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! ;)

Content curation tools

Hey there,

The Internet has become the most powerful resource bank. However, it is difficult to find what we are searching. Something similar as looking for a needdle in a haystack. Fortunately, there are a bunch of tools which help us to find, classify and share resources nowadays. Some of them are:

• Pinterest
• Symbaloo
• Pearltrees
• List.ly

I have been using Pinterest for more than a year and I can say that it is a marvelous teaching tool. It is very illustrative and easy to use. Users can save pins from others and share their own pins and boards.

• Home

Here you find suggestions related to your last searchs and a search bar.

• Profile

In your profile you find the same search bar and all boards and pins that you saved and shared.

As a example, here you have one of my boards where I have saved resources for my CLIL lessons.


I invite you to use any of these websites to your classify your resources. Hope you like it! ;)

Using images under creative commons license in a CLIL lesson

WATER CYCLE

Illustration by José Alberto Bermúdez

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license

Hey there,

I am currently working the water cycle with my students at school and searching images for my CLIL lessons I decided to share this resource with all of you: images under creative commons license in a CLIL lesson.

I have chosen this picture because it has all that I need for my CLIL lesson. 

• All the contents in the unit are included in the picture.
• This image can be used as an exercise where students label the water cycle vocabulary.
• It is very colourful and visual which helps learning.

To summarize, this picture will help me in my lesson because students understand better when they see a real picture or an illustration rather than listening to an explanation. I will show the picture to my students to explain them the different water cycle stages. Moreover, it also works as an assessment. Once you have explained the topic, you can check if they have understood it or not using the image as an exercise. I will give them the picture, and they will have to label the different stages. They can also draw it on their notebooks, Finally, I will also use the picture to review the unit before the exam. There are no word on it, so you can ask your students different questions about the topic and ask them to describe the image.

Hope you like it! ;)