How to create a infographic

Hey there,

Here I have a new resource. Infographics. They help you in order to visualise or summarise a topic. In my case, I show the main problems of the ozone hole and how to prevent them. The tool that I have used is the known Genial.ly. The same as we used to create the slideshow. This tool keep on surprising me. It has thousands of applications.

Once you have your Genial.ly account, click on "Create Genially". There are four different sections. In the section "to explain" you will find inphographics. Now, you can use one of the several examples that Genially gives us or start from zero. In my case, I used one example and I changed the information, pictures and effects.

The ozone hole is a confusing topic for my students. It is something that they cannot see and difficult to imagine. In that way, I decided to create a visual infographic to explain it. They can interact with lots of things.

First, I show the most polluting countries of the world. There is a map where they can click and watch it bigger.

Secondly, there is a picture where NASA showed the thawing arctic. If you click on it, you will go to a youtube video recorded by NASA where you can see the whole process.

Finally, I give my students some advises about how to prevent it and in class, we will discuss other posible solutions.

Hope you like it! ;)

Designing a mind map for an education project

Hey there,

Here we are again. In my school, we are now involved in an project where our students have to find out about the animal kingdom. We have created a mindmap in order to help us planning our objectives in this project. This mindmap shows the different aspects that we want to carry out in our project.

Students have to investigate about the different groups of the animal kingdom and create a poster explaining one. The will work in groups of three. Afterwards, they have to explain their group to the rest of their partners.

Mind mapping is an exciting educational tool because it promotes learning by helping students capture and organize information, make connections between and among concepts, identify concepts that are missing, and learn by making sense of information, both information they already possess and new information.

The tool that I have used is Creately. In this page, you can design a lot of different charts and diagrams. You only need to select what you eant to create.

In my case, I chose "Mind map". Then, you can use a stencil or design your own Mind map.

I decided not to use a stencil and design mine. On a grid, you can add different types of topics and pictures and conect them with lines and arrows. You can change the type of letter, colours, the type of arrow... everything!!

Here is mine.

Besides I had some problems creating it, it is really easy to use. It has a very intuitive and simple interface. The problem that I found is that it crashes when you upload a lot of photographs. Unless in the free version. However, I insistenly recomend you this tool. I have used mind maps since many years ago and I can ensure you that it is really helpful for students and even for teachers. Students start to schematise in order to study. They see the bullet points of a topic and they clarify their ideas. For teacher is very useful because it permits organises better their work or make students' study easier. In my case, I use mind maps for both situations. To facilitate my students' learning and organise myself better.

Hope you like it! ;)

Using comics in a CLIL lesson

Hey there,

How many times did you see the use of a comic as a resource in a lesson? Probably few. That is the reason why here I bring a new resource to use in a CLIL lessons.

I found a problem in my classroom. My students did not feel confortable with the topic "Moon landing". So, I thought that the best way to make them feel better was if Neil Armstrong himself tells the story.

The question is... how do create a comic? Easy. The answer is Pixton. In this website you can change every single expression and position of every single character of the comic. A tool where you can spend hours and hours improving your work. In my case, I also recorded dialogues.

There is only one thing that I do not like of this resource. It is not free. However, you have 15 days of trial.

Do not hesitate and try to create your own comic. Here is mine.

Hope you like  it! ;)

Design a support slideshow

Hey there,

It is time to step outside my confort zone and test myself bringing here what it has been a new resource for me. Today we are going to learn how to design a support slideshow and use it in our CLIL lesson.

The tool that I have used is Genial.ly. This powerful resource has really surprised me. You can fiddle with it thousands of hours and still discover new applications.

Once you are registered, you have a bunch of different presentation you can use for your slideshows.

In  my case, I have used "Presentation" where you have again endless possibilities to choose in order to create your own slideshow.

Topic chosen, you will find a menu with a lot of editable contents for your slideshow. 

• Interactivity: write lables, use pop-up windows or include links in your slide.
• Text: Use different fonts, sizes and colours in your slides.
• Resources: shapes, lines, gifs, pictures and a more things are available for you here.
• Background: Choose a background for your slideshow.
• Animation: Here you can animate every single part of your presentation.
• Embed: Embed here your social media.
• Pictures: Add some pictures to your presentation.

I am sure that I will spend a lot of hours discovering new uses for this resource. I hope you do the same. Meanwhile, you have here a brief example. 

Hope you like it! ;)