Turning flat activities into super learning missions (part ll)

Hello everyone!!

I hope you have learnt how to create super learning missions with my last post and that you like my first super mission. As I told you, this post is to share with you the second activity that I have turned into a super learning mission.

The second activity "creating a presentation", as its name says, consisted in creating a presentation in PowerPoint with the information from the textbook. Now, this activity is a super learning mission called "becoming teachers!", in which students will use a new tool called Genial.ly for preparing a wonderful and interactive presentation for the rest of the class. With this activity, we are not going to work only on collaboration within the classroom but also oustide the classroom, which is very motivating ides for our students! To carry out this collaboration, outside the classroom, students will record a video of themselves, explaining briefly some tips that we can bear in mind in order to protect our environment and these endangered species.

After that, students will have to post in a new entrance of the blog their final artifacts: presentation and video. Taking into collaboration back to the classroom, finally they will have to reflect about the experience as well as considering the tips that other students have proposed.

Here you can see how I have developed, in a draft using Google docs the super learning mission "becoming teachers!". As in the first activity, you can find the goals I want to achieve, the contents that are going to be worked, the competences involved, the timing and tools that are going to be used and the final artifact, as well as the full description of the development of the learning mission.

Moreover, I have created a short magazine with all the points for you to see it clearly. For that I have used the tool Canva.

Learning mission 2 by Laura G

How have I linked this super learning mission to The 30 Goals Challenge?

As the first learning mission that you have seen, I have also related this mission with the blogging goal, which I think is a very important tool that students should work with. The reason why I have chosen the same goal for both is that children learn how to use this tool, with different posts: in one of them writing including images, then embedding a presentation and including a video, etc. The main goal is that students distinguish the internet and some tools, such as Blogger, Movie Maker using it for an educational purpose from using it for leisure activity. By this way, students will realize that internet is not only for playing but also to learn and share knowledge with others.

Here you can see an example that I have created for you to see what I expect from students, using the tools: Genial.ly, Blogger and Movie Maker.

Presentation in Genial.ly:

Movie Maker video.




Post in the class blog.

Self- reflection

This whole challenge has been the most difficult for me. It took me a lot of time to think of how turning the activity into a mission since every time I came up with new ideas. Finally, following the tips that I told you in the previous post of "How to create super learning missions", I decided the tools I wanted my students to use and the final artifact I wanted them to achieve. I always had in my mind The 30 Goals challenge "blogging", which is the one I wanted to include in my Open Education Project, and I thought that students could work on different mission but through a common tool: Blogger.

This experience have enriched my thoughts about the teaching and learning process. Now, I can affirm that these type of methodology can be carried out in a real classroom and thus, we can keep curiosity and motivation for learning in our students, which is a very greatful aspect.

Regarding the new tools I want to include in this mission, I think Movie Maker and genial.ly are not excesively difficult to be used by students from 5th grade. Besides, the artifacts that they have to reach are fun and they like doing such activities.

Finally, I would like to say that as collaboration is so important, I wanted to involve it in these super learning missions, for students to have a meaningful and active learning.

I hope these posts have been useful for your future classes and... Do not forget to try to turn your flat activities into super learning missions!!! See you soon with another wonderful post.