From flat activities to super learning missions - Part 2

Welcome back everyone,

To start with, I hope you learned a lot from the last post, and I really hope you got inspired to improve your teaching by transforming plain activities into wonderful missions. I also hope you can share your honest opinion about the missions I created for the first grade of primary, so cooperating with each other we can improve it! 

As I previously promised, in this post I will share with you the second mission called Connecting with nature, which I published in a Digital Magazine created using an application called Jilster. Bellow, you can read the second part of the Living and non-living things project magazine.

If you hadn't seen the first part of the magazine, go see my previous post. Moreover, it is important to remind you that the magazine cannot be viewed with a phone, as it is not supported by such device. Please use the computer to read it. 

This second magazine was created in order to show another mission that was created from a flat activity retrieved from a Natural Science textbook. In this activity, children had to look at a picture of a park and circle or cross the bad behaviors in the park. 

The mission I created is shorter than the last one. It consists of two challenges. All the information about the challenges such as instructions, objectives, competencies, temporization and digital artifacts are explained in the magazine above. 

The digital artifacts used are the same ones as in the previous mission: Blogger, Twitter, and digital magazine. All these digital tools are used to share the achievements of the class with the world. Furthermore, children will be able to do a short video of no longer of 30 seconds in which they will be able to tell the world what they shouldn't do because it can endanger the life of plants and animals. The teacher will create a video with all the short videos the class starred in, using Youtube editor. Children will also be given badges for accomplishing the challenge and sharing their message.

This second mission fits the criteria of the 30 Goals Challenge project because as a teacher I created my own goals in order to improve my teaching. Some of the goals are:
1- Send a message - through this mission, the teacher and also the children will be able to share with the world meaningful messages filled with values.
2- Let the children teach too - children will be able to go to other classes and tell them what they've learned and will give them advice about what they should do to take care of other living things.
3- Learn outside of the classroom - children will be able to go to the park and overcome challenges outside while learning about the importance of keeping the environment clean.

The teacher will also achieve a badge, as she accomplishes one of the goals of the 30 Goals Challenge project, in which she adapted a lesson into a collaborative mission.

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The process of analysis

- In order to create the two magazines I learned how to use Jilster. It is fun and easy to use, and I highly recommend it to you, as it can be a great digital tool.

- After creating the magazines, I created a blog and a twitter account as the digital artifacts of the project, for the missions and challenges the class overcomes will be published using these means.

- In the blog I published photos I took of some examples of what a child might write in a learning diary, as I had to fill in some entries in the Our awesome first class blog.

- Next, I used Canva for a brief presentation about what a collaborative project must include. I thought this was important to remember, as I had to take it into account when creating the missions.

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Self-reflection

One cannot comprehend the enourmous benefits of creating collaborative projects that include wonderful missions and challenges to spice the teaching-learning process. As a teacher, I can't help but express how enthusiastic I feel with the project I developed with your assistance. By creating these posts I acquired so many skills and I learned about so many application, which at the present moment I cannot live without. I never thought I would enjoy so much creating this project and trying to collaborate with wonderful people that share the same enthusiasm as I do. 

As teachers, collaborating with each other is a huge step we all have to take. We have to be braver and share our ideas and projects even though they might not be so great. Only this way, we can all grow and improve, not only as teachers but as healthy and sensitive human beings that are able to recognize their mistakes and learn from the feedback and opinions of others. What I learned throughout this experience, is that all of us has to open their minds in order to create missions that are not only creative but also coherent and that can be easily carried out in a real classroom. 

Finally, I want to give special thanks to the 30 Goals Challenge project, which opened my mind to always take into account not only the goals that my students need to acquire but also the goals that I, as a teacher, need to accomplish.

With this in mind, I want to thank you all for reading this post, and to encourage you to give your all to improve as a teacher! I can't wait to read your feedback and comments!

See you in the next post!

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