Creating educational mind maps

Hello visitors!

My next mission will take place in Japan, for that reason I need to gather as much information as possible to go unnoticed during my stay in the land of the rising sun.

My teacher friend is preparing a project on Japanese culture with his students and he wants to present it using a mind map.

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

There are different online tools, like Coggle, Mindmeister, Mind42, SpiderScribe or Bubbl.us, but he has chosen Creately. Here is his experience with this tool.

'Creately is fairly intuitive, it offers a wide range of diagrams, not only mind maps (over 40 types with specialized shape sets...even family trees!!). Depending on the diagram you want to use you'll find libraries with more or less variety of objects and shapes ready to use (unfortunately the mind map library is not very extensive, but there are other libraries that are good enough to remedy the situation). It's a good tool to organise ideas, concepts or even to summarize a didactic unit.

You can use either an existing template or create your own. I've chosen creating a new one, adding the objects from the different libraries like shapes and arrows. I had experienced some problems scrolling up and down the objects in the library, it was difficult to view all the objects when loading all the available libraries, so I recommend a quick browse before starting the mind map. 

To create a visually appealing mind map it is also advisable adding your own pictures or background images according to the topic or creating links to expand the information. Creately even provides linking to another mind maps which I have tested out.

In short, Creately is useful to present a project in just one look, it's visually attractive and can help to engage your students in the project. Students perhaps find it tricky to use, it is recommended to show them how it works so they can create their own mind maps.'
 
Good luck with your students! Here's the link to the mind map.

Comics to deal with emotions

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

Hello visitors!

Secret agents are used to deal with crime and death, but teachers need to know how to react in the classroom when a student loses someone dear. Depending on the situation and child's personality, he or she will prefers to remain in silence or perhaps the need of expressing feelings will make the conversation comes up. Teachers need to have a lot of tact to handle such delicate matter and be very supportive.

In this case or in any other situation which involves helping children to deal with emotions is important to use tools they are familiar with. Comics can be useful to show real situations, and reading similar experiences can help children to deal with their own emotions.

Having said this, I want to show you an online tool to create your own stories through comics. It's called Storyboard That, so let me explain its features.

First, you start creating a storyboard, where you can choose how many cells is going to have your creation. Then, add the scenes and characters the software includes, or you can add your own.

I was really surprised by the amount of different characters offered, which can be edited (body features, position, mood as well as preset modes) and make the creation experience truly rewarding. I have enjoyed the process of editing the scenes in order to adapt them to my needs, creating zooms or cropping characters.

Once all the scenes are created, add the text by clicking the "Textables" tab and use different speech bubbles to complete your comic.

Finally, Storyboard That offers different export options (PDF, png, zip or pptx). You can print your outcome as well. In order to embed, you will need to make your storyboard public. It also offers managing your students and assignments, so it's a great tool to work in class. If you are worried about students' privacy, by default all storyboards are created under a private educational account.

The only problem is that you are allowed to use the software on a free trial for only 14 days, after this period expires you need to pay to access all the features. Anyway, I think it would be a great idea to use it with your students in class.

For more info you can see an overview here.


Enjoy it! Click here to view the comic on the Storyboard That website. It features a student who loses his grandmother and needs support to understand his loss. It is important to send a positive message and reflection on this issue.


Made with Storyboard That

Creating Support Slideshows

Hello visitors!

Today I want to share with you a story. As a secret agent I have been witness to the most creepy cases, so I decided to write my own scary story. 

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

My teacher friend has asked me for permission to show you, and he added some tips for his students to create their own stories in class. He realized that using a slideshow to introduce this writing activity is going to catch his students' attention and add some motivation to develop their imagination and creativity. 

He told me he decided to use Genial.ly, which is a great online presentation tool. He had enjoyed creating the slideshow using a template (but you can create your own), adding the pictures of my story and adding some effects to make it visually attractive. Nevertheless, he found some difficulties while adding the background music. Genial.ly allows you to embed audio tracks from other websites like Spotify or Soundcloud, but you can't use one single track for the whole presentation as you watch the slides. Luckily he managed to record his own music, upload the different tracks to Soundcloud and then embed them in the slides.


I can't wait to watch it!!  Enjoy the story!

Content Curation Tools

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

Hello visitors!

My mission today is related with content curation tools. As you already know, searching on the net can return thousands of results. There are several sources, search engines that may be useful, but it is necessary to filter and select what is really important to you, and moreover, curate it.

Once you find what you need and want to keep it for later use, you need some tool that stores your digital resources and which you can access by just one click. For this task, you have different tools that you can check here.









For years, as a secret agent, I've been using SYMBALOO.
But there's no use in showing you my secret webmix (you know, FBI, CIA, MI6 or MOSAD secret reports are not of your concern) but I've created one Symbaloo webmix that might be useful for the CLIL teachers. Oh, I'm sorry!! I forgot to explain what a webmix is.

A webmix is a Symbaloo board made by tiles each of them containing a link to your favourite tools, websites or resources. It's very useful to have all of them in just one look, allowing you to compile your favourite sites into one visual interface. Try it and share your results!!


Here's my CLIL webmix. You can find resources, activities, theories and useful tools for your CLIL lessons.

See you in my next mission!

Image attribution for a CLIL lesson

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

Hello visitors!

As my first mission I've been told to uncover the image attribution for a CLIL lesson and I'm going to show you a practical use of images, too. If you are wondering how can you use images that are not your own, I will show you right now.

It's important that every time we use images or photographs we need to cite and attribute the source of the image. As you can see in the photographs that appear in this entry, I have included the name of the owner and the licence they are under. So this is the way to use others' images in your posts!!

These photographs can be used in a Social Science CLIL lesson and I have chosen them to introduce the different means of transport.
Students need to have the visual support to recognise the different types of transport and talk about their own experiences.
It creates the link between what they are going to learn and their own reality and could also be linked with Road Safety Education.

Photograph by hpgruesen. Licence CC0 Creative Commons

Photograph by Emslichter. Licence CC0 Creative Commons

They will be asked about the different means of transport they know and discuss about how to behave in public transport. Using a whiteboard, the different photographs are displayed as they name them, and adding extra if they are not mentioned. It's important to set questions to promote oral interaction, such as the following:

- What means of transport do you know?
- How often do you use public transport?
- Where did you go on your last holiday? What means of transport did you use?
- Do you know what can you do when you're using public transport? And what can't you do?

Another uses are:

• The images can be used to create an image bank (flashcards) the children can access to play memory games, matching images and words.

• As we are going to classificate transports into air, land or water, the photographs are included in a chart as a visual support to complete statements on every means of transport. E.g. "The bus is a type of ___________(land) transport."

• A whiteboard activity where children match the photograph with the sound of every means of transport is another use of images in the unit.

Well my dear visitors, I hope you understand better with this example how to proceed with images that are not your own.

Don't forget to buy your return ticket to the blog!!  I'll be back soon...

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

Simon Secret Agent (avatar)

Hello! I would like to introduce my avatar... Have a look! His name is Simon.


https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/et8yPOtxiIk/?mode=movie#/

Image by Alex Molina. CC0 Creative Commons

I've made it using POWTOON, an online video presentation maker. It is useful because it offers different pictures and templates for you to use or modify.

Pros: Not very difficult to use. It offers lots of features and allows presentations to be shared. You can use a previous presentation and modify it.

Cons: Several options and features not available in the free version. You have to pay to export in video format. Each slide is limited to 20 seconds. Presentations cannot be saved automatically.
You can't record the audio while the presentation is playing to fit the text.


The avatar was created using BITMOJI. It's a free app (also pc version) to create your own personal cartoon avatar. The first step is adding body features and outfits. Once the avatar is finished, the app automatically creates different bitstrips, some of them hilarious, in which your avatar is the main character,
Unfortunately, you can't add  voice or sounds, but you can use your avatar to communicate on Gmail, Whatsapp, Messenger, as well as easily share it on your social media platforms.