LAST TASK: ANALYST

Hello bloggers, I am Alicia de Prado.

I can’t believe this has been our last task.

I can’t either believe how much we have improved since the first once. It is a coincidence that I have been the analyst of the first task, and also being it in this last one.

That first one, “TPACK”, I reflected about how we were like a basketball time. The mistakes we did, the insecurities, the fear. We have been evolving like this basketball team, where the cooperation and the sense of team work were the only ways to succed.

This task has been the task in which we were having our expectations on how a great task should be. We were all very efficient, we finally got to know how we could be friends of who had been our worst enemy: the time. We have learnt to argue less, and we have learnt to make decisions which everyone of us like. Of course, there is always going to be that kind of “Shut up!” or “Fulanita, stop using the pone” or “How I wish we had more individual work”. Despite of that, we have loved to work together, in our best and worst moments.

We have seen that with constancy and effort, every goal is reached. We have learnt a lot of things, things I hope we will be able to express in the final exam.

We have also strengthen our friendship ties, we know that with all the work we have done together, we are going to be very good friends. It’s what one of us always says “We are all so different, but at the same time we know how to connect to each other and do a good job”. We have been through rough moments, but for sure we have lived so many good ones.

As I always like to say, this is only the start, the long road of learning never ends. We can  achieve small goals, but we have to look forward and look for new ones, that will make us feel  completed and happy.  As Jack Kerouac said in his novel “On the Road”: “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road”. 

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ANALYST WEEK 10

Hi bloggers, I'm Elena González and this week I've been the Chalkies' analyst.

In this tenth week we have come bak to reallity since we have worked as we used to do. Linda explained the task and each group had to do an exposition in front of the class.

This week we (specially our star) had to creat a kind of candidature for being the director of a school. For doing something like that we had to read a document where 4 types of leadership were described. I guess we had to do that because it can be useful for our future to know which kind of leadership can be more beneficial for one moment and also because we can use this styles when we are the facilitators of the group.

On the one hand, the worst part of this activity was agreeing which kind of leadership we wanted, but finally we concluded that Alicia was going to pe a participative leader. On the other hand, the best part of the task was creating the Fakebook acount and the pamphlets and also the day of the "elections". It was really funny to see how the other groups defended their candidate and tried to buy our votes with candies.

We have learned that with this style the workplace has a family atmosphere and that it helps all the members of the group to contribute in the outcomes with the support from the upper management.

In the few weeks that remain, we have to conserve the organization, since this week we have done everyting on time; and the spirit that we have as a team.

I think that we have improved a lot since we started this subject and I'm very proud of this group.

See you next week bloggers!

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ANALYST WEEK 9

Hii! I am Marina De Vicente and this week I am Analyst.

The task of this week was very similar to the task of  last week, the only difference is that we have changed the roles, those who were writers are now actors and backwards.

As you know, last week we worked all the class together, I should say that work together is difficult because you have to put in common many ideas or personal opinions. From my point of view is not the same work with a group of 5 or 6 people than a group of 50 like this week, since as more people more difficult to carry out the task.

This is our 9th task and at this moment for all of us work together was something typical but I think that it is not the same to work with my group, where I know how each of the members works ,than working with all my class. However I like the experience, I am very happy with the result of the task, doing the task I  have had fun and I feel better with all my classmates, sometimes in class I stay all the time with the same people and I dont be interested in met or know different students, so this task give me one of the best opportunities that is know my different clasmates.

Everyday that passes I am more aware about everything that we are learning, because we learn not only contents in a different way but also new methodologies (TPACK), new tools for our future classes ( Web 2.0 tools) and working in group, that is what we have to do in a future, because as future teacher we are not going to be alone, we are going to have the help many other future teachers, our future classmates,

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ANALYST WEEK 8

Hi guys!! I am Isabel Ramírez de Arellano Sevilla and I am the analyst of this week.

Such an interesting week... It has been the first time that we have worked the entire class, together for the same goal: having a twenty minute video for next Monday. I imagine that it hasn't been easy to coordinate around sixty people, because we are a lot and everyone of us have a different opinion, belief, way of seeing things... But, besides everything we have worked successfully, we have been coordinated and we have done a great video.

You will be thinking... and what have we learnt from this different week? We have learnt to work in big groups, cooperation. We will have to work with too many people as future teachers, work hand in hand with other professionals, with other teachers, with the students, with the families; and that is not an easy thing but we are learning to do it.

We have to recognize that at the beginning of the this task, everything was a mess, too many people to coordinate and to have a roll. Even us, we didn't know how we were going to be organized because it was a new challenge. However, the challenges exist for being accepted and being done successfully.

Everyday that passes I am more aware about everything that we are learning, because we learn not only contents in a different way but also new methodologies (TPACK), new tools for our future classes ( Web 2.0 tools) and working in group, that in the end, as I have said before it will be our future job. It is in our hands to change the schools, although we know it is a difficult context because of the structures, values that are already imposed but it's not impossible. Changes are accepted if they are for a good reason and for a good purpose, the key is to find that reason and that purpose to change.

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ANALYST WEEK 7

Hello guys! I am Soledad Soriano and I am the analyst of this week.

I find really difficult to analize all that we have learnt this days. In this task we have dealt with the complexity of the school, that is our future reality.

First of all, I would  like to highlight that there are some connections and relatonships in teaching and learning in the school level. We have learnt that teachers and students learn from each other and teachers  are the greatest influence on students achievement. Therefore,this topic has made us to reflect about the responsibility we will have as teachers. We have to see our children as humans with mistakes and strenghts .

Secondly, we learn that there is a certain connection  between peers which affects learning. Children can make a lot of frienships but nowadays bullying  is increasing in schools with the introduction of the new  technologies. For this reason, we have discovered and thought about the important role that teachers have in order to impede this kind of situations between peers.                             

On the other hand, with this activity we were aware of the importance of the  context . In the T-pack we learnt that the context is really important and influence the three elements by which it was composed (pedagogy, technology and  content). We have realized that teachers can not control all because depending on the context children and teachers will adapt to innovations in different ways . Therefore, once more  we have seen the connection  between learning and context.

This is related with the term “agency”.                  Agency means that students are persons, so depending on the day ,they will face to innovations or situations in differents ways. With regard to this topic, I would say that when I started the Primary Education degree I was not aware of the complexity of being a teacher. There are a lot of factors that influence your students and a lot of connections in the school , so there are many thing to take into account…. It will be  very hard!               

Apart of that,nowadays  the complexity in schools is bigger tan in the past . Probably, you are asking yourselves the reason but I will try to explain you… the introduction of technology influence the emergent knowledge. What´s more, there are  some controversies with this introduction due to the deterministic order ( the traditional way of teaching and learning) .

So, guys! We have to deal with a difficult era in which innovations are changing the last model of teaching and learning. It is not a easy task but Chalkies… come on FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS…NOBODY SAID IT WAS EASY!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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ANALYST WEEK 6

Hello everyone! I am Isabel Ramírez de Arellano Sevilla and I am the analyst of this week. Let's see how it was!

Monday faces were the ones that we had on the first day of this week. We were looking forward to knowing the task that we had to develop for Wednesday. ''Summarizing the last weeks'' was the name and what we had to do, but, how can we summarize five weeks of work, feelings, knowledge...? It was a hard task but we always get our highest level in making it.

Chalkies are always running out of time, we are like a football match. We are the loser team until last minute, we lose our patience, we want to give up... But suddenly, it is like if we knew how to survive and how to win the match, suddenly we get the key but we are running out of time. It is in that moment, when we really work as no one could work. We cooperate, we help each other, we run with the ball in our legs and we score the goal and after that, we win, we win another match in the last minute. I have said that we win the match because on Wednesday 11.30, everything is done for being presented by our amazing star. Probably, we have an special way for making things in the last minute and making it right, probably it is not the best way but sometimes it works. We work together. We just need to improve little things like winning before the match sometimes so that we don't lose our minds.


We are the best players of this game because every week that happen, we learn, we learn how to improve, how not to make the same mistakes, how not to kill us when we work. However, there is still a long long road to walk, as our video of this week said. A good teacher is always learning and this week we have learnt how not to give up never and how change things from bad to excellent.

Great job my Chalkies! I am completely proud of us!

Together we are invincible!

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ANALYST WEEK 5

Analyst

Hii!! I am Marina De Vicente Sánchez and this week I am the analyst.

Since it is our fifth work, we felt more secure. We know a bit more about each role, so we work more confortable than other weeks.

 I think that it has been the best task that we have done apart from the one about Map Projections, since we have worked with great pleasure, we have found a lot of information and it was essay to work creatively.

The task of this week has been very interesting, because, as future teachers, in our lessons we have to use textbooks and this task has given us the opportunity to see the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

For many years ago the textbook was the most important thing next to the teacher in a class, the book has always stayed with us, Who haven't got textbooks in the desk? .

However, nowadays, thanks to the Internet, the teacher can use other kind of resources and, of course, we can enjoy

 So as future teacher we  are going to try to used other tools such as: searching online, making games, debating and being able to learn in a less monotonous and in a more creative way.

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ANALYST WEEK 2

ANALYST

Second week, second task but the same nervous and scary faces as in the first one. The best moment of the week came when we received the news that this week not only 1 but 2 members of the group were going to be the stars. We guessed that it happened in order to give us a bit more of confidence due to the fact that it is not the same to be by your own in front of the class than being with someone else.

When we met on Tuesday afternoon we discovered the best part of the activity: when we chose the two countries and compared them in the different map projections (Robinson, Mercator, and Azimuthal) we discovered how their size and localization changed according to their author. The worst part came when we had to make some decisions or make the power point due to the fact that we had different opinions and some of us were very stubborn, but we finally came into an agreement. 

All of us have learnt that the topic related to map projections is related with one of the elements that compose TPACK, which is the Content Knowledge. This term explains that knowledge has a cost: if teachers do not have a base of the content, that is what they are teaching, children can misinterpret that content. For example, teachers should advice children that every map distorts reality depending on the author’s wishes and the powerful people.
Talking about us as a group, on the one hand we need to conserve the good environment that we have and the dynamic, but on the other hand we should improve our creativity and do things quicker. 

This content, especially the Treasure Hunt is related to our degree since it is an activity used in schools to teach concepts. Students have to answer some questions with a given information and when they finish they have to answer a big question; so we will probably use it more than once.
We think that there are some evident social connections of this content with media, as some people say: “Nothing is as it seems”. Our stars gave a very clear example of it by showing a photograph that was published on a newspaper and comparing it with the real one. We could see that the one on the newspaper was photoshopped. 

When they finished we gave them a great applause because they did it perfectly.

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ANALYST WEEK 1

ANALYST (WEEK 1): 

At the begining of this work, our feelings were everything but calm. There were only questions in our minds, we didn't know how to play our roles but we did know that we wanted to do them good. That moment took me back to the first time I played basketball in a team. We all wanted to do our best; we knew the rules, but we didn't even know how to catch the ball or how to score the basket. We all knew that we had to cooperate and work hand by hand if we wanted to success. So we were like this team. After finally solving some problems and questions, we divided the work so that we could later explain to each other what we had done. Our first frutruation was that we found quite difficult to understand the text of TPACK, it was like a mathematic task. We understood the conexions but we couldn't understand well what they meant. That morning our faces and energy were similar as the reaction that some people may had experienced when they read that famous sentence of Nietzsche "God is dead". Nevertheless, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, isn't it? Tuesday 17.30h. Cold, so cold that our hands were as cold as snow. Some of us arrived later to the meeting due to traffic, and they were feeling a bit anxious for their mates who were waiting. When they arrived, they saw the pissed look in their friends' eyes, but at the same time that complicity that friends have. Work started! Hard, hard work. We spent hours and hours doing the task. So this was the time when the basketball team starts feeling confidence and has a shared aim in playing a succesful match. We helpt each other, we hesitate together and... we argued. This was the best as well as the worst part of the activity. We argued because some of us wanted to put some words of the poster in one way and the others in another way. This was that typical time when you don't know if you want to cry or laugh. After some indeterminate time, we finally agreed and we were happy with the decision. I learnt from this that one has to try to look deeper and consider another point of view, because sometimes you don't know that in fact, you are going to like it!.The work was finally finished and we were relieved.Next morning, terror moment time arrived! Mostly for our dear Star. I know she was scared but I could also see that she was feeling excited. We all trusted her and gave her our best luck, and she did it great. When the show ended, we all hug each other, and that moment was defenitely the best part. Although we were wrong in some aspects of our job, it was good to know and feel that every of us supported each other. Once again, this was like that match you have played that you know that it could have been done better but yet so you feel that you'll learn from that to do it better next time. That was it, first work done, ready and more prepare for the next. It was like if we could hear the spectators and cheerleaders saying: "Go Chalkies, go!!".

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ANALYST WEEK 4

Hello, I am Alicia again, this week I've been the analyst and I think that it is a hard role because I have to analyze and observe every moment and every member of my group.

Well, it has been a different week...different but not less important. As you know last Wednesday the presentations were really disappointing but Linda gave us another opportunity in order to demonstrate what we worth. This time our stars did it excellent as teachers, and also the other stars improved a lot. Personally I think that we needed the teacher's words in order to understand why we were doing bad the task.
Firstly we felt afraid because we think that it would be like a big challenge to face the same task again, but as I have said before, it was necessary. In this way we were able to understand the difference between a normal presentation and a presentation for children, such as those that we will do as future teachers. In my opinion the best moment of the week was/were the minutes after the Monday presentation, when Linda said to us that we had done a good job. We felt really satisfied and we finally realized that every effort has its rewards. We were sure that for the next weeks we will conserve this positive attitude.
After all, something happened... we have a different work to do and we didn't know what it was about!! It would be a different work of course because this week we had to repeat the same task as the last week so...what were going to happen????

On Wednesday morning we arrived at class and sat down as always, this was probably one of the worst moments of the week because we were nervous and intrigued since we didn't know what we were going to do. Suddenly Linda divided us into different groups: analysts with analysts, journalists with journalists, facilitators with facilitators... And she explained to us that the purpose of this division was to do a tutorial on how to be the best in every role.
As analyst I have to say that I learned a lot from this task, we learned that in just two hours had been able to make a video that could serve as an example to our mates in the following weeks.

Here's the video, if you want to learn to be a good analyst, you only have to click!

I have to leave, see you next week! As you know new week, new roles and new experiences, we are expectant!!

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ANALYST WEEK 3

 Hello guys! I am Marina García. This week I have been the analyst. How much pressure! Pay attention, this week we have been in troubles…

The weeks are passing, and tasks are turning into difficult ones. We are not  already beginners. Despite of working hard for this task, we didn’t show our  experience on #SOyER’s tasks. 

What have happened to Chalkies? Our previous presentations were not as bad as this one. I think that the problem was the misunderstanding of the purpose of this task.  Neither, facilitator or other members understand well the task. This is why we failed. First of all, our slides were not intended for children; as consequence, the stars’ speech neither was. In addition we didn’t add the CC Licenses to the pictures we used in our presentation. I consider that they are big mistakes; therefore our organization was not so well. What does it means? It means that at the time of being working, we can’t have doubts; we should solve all of them before start working and have everything clear. I hope it won’t happen again. 

I consider that these are not mistakes. In my view, they are opportunities; opportunities to think and learn. Failing, at least once, is a must to improve and to realise that we cannot always success. In addition, the teacher is giving us another chance to show how brilliant we are, how much we can improve and, of course, why we want to be teachers. 

This time is different, from Thursday evening we are reorganizing ideas, working hard, and preparing a better presentation. This time we are ready to do it better, even perfect. This time we have learnt. When I say “we have learnt” I don’t mean about CC License or slides presentation (that of course we have). I am meaning that we have learnt to realise our own mistakes, our best points and we have also learnt to accept and improve. For me it is the most important duty.

Furthermore we have learnt other things of this task that will be really useful in our future as teachers: 

- How to do a legal slide presentation with CC License.

- What is a Creative Commons License and how many types there are.

-How to use SlideShare.

-How to transmit knowledge to children.

I can’t leave without telling you that this one has been my favourite task until now. I think that this one has been the most useful one according to our degree. In fact, I could say that it is the first time we try to  (or imagine) do something related with children. I have really enjoyed writing the speech of the stars with all my mates and trying to help the stars with their body language.

Looking forward the second chance in order to demonstrate who Chalkies are!

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