An activity with Pixton

In this activity I have taken advantage of the previous work we had been doing in the unit dealing with the world of cinema. So, they had previously acted out a diologue where they expressed their likes about one specific film or TV series (most of them are hooked to Netflix these days),  using the Past Simple and Continuous , adjectives to depict their feelings abot the film, etc.

The previous step before doing the Pixton activity was a written task that they did where they had to hand in a film or series review following an outline:

Paragraph 1

Title

Type of film

Director

Main charachters

Paragraph 2

Plot Summary –when/ where the action takes place (setting)

                              -relevant charaters and what happened to them

                              -what happened next

                              -Finally

Paragraph 3

Personal opinión and why you recommend the film

After handing in the written task I told them to produce a comic using Pixton based on the reviews they had previously produced. The learning objectives were:

-to use an online tool to produce a comic related to a film or TV series.

-to be able to agree on which film to work and how to select relevant information

-to foster group work and relevant discussion

-to use English in a communicative way

Groups of 3 students were formed and, in this case, I let them manage to form them. Then, they had to decide which film they were going to work on (peace of cake for them). After that, since they had previously watched the Pixton tutorial, they started signing in Pixton and work on their comics. We  found out that the tablets we can use in our school didn’t allow us to work with Pixton directly from their webpage ,instead they had to download the Pixton app so they could start working.

As for creativity, the sky is the limit for most of them. Although they had a previuos script so as tos ay, they had to adapt what they had verbalised into a new and completely format: the comic format. They found it very amusing the way they could make their characters change and the different possibilities that the app provided them. On the other hand, (and it doesn’t have anything to do with the activity itself), they had to fight against some technical difficulties since the possibility to access their emails is banned at school. However, they overcome the difficulty differently. Some used the school’s email, while others surfed the concealed mode in Google so they could get Access to their personal email accounts.

Finally we have shared all the comics in the class and they have given their comments about their mates’ Works. They are very happy to have worked on this task, where their imagination and ability to use the tool for the first time have really impressed me. In this respect, one of my students, who is very fond of audiovisual tools, prepared on his own a video trailer based on the comic he and his mates in the group had produced.

Here's the link to the video trailer.

Here you can find some examples of the Pixton comics that my students have produced.

https://Pixton.com/es/:10iwtap5

https://Pixton.com/es/:g0rqsy82

https://Pixton.com/es/:wpdj0oup

Edpuzzle Activity

For this activity I have used the following introductory material plus the poster sample and some question samples for the interview:  link

Next these are the 2 videos used in the activity:

Video 1

Video 2

These  are 2 examples of the posters created in the class by my students:

poster 1

poster 2

Description of the task:

I chose the 2 videos from the That’s English platform because I already knew them and I thought they were a perfect starting point for my communication activity dealing with volunteering. They are adequate for the level of my 4^th of ESO class  and they could follow thm easily thanks to the questions introduced in the editing.

As regards the learning objectives, I wanted my students to delve into the concepts of charities and volunteering trying to raise a social conscience in the group by means of knowing and debating about realities, different from theirs but inevitably linked to our environment. To do so I introduced some brainstorming questions to bring in  the topics mentioned before (I have learned that some of my students had experience as volunteers since some had participated in altruistic activities such as helping with the Food Bank at the supermarket or performing in a local choir to raise funds for ANDEX). Then they linked photos to different ways in which people can help others, and third, they watched the video individually with the schools netbooks, answering the questions and checking them in pairs.

After that, we divided the class into groups of 4 and asked them to produce a digital poster related to an area of volunteering they identified themselves with. In this part there was negotiation among the members of the groups so as what to make the poster about. Moreover, they had to select the relevant information and download the pictures from the net; (this was a task that they performed surprisingly fast).

The last step was to advertise the posters to the rest of the class so that all the groups learned about the different options they had and then they prepared a series of questions to interview other classmates and see how they could help in their charity or event. Two members of each group were interviewed by other two from a different group so that they had the chance to speak to students different from those of their group.

To conclude, I’d like to point out that it has been such a fun activity for them for various reasons. They have used English effectively, they have also worked cooperatively to negotiate the posters and the questions for the interview and most importantly, they have shared their own feelings and experiences with the rest of the group. In most of the time of the three sessions dedicated to this task, it has been the students who have held the floor, showing a great  deal of autonomy to tackle the tasks proposed. In my particular case, I have really appreciated the fact that they are a very receptive and warm group, really committed to social issues and perfectly aware of some of the problems inherent to our present day society.

A Timeline using Timetoast

Timeline with Timetoast

1.Learning Objectives:

·        Group work cooperation

·        Use of technologies

·        Select relevant information

·        Produce a Timeline related to the cinema/series world

·        Use English to communicate

2.I have found Timetoast a very useful, entertaining and easy-to-handle tool. My students of 2º of ESO found it useful too and extremely easy for them to manage.

To set up the ctivity I took advantage of the unit we are working on which deals with the world of cinema. Previous to this activity we had alredy introduced types of films and series and they had roleplayed a conversation where they talked about their favourite  series or films. So when the time of the Timeline came up, it was relatively easy to follow this activity up. I showed them one tutorial (“peace of cake” in their own words) and I they formed teams of 3 students to look for information about 5 different entries related to the world of cinema. They had to point out the dates, include a picture and highlight some relevant information.

There have been no serious problems but for a couple of groups which found some problems by the time of signing up. However, they solved them out cooperatively. As for their reaction to the activity, they are usually motivated when netbooks are introduced in the class and more particularly if the activiy is related to a fun world such as the cinema.

The main problem that I see to the tool is the feedback. Next time I will have their texts assessed before getting written in the Timeline. Sometimes my eyes ache when I see their productions (Lol).

Finally, Timetoast has helped my students to negotiate the content of the production, select relevant information in the net,  using English to communicate.

As an example of my students' work I leave a couple of links.

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/1973714

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/1973702