Are you ready to meet TIC?

We are Celia González, María Lainez, Cristina Risueño, Estrella García and Gonzalo Montón and we are students at the URJC university in the Master of Bilingual Education. We would like to share a couple of challenges for CLIL Primary students with you.

For this group task, we had to become both writers and film directors! We were requested to create a clip but, first of all, we had to plan what it would be about. Therefore we started to create a storyboard with our main ideas. As the topics we were working with for our CLIL e-project were about the Earth, we decided to create a character based on the universe. What could be better than an alien? Everybody wants to know about life from outer space! That’s how TIC was born, our main character. Can you guess why he is called TIC?

To create our storyboard we chose the web tool Storyboard That. Since the moment we started to use this tool, we were surprised at how amazing the pictures were: backgrounds, characters and different shapes, which allow you to create exactly what you want. What we liked best was the possibility of modifying the position of the main character, which makes the story more real.

However, while using the tool, we discovered that a standard account doesn’t allow you to create a board with more than six scenes. This is why we had to shorten the story. It was not a problem because the final clip will include the whole story. This storyboard is a guideline for the video challenge and it is meant to be a tale the teacher could tell their students at class.

Here you are our storyboard! Are you ready to meet TIC?

Made with Storyboard That

From the storyboard, we brought TIC to live! First, if you want to film a movie you need to write a script so we became writers! Our clip was divided into eleven scenes in which our alien would travel through the Solar System to discover the magic planet. TIC was dying to find it out!

Second, we started to film the scenes, but… We needed an actor! Gonzalo, @gonzaalo10, became TIC thanks to our make-up team!

Then, we were ready to record the video challenge. For this purpose we decided to use the chroma key technique. By using Camtasia and this technique, we could substitute the green background for a picture of our choice. Regarding Camtasia, it seems quite difficult to use at rhe very beginning. However, after practicing with it for a while we discovered all its possibilities. We downloaded the free version with a free trial for 30 days. Thanks to Camtasia, we have learned how to use chroma key and how to organize the video clips, the pictures and the audios in order to get the final video. The only problem we didn´t like about this tool was the fact that, because of the free version, a watermark appeared in our video and the quality of it decreased.

Despite this little problem, the result was fantastic! We created a video in which TIC travels through the Solar system and discovers the Earth and its layers. TIC also has doubts and makes questions during the video in order to encourage participation in our pupils. The teacher could stop the video whenever TIC makes one question to let the pupils answer him. This video can be used to introduce a topic, so the teacher can know about their prior knowledge, or to make a review at the end of the topic.



Hope you enjoy it!

Video challenge to learn about animals

Today, a group of students from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos studying a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education, have created a comic using Storyboard That and a video using Sony Vegas Pro to explain an activity that they have included in a collaborative e-project they are currently designing for their Master's Degree.

The authors are:

Guillermo Lagarejos @GLHmaster                    
Marina Goizueta @GoizuetaMarina
Teresa Martín @Teresa_md                            
Laura Pérez @LauritaPerz
María Collado @Maria_collado92
Sara Rodríguez @SaritaSar0



Made with Storyboard That

The aim of their video is to motivate learners to do an activity while and after their visit to Faunia. As their e-project is about animals, they decided that a school trip to Faunia could be a fun way to keep working on this topic while children learn more about it.

In the video they briefly explain how to carry out a research on the animals’ topic in which children will investigate, take notes and look for specific information about the characteristics of vertebrate animals. Then they would prepare a presentation using Genially to share their experience and learning to the rest of the class.

Before recording themselves, they have been thinking on the organization of the video, roles and what to say. To have a clear idea of what they wanted to do, they used StoryboardThat, an online tool in which you can create an storyboard, similar to a comic, to create a story or present an activity to children, for instance.

In this case they have used this tool to describe their video, which consists of explaining an activity to children about visiting Faunia. This tool has been very easy to use and it is great for students as it is engaging and attractive for them. It could be used in class to explain an activity or develop their imagination by creating stories.

The comic that they have created is divided into different frames:

-          Presentation of the activity

-          Explanation of what students have to do in Faunia

-          Tools that they are going to use in Faunia

-          Students in Faunia

-          Explanation of the activity after the trip

-          Final comments

Learning about the body & senses with ICT

Name of the Reporters: Raquel Diez, Celia Lancharro, Patricia Madrueño and Natalia Martínez
Name of school: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

We would like to introduce our CLIL e-project, which is called Learning about Body and senses with ICT. It is a collaborative e-project carried out by our team in the Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education at URJC. It is aimed to be introduced to 3rd graders of Primary Education.

We were asked to make a video showing our e-project by firstly making a planning of it. In order to create our video planning, we decided to use the StoryboardThat webtool, since it is a very visual but simple resource to make comics and it would help us have a clear idea about what to do in our e-project video.

Our e-project proposal is that children create a poster using Canva. In this sense, the steps in the CLIL challenge which students will have to follow are:

1. Make groups of 3 people in order to work cooperatively. 
2. Each group will have to search for information on the Internet about the body and senses. They will also have to select and collect this information in order to create the poster.
3. They will have to create a Canva account (one per group).
4. Using the information they’ve found on the Internet, they will make a poster including visual support as images or videos.
5. Finally, each group will share their creation on the social network (twitter, pinterest, facebook, the school blog…)

Here you have our final Storyboard:

Made with Storyboard That

And if you prefer, you can click on the following link to see it: https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/93_nat/the-senses

After creating our storyboard we could start recording our e-project video.  The storyboard helped us to have a guideline to follow.

In this video we show our CLIL e-project about the body and the senses. We wanted to create an original and engaging clip. For this reason, we have recorded it as if we were students in a classroom carrying the e-project out. We have used a smartphone to record our videoclip, and then, we chose Windows Movie Maker to create and edit the final video.

Have a look at our e-project video:

Here you can meet us and learn more about our team on:

Raquel Diez Alonso → Twitter: @raqueldial & e-Portfolio: learningbydoingwithict.blogspost.com.es
Celia Lancharro Román → Twitter: @celialancharro & e-Portfolio: http://ictandbilingualeducation.blogspot.com.es/
Patricia Madrueño Sierro → Twitter: @patimasie & e-Porfolio: patimasie.tumblr.com
Natalia Martínez Domínguez → Twitter: @NataliaMD93 & e-Portfolio: http://motivationintheclassroom.blogspot.com.es/

History Video Challenge for CLIL students

Today we are sharing a CLIL activity for Primary students, designed by a team of students at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

They are working right now in a collaborative e-project to teach History in a different way, and have created a video challenge.

As you know, when you want to record a video it is really essential to plan everything in advance. An easy way to do it is by storyboarding your video, which means planning every scene to have it ready for the recording moment. They have used StoryBoard That to create this amazing outline. As you can see, they have included the characters, the backgrounds (they will use a croma when recording to add them by video editing) and everything they were going to say.

StoryBoard That is easy to use and you can create 6 scenes for free where you can add characters, bakgrounds and edit them with a great variety of designs.


Made with Storyboard That

Having made this outline, they were ready to record their video. As you can see they planned to dress up as different people in different times in History, So there they went!

In the video they present a new challenge to their children: they will have to crceate their own comic about History!

They think that this is an amazing way of teaching History in a different way. Children will be more motivated and focused on their task since they will have to use a online web tool called Pixton, which allows people to create online comics for free.

And here is their amazing production:

European Geography

Today we are sharing the work of a group of Pre-Service Teachers at URJC who have let us know of their e-project based on video production.

They are Víctor, Inma, Ana, Lola, Natalia and Elena, students of the Master in Bilingual education in Primary School at Rey Juan Carlos University. This week they have been working in groups and they have done different activities in their ICT class.

This is the description of their own learning process, in first person, as Ana, their spokeswoman, has literally introduced it:

'First of all let me explain to you that all of us created a CLIL-e-project. Once we had it, we were allocated in different groups according to the topic. In this way, our group is about Geography.

Even though our topic was Geography we had really different themes within this topic so we thought about one common learning outcome and we all agreed that it could be “to learn about the physical and political features and some of the most distinguishing representations of the European countries”.  The  final activity of our project consists of presenting the candidature of one European country.  We would divide our students in pairs  and will assign them a European country to work on. Then, students would have to  investigate about it (about the weather, animals, mountain ranges, rivers…)  and finally create an Infographic, (you can see an example here: https://magic.piktochart.com/output/12668493-norway#.Vwd4fexYnM0.blogger)

So we created our story board using StoryboardThat to express the process that we will follow to explain this activity to our students.

We would like to recommend that you use this fantastic tool if you have the chance since it offers many possibilities. You can choose the length by choosing the number of vignettes. You can choose among a wide range of scenes (you can choose among the typical ones such as the school scenes but you can also choose castles, islands...), characters (you can even change their emotions and create angry and sad characters.) and text tables. Therefore, you can adapt your stories for any purpose. For instance, we could use it in our class to introduce one topic in a more visual and fun way.

However, we found out some things that from our humble opinion could be improved. For instance, we did not like the fact that the work you do is not automatically saved. Therefore, you have to be saving it all the time. Even though the page reminds you to save, it would be fantastic if it could be done automatically.

It would also be very nice if SoryboardThat could have an option to record voices, that would be awesome. Our students could practice their speaking skills, writing, computer skills and also their creativity when creating their comic!

Furthermore, students could create their own stories about any topic of the curriculum (for example we could ask them to create a story in which they had to include information about Egypt or any topic they are studying). In this way not only would they work one subjects but also they would put in practice and would improve their ICT skills!

Of course these kinds of tools are fantastic to communicate with children with special needs. Sometimes, they find it difficult to understand abstract languages and concepts, and this tool makes  the process of communication easier. We can also use this comic for the routines: think about first grade of Primary School, at the beginning they find it difficult to get used to the routines of Primary, we could help them to remember them all by creating comics around the class (For example, before going to the playground take your snack, make a line and keep in silence).


Here you are the link of our final comic: https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/elena_ictclil/the-olympic-games2



Made with Storyboard That

Once we created our Story Board we started working in our video.  Thanks to the Storyboard that we had created previously we did not have any problem with the video as we already knew what we were going to say. To make the video we used IMovie with the support of an Ipad. We would really like to recommend that you use this tool as well  if you have the opportunity because it is really easy and intuitive. You can do many things with it, for example adding music to your videos, images, cropping your videos. Definitely this tool was fantastic to accomplish  this challenge! As it is so easy to use you can even use it with your children in your class! Just imagine the results presenting their candidatures for the Olympic Games.... they would enjoy this activity as much as we did and they would be practising their speaking skills and learning new things without realising!'

You can see their video here:

Creating a map about our town: Aguilar de Campoo

Along the second term of this school year the students of Year 2 of Colegio San Gregorio in Aguilar de Campoo had to learn about the different places of the city (town hall, supermarket, library, main square). 

For that purpose we did to different task:

• First of all we created a big poster at the classroom in which each student had to go and take a real photo of the different parts of the town.

• Secondly, we prepare in pairs the script for a video in which the students explain the different places of the town with at least to sentences explaining it. Then we went out to record all the videos. Here are all the final products:

• Finally we created a Google Map, like if it was a touristic guide of our town: Aguilar de Campoo.  Here it is for you,  we hope you like it. 

We hope you enjoyed it, we did it!!