In charge of creating learning missions. Part 2.

This time I am going to show you another example of how to turn a flat activity into a flabbergasting learning mission. I selected one of the tasks I developed for my Open Educational Project "The Weather Forecasters" that you can take a look by clicking here.

This learning mission is built on the previous one - In charge of creating learning missions. Part 1. 

How to turn a flat activity into a super learning mission ?

• Choose a humdrum, boring activity from the textbook or from your own material.
• Select the goals you want your students to accomplish.
• Select the competences you like them to practise.
• Think of an ICT tool you want to incorporate.
• Choose the final artefact to be created.
• Give your activity an appealing title.
• Present it as a mission, with all the instructions to follow.

Which flat activity did I choose ?

Activity 2.

Open your books on page 32. Look at the weather symbols of the map. Indicate where India is located. Open your notebook and write a sentence concerning the weather India has today, and another sentence about the weather you think India will have tomorrow.

Collaboration time

Before explaining the learning mission, let me tell you that - as it occurred with the previous activity- I joined two of my colleagues to work collaboratively: Ana Márquez and Carmen Olmedo.

I collaborated with Ana Márquez @ana94mqz, because of the fact that our learning mission concerns India, among other countries, as her project does.  You can take a look at her project here.

Moreover, I collaborated with Carmen Olmedo @CarmenOlPas, as she is working with  “The 30 goals challenge”, particularly with “Revamping a lesson” goal. Due to the fact that this goal includes aspects like: creating learning missions, making the lesson more hands-on, including technology, and adding humour; I decided to apply this characteristics to the mission. You can take a look at her project here.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/08/07/goallessonupdate/

How is the learning mission aligned with my collaborative project-to-be?

This learning mission is aligned with the collaborative movement I am looking forward to participating, which is called “Design a Badge Goal”, from “The 30 Goals Challenge”, since I have created digital badges for the role each pupil is going to play, so as to reward them.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/07/21/goaldesignabadge/

How did I create those badges?

I went to “Design a Badge Goal" page and I browsed a slideshow provided by Shelly Terrell @ShellTerrell. I decided to use again one of the recommended tools called Open Badges Me, I registered myself in a couple of seconds and we started working on the graphics. Firstly, you  have to give the graphic a title and a description. Then, you design it by choosing and editing: shapes, inner shapes, banners, texts, and adding icons. Finally you complete it and keep it.

Since this the learning mission is also based on cooperative learning, these are other badges I created for each role students will play.

                                                               


















 By  Lucía Carrasco

By Lucía Carrasco
                                

 By Lucía Carrasco                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                 

 By Lucía Carrasco

Learning mission: The Special Weather Forecast.

Here you can take a look at the Canva I designed, in order to indicate the goals, competences, grouping and time.

mission2 de Lucía Carrasco

Getting a deeply understanding of the learning mission

I decided to create a draft of the activity in Google Drive , and then a presentation that I uploaded to Slide Share to explain the development of the mission. Since this course I worked on the analysis of an Open Educational Project - you can see the post clicking here - I was utterly inspired by the one I analysed. As a result, we created the following presentation akin to it with the steps to follow, so as to overcome the mission. Consequently, you are going to visualise the mission in the same way students will visualise it.

Learningmission2 de Carrasco510

How did we create the artefact?

We created a video, which is the final outcome of the mission. As we were in charge of India, our special weather forecast focusses on it.

First and foremost, we distributed the roles: Ana was the tourist expert, Carmen was the flora detective,  and I was the climate advocate. Secondly, we drafted the script for the special weather forecast in Google Drive. Thirdly, we decided where to shoot the video, the green chroma we were going to use, and the materials we had to bring to record the video. We decided to a add a tad of humour, that is why we decided to wear complements related to the Indian culture; therefore, we brought loud coloured scarfs, a colourful bandanna, and a bracelet. We also painted a bindi (dot) in our forehead. Finally, we rehearsed and recorded the video by scenes.

The next step was making the video, in so doing, we followed the coming steps:

• We chose the images we were going to use.
• We created the images concerning the weather predictions, by overlapping images. We used Gimp.  Nevertheless, you can find similar photo editors to work online, like Pixrl.
• We used IMovie to edit the video, but other tools can be used, the likes of: Sony Vegas and Touch Cast.
• We uploaded it to Youtube.

Sample of the final artefact

Self-reflection

I am on cloud nine with this second learning mission, as I am of the opinion that we came up with a mission that shows a further step, as far as the previous one is concerned - creating a comic about the weather - as they were designed to show a gradual evolution and development; therefore, the information students gathered when creating the comic was utilized to prepare the script for the video. Moreover, the elaboration of the comic allowed students to have a better understanding, as for the video creation, due to the fact that they had the scenes organized according to the cells of the comic. To my eye, although the editing of the video may be a tad demanding for them, with the help of the teacher, they will succeed without any problem. They will definitely have a whale of a time while recording the video, as we had.

The carry out of this learning mission was enjoying although we spent time mulling it over, so as to design the mission and create the sample of the artefact. The edition of the video was a bit demanding, since after recording, we had to insert the background images, where the chroma was.

As far as the badges are concerned, it was the first time I created digital badges and I have to say that I really enjoyed it, since you have a wide range of elements to choose from, and you can customize them. Moreover, I was very implicated with it; therefore, I am of the opinion that students will be absolutely eager to get them. Consequently, I will definitely incorporate them in my future classes.

As teachers, by promoting collaboration with this kind of activity, we are going to urge students to self-reflect more about their roles and responsabilities, since the rest of the members  will assess their work in some way, indicating ideas to improve, supporting their ideas, highlighting them, etc.

I will absolutely use cooperative learning in my future classes, as I have experienced it, and I have to say that it is really motivating and rewarding. Students will be keen on it, as they are going to be assigned roles in a random and different way, and they will have responsibilities, supporting each other. Besides that, their roles will be attractive, which will also help. Moreover, their learning will be far more meaningful. To my way of thinking, this kind of learning will be great for students with difficulties or with special educational needs, since by working in groups they will help each other, and the environment will be more relaxed. Moreover, the missions will absolutely draw their attention and they will be fully involved.

Concerning turning flat activities into super learning missions, it is not as difficult as you may think, if you search some Open Educational Projects on the net, you will have a better understanding of it. Furthermore, by following the steps I have explained, you will have the recipe to start designing your super learning mission, in a easier way.

See you later, collaborator !