDERS: ANALYST'S POV

This week we finally play “the game”, we have been working on this topic since Easter and we really wanted to do a good job and, if possible, win the game Snakes and ladders. I think this is a really good way to conclude this topic: a funny and interesting way to show our knowledge and how we have worked on it. We were all very motivated and everybody helped in the groups dynamics. Our Stars have worked and studied also during the weekend. I think that was the best part of the week, the compromise of each other and how we have worked to do our best. I think it could have been better if the entire group could participate in the game. Even if we helped the stars, they had a lot of pressure that any of us had, making their task more difficult and harder.

In my opinion, the best part of the week has been the great job of the stars, they knew all the answers and they really showed that we worked on it. Unfortunately, we have not been lucky and the dice has not helped us… Snakes made us loose!

Anyway, we have learnt a lot about the topic and we keep learning team-working. I think this is very important because it is always necessary how to work with others, collaborate and cooperate to do a good job.

If we continue working as well as until now, we will keep improving. Nevertheless, we have to learn how to distribute better the tasks. There are always people who work more than others, and that is not fair.

To conclude, I would like to say that this topic has been very useful, as we will work as teachers under these laws (as one is the continuation of the first one), we must know the law in order to know and understand all the system that surrounds us in the education field, almost in Spain. I think it is really interesting to see how politics influences everything, education as well, but, in my opinion, some issues must be always the same to guarantee consistency.

Pilar-Meerkat

TRAINING FOR THE GAME:ANALIST' POV

HI! I am Paloma and I am the analyst of this week. In this post, I have to relate how has been the work by answering some basic questions. But, this week we have not had the usual dynamic because we have not had any specific activity, so I wont be able to answer all the questions us a normal analyst, but I am going to try explain how has been our experience this week.

Our work this week has been to create a dynamic which can aid us to training for the game. Ana is our coach and she have had to train the stars of the next week (Noelia and me)

To do it, she has propose to the group that all of us should read the documents because we must have a general idea of all the topics. Noelia and me will have to study the topics and the questions because we will have to answer in the game. (I am nervous but I believe that we can do it well).

With the aid of the rest of the group we will have an easier work because we will have the support of them, so they should to be able of solve any doubt whith the topics. It has been the best part of this week, because we have achieved find a good and simple way to do that all of the members of Meerkats participate in the training. Also the advantage is that all of us will adquire knowledge about the documents.

Maybe the worse part of the week was when we had to decide who was going to be the star. We decide to follow the logical orden that we had stablished. Thus, Noelia was the star of the week, and foutnately, she was very happy because she wants to do it! But the problem was that we needed other star. And the star of the following week was me... At first I recognise that I did not like it so much... But now I think that I can do it well and I can support in the knowledge of my mates. So I will have to study the questions with Noelia and we will have to form a good team for answering the questions in the right way!

BASICS OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM II: ANALYST

Hello everyone, It's Noelia!
It's a pleasure coming back to write for you! 

This week my role is the analyst. The analyst "has to evaluate the work of the group" so... Let's evaluate! But first, let met tell you what we did (if you don't it's impossible to understand my evaluation).

This week the task consisted on creating 4 questions (and their respective answers) for each of the six topics we had to work in.

Those topics were about the educational system (we actually had to focuse on non-university institutions' educational system),a very common topic studied in some of our freshman year's subjects such as school planning, tutorial action or even student diversity. Besides, it is also a popular topic addressed on some discussion shows, news and so on. In my opinion, this might be so populabecause of the politic change we are going to be through at the end of the year and the new politic parties (as well as the society in general)' claim for a better education.

As Easter was coming, we divided the group in 3 subgroups for working two topics (and doing their respective questions) by subgroup. After that, we put al the questions together thanks to Google Drive and the facilitator printed them in the specfic size required (9cmx5cm). In the presentation day, 7UP! and us evaluated the whole questions from the topic 2 and fill in some surveys.

If I had to say two best parts of the activity (I actually have to say one, but if there are two they must be said), I would probably consider the first  one the possibility of working in something that will help us in the not too distant future. The educational system is something we must know for our job as teachers and it's a good idea to work on it from the first year of the degree. Besides, the way in which we have been doing it (the conceptual maps, the cards and finally the game, which will be developed in two weeks) is less boring than if we had to read the law so the content will be learnt in an easier and more dynamic way. Moreover, it shows us another way of teaching and the good results it has for learning, in another words, it gives us a chance to improve our pedagogy.
Furthermore, the second one was working in tandem with 7UP! as it is a good experience for all of us  becuase our work will consist exactly on what we did, working in tandem with other people and evaluate. It's a good training.

Regarding the worse part of the activity and the week, I must say that there's nothing catastrophic that happened and must to be mentioned. However, there was something that worried us a bit and it was the card's print. None of us had done any card and with that specific size so we had to think a lot about the way of writting everything down  and how to print it. Finally, the copyist explained us how to do it and everything turn out well.

As you can see we have learnt a lot of worth-learning things this week: educational system, print stuff, making questions, defending and supporting our arguments (for agreeing on the mark in the surveys). It has been a very worthwile week.

All of this good way of working and all these things learnt have been possible thanks to our willingness to work so good, maybe due to the fact that, during Easter, we recharged our batteries and our efficiency during and after it has been higher. So, although we have already began this second four month period and the batteries are running low, we must conserve this enthusiasm and efficiency as it's going to help us a lot along the time that is left. Also, we have to continue improving because this good week doesn't mean that we can stop doing it. This is just a previous result of an improving process, the real result will be in the end of this long way across soyer1415, and it will be so much bigger and better.

This are my this week's reflections.
I hope you like it and learnt from it as well.
See you soon, everybody!
Meerkat Analyst

BASICS OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM: ANALYST

Hello everybody, I am María and now I am the analyst of the Meerkats, so I have had to evaluate the work of my partners which is difficult because this week all of them have worked a lot.

This week, the best part of the activity have been the realization of the conceptual maps because it is an enjoyable way to summarise information, but on the other hand, the worst part of the activity was that we made a mistake with one of the conceptual maps and we realised about that mistake on Monday so we could not change it. 

This week we cannot arrange to meet but once again we have worked together from a distance without problems and helping us one another. Luckily, skype facilitates us to share and exchange the information. But the worst part was that one of the conceptual maps was released very late (Sunday night), thing that worried us. This happened because there was some problems with the tools but finally we could solve them!

With this activity we have learnt to do conceptual maps and we also have learnt to summarise information in an enjoyable way. I think that this will be useful for future works or activities.

I would like to conserve for the next weeks the companonship that there is between us but I would like improving the coordination between us in order to try to have all the parts of the work at the same time.

About the content, I think that it is related to other contents of the course and subjects because in the rest of the subject and during the course we constantly summarise information and this is a perfect way to practise and learning to do it better. What is more, learning to do conceptual maps is very useful because it is a good way to study for an exam.

Also, this topic is very connected with the present because the politicians always are changing the education law and this concern us. The new curricular proposal that was offered the 3/01/2015 affects this content too.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT? ANALYST´S POV

Hi bloggers, this is Javi, and this week I am the analyst of the group Meerkats.

This week the project was one of my favourite tasks, to make a video with all the contents we have learnt from the beginning of the subject. Of course, like always we made a big effort in order to get  good marks.

I think the best part of this task was the way we coordinated the work. It's true that probably some people of the group had to do a more difficult part, but in general I think that all the Meerkats made a great job. Probably the worst part of the work was that we didn't meet to edit the video, but fortunately we could share the video and comment the things we wanted to improve or change, but like always, Maria made a great job, and there wasn't anything we didn't like.

The best part of the week, was to present our video in a "Eurovision Contest" way, because we could check that our video was very good because most of the points given by our classmates were very high.
I don't know if there is a bad part of the work in this week, because in general, all the members of the group are cool to each other, and we are very comfortable working together. However if I must tell something bad of the week, it will probably be that we made a terrible mistake on the video: we forgot to put the credits.

This week we have learnt about "moovly.com", a webpage to make and edit videos. Probably we will use this application in other tasks, because, in my opinion, it is very useful to show information.

If there is anything we should keep as a group it will be the nice atmosphere while working together, because it will help us to be more efficient at  work time.

Probably, we should meet more often to make better works, but it is really difficult to agree a date.

This week's work was a recopilation of all the previous works, and it helps us to remember all the contents: TPACK, Cartographic Projections, etc.

To finish the answers, in my opinion, there is nothing new to relate to social events this week. The reason is that we have already related it in the previous tasks.

And this is all, I hope you enjoyed this week
See you next week !!

THE DARK SIDE OF TEXTBOOKS: ANALYST´S POV

Hi everyone! I´m Fran. I have changed my role and this week I've been the analyst of my group. As you know, the analyst has to evaluate the work of the group, in this case, the work of my group. This week we have been working on "The dark side of textbooks". To prepare this task, we could do it of three ways and we chose to make a comic.

The best part of the activity has been to design the comic and to create the story that we have used to the exposition in the "Art Gallery". When we met on Tuesday, some people of my group had thought a good story with many creative ideas and then, we chose this idea for the comic. Creating the comic was the funiest part and the best of this week. Thanks to some of my groupmates that are very good in computer programs, we could finish the comic soon and without problems.

On the contrary, I think that the worse part of the activity was the exposition time. It´s true that my groupmate Ana had prepared very good her exposition and the results were very good, but this part of the task it´s always the most complicated. The problem in general used to be the nervous but This part is required to the task, it´s the way to show your work to your peers. This week, we have been told  "well done", In general to the hole class and in particular to our star when she showed our comic.

This week I can say that we have had two great moments. First moment was we decided the story of the comic. When we decided the bullets and we developed the story. It was a great moment and I have to say it!. The second moment was when we were congratulated because we could check that our comic was creative and good.

Now, I have to talk about the worse moment of the week. This week have been very good and we haven´t had bad moments. I think, the worse moment of this week was that  my group and I saw our star alone a couple of times during the exposition of the "Art Gallery".We thought "oh no! anybody want to see our comic!" but it was a stupid thing because every group came to see our "piece of art" and in general, everyone liked it.

I have learnt this week that an image can make you feel a lot sensations and you can show perfectly an idea or understand thanks to images.

About the work of my group, I think that if we conserve the emphaty in the group and the way we distribute the task, we can do a good job in the following tasks. I don´t know what to say about how to improve the work of my group, because I think that we work hard and We must continue as now.

The content of this task it´s important because technologies are a reality in the classrooms and we can say that books are a small pedagogical jail. This content is related with our career and above all is related with our future as teachers.

This content and the discussion about it, we can find in the media. Many digital news, Newspapers, films or some studies talk about this content.

See you next week! Regards.

CC LICENSE & GOOD PRESENTATIONS: ANALYST

Hi groups of #SOyER1415, I am Ana (again), the analyst in this case and as you should know I have to evaluate the work of my group. This week we have worked in the use of free resources and visual presentations.

The best part of this activity has been the learning of how to use images, videos or whatever with “Creative commons license” because we have been able to discover a lot of new resources and websites in which we can find really great photos completely FREE and naturally with CC LICENSE!!  A good example is Flickrcc. This license gives people freely the right of share media in order to use it for educational or personal purposes, but not for earn money at his own expense. Apart from this, honestly I have enjoyed with the exposition of Mª José from Busy Bees, she has been very dynamic and has known how to keep our attention during the entire exposition. It has been a good moment.

On the contrary, I think that the worse part of the activity was the time of the oral exposition because all of us were very nervous (Imagine the star). It was well prepared but the time was too short for explaining 8 planets in a good way. Nonetheless, we have received the critics of Linda constructively and really expect to improve in the next presentation.  Other “bad” thing of the week, were the problems that the class had in the choice of the topic. The problem was caused because various groups of the class had chosen the same topic but finally we all came to an agreement and peace arrived.

Well, as I have said before, we have learnt about Creative Commons and how to use properly the media that we find online. But also, we have learn and then, put in practise, how to make a good presentation with PowerPoint, Prezi or whatever. The more remarkable tips that we have learn about a good presentation thanks to the expositions and presentations of Monday is that is has to be simple, that the text is not a good resource because there is no time to read it and that “A picture is worth than thousand words.” (Proverbio chino)

As a group we work well and it is important that we conserve the cooperation and the help that gives each other. In this way is comfortable to work in group because we can share our beliefs and worries with the others. Anyway, we have to improve. First, in the meeting time, all of us have to postpone something and make an effort. It is also important that all of us, as a group, accept the advices and contributions of the other members in order to achieve a good level.

This content is much related with the methodology of the other subjects of our course. In almost all the courses we have to do presentations and other activities in which we need to use images so it is important for this kind of things.

See you very soon, kisses.

TREASURE HUNT TASK: ANALYST'S POV

Hello, I am Pilar, and this week I have been the analyst.

As you may know thanks to other posts, we made a “treasure hunt” activity. The best part of the activity was to realise that sometimes we learn and we teach things not related to the reality, and the vision of the world of our students is distorted and can make them have prejudices about other countries, population, etc. We have learnt that we have to search for real information and be the window through which our students see the world. The worst part was the amount of work and the little information found on the Internet, making it hard to do an accurate information work.
The best moment of the week in the work of our group was the coordination and the speed we had while working: when we had our meeting. The worst part was the initial lack of coordination and I think we could have done better if everyone had come to our meeting.
As we said before we have learnt a lot and we are happy to have accomplished such an interesting task.

Next week I would like, as a group, to keep being coordinated, interested, and that all of us make an effort to help each other. And I would like as well, to be more organised.
I think this content is related to all the others, because we had to be always objective and impartial. We have to look for the truth and aim to teach and learn the true information of the world.

As we have learnt also in this task, the map projections could make the countries badly represented feel inferior, and those which are wider than in the reality superior. This has both social and political consequences.

Finally; I am going to share to you the talk I had with the analyst from the Platypusoyer analyst and the analyst from powerteachers.

We all agree about the bad organisation we had, each one, as a group. We all complain about the little time we had to complete the weekly task and also the problems we had with the content. We all think that we have to find other organisational systems and strategies. But, after all, this is our second task and we are learning step by step.

TPACK PRESENTATION: ANALYST'S POV

This week we have worked in a poster which represented what is TPACK. The best part of the activity has been that all people in the group has participated and provided ideas. Maybe the worse part of the activity has been that our poster has not been too much creative, because it was the typical representation of TPACK with the three circles of colours. Even so, it was made with the computer (technology), so we have put in practice the TPACK model.

The best moment of the week has been the first moment that we got together to decide how to we were going to work, because all of us were motivated and anxious for doing a good work. The worse moment of the week was when we had to print the poster, because we had some problems to print it with the size that we wanted. We expected to create a bigger poster but we could not do it.

Basically, we have learnt about what is TPACK and how this model help teachers to teach using the technology. We have learnt that we, as future teachers, need to know to use technology, to explain to our pupils the contents that they need to acquire in a pedagogical way, (“how to teach the contents”).

The TPACK is described as complex interaction among three bodies of knowledge: Content, pedagogy, and technology. The interaction of these bodies of knowledge, both theoretically and in practice, produces the types of flexible knowledge needed to successfully integrate technology use into teaching. (Mishra, 2007)

As a group, we need to conserve for the next activities the good organization that we have had, because all of us have done its part of the work, so also we should conserve the excitement and the motivation of the first week because always the enthusiasm of doing a good work is a big aid.