1. VTS (GROUP)

1. Visual Thinking Strategies

The Visual Thinking Strategic (VTS) it's a strategy that is used to analyze all kind of pictures, in order to get a better knowledge about what you are seeing. This method uses three types of questions which help you to understand better the picture. The aim of this “VTS” is to develop in the process skills such as critical thinking, visual literacy, communication, and if we are doing this strategy with people you can also develop collaboration skills.

 These questions are:

1)What's going on in this picture?

2)What's makes you said that?

3)What more can you say?

The picture we are going to use:

One example of the using of the Visual Thinking Strategic (VTS):

David Urigüen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15GwymD7vU1NXo8WX3oq044tuIUxvMDS3/view?usp=sharing

Leticia Torrecilla: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RZDc1kQ2qHTVIzk2sEoh8Sp5hTU-UXjx/view?usp=sharing

Samuel Oliva: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ffuze7pbpL8-ZlcQsfh2uWcF4LLSly4n/view?usp=sharing

BOOK REVIEW (LETICIA)

LA TRENZA, BY LAETITIA COLOMBANI 

Today I am going to talk about one of my last readings. It was not a book chosen by me but rather it was a gift and a recommendation. The good reviews that they contributed about this reading and the social purpose that it transmitted invites you to read it. 

The story is called, by Laetitia Colombani, a French actress, film director and writer. In the book we find three women so different and distant that their worlds are not destined to intersect or to be related.

An untouchable, a Dalit from India, the lowest of the low, condemned to spend the day collecting shit from others with her bare hands, literally. A young Sicilian at the head of the family business, about to collapse because customs change and now, the Sicilians no longer kept her hair, their most necessary goods for the company. A prestigious Canadian lawyer, partner of a prestigious law firm who, being a woman, is finding it very expensive to support. As well as her family life, a title, a degree, her place in the world. However they cross, not her stories, but her paths. At one point on the road, something unites them and from that moment on, without you really knowing how, the roads open and the possibility of liberation from the future presents itself with promising prospects. 

This story, which counts three, has been exciting from start to finish. It guarantees both good and bad emotions, you empathize, you cry, you imagine the characters and you identify with them, you wish for all the good that can happen to them and you curse the unfortunate events that happen to them. Life is not all what it seems. We all have our own struggles, but there are struggles that reveal bigger problems that affect the whole of society. 

No one should give his life so that others are better. Much less no one should underestimate the lives of others by the fact of the conditions in which they live, skin color, economic level or ability to face problems. Sometimes even though we have responsibilities and we believe that we have to have everything under control, we must stop. It is not necessary to specify the time, just the one we need. We have to value ourselves, stop and see who values ​​us. Realize everything we have, take advantage of it and transform or forget everything that we do not need or do us good. In this reading you do not stop learning and valuing, it is a great recommendation for everyone, and a gift to make. 

Another aspect that I woud like to hightlight is how she use the braid methapor. A braid is three locks of hair, which intertwine but never change their way, they only come together and separate. Like these three women, full of life who cannot live it, but who do not stop fighting until the end for themselves and for others. My last thought after this reading is that life must enjoyed. And we must do the best way to the others.

NEW ERA, NEW SUBJECT

DO WE NEED A NEW SUBJECT?

Nowadays social media has a very important power on society. Nobody can imagine a day without consulting the news that the applications provide, uploading a photo or consulting the ones that others have uploaded. Also, social media has become very popular among young people. Every boy and girl of every age, even the smallest one, have in their hands any type of gadget or technologic device which is connected to the Internet. Although, at the first sight, we don't have any kind of direct teaching through all the subjects in Primary School, which help them do a good and also a proper use of social media. 

As teachers, we must not power down our students, they are digital natives, and the new generation of teachers must consider this social media as a new type of resource, which we can develop our students skills. 

Social Media has a lot of different uses, but some of them are connecting our students with their closest and farthest world, and also helping them to develop their language skills. For example, apps like blogger or twitter allow students to improve their writing skills, also videos from YouTube or other kind of sources can help to improve students motivation and listening skills.

For this reason, and since it is so present, we wonder if they really should teach a subject on social media in schools. Being born into an era of technology does not imply that everyone knows how to use it, much less correctly.

Thus, we are going to propose a series of advantages and disadvantages from different points of view so that each one can draw their conclusions and reflect on the usefulness of this new subject that is proposed to be introduced in the official primary education curriculum.

ADVANTAGES

On the one hand we find the advantages. We are going to list a few and develop them. In the first place, the consequence that finds the greatest weight speaks of preventing all the dangers that social media provides.

Social Media Subject will be necessary, because all children have in their hand a gadget with internet connection, and for sure, they know how to use it, But do they know how to use it safely? Maybe, a subject that teaches students how to use this social media world correctly will be necessary, showing them all the good and bad facts.

This advantage seems very important to us since in relation to our previous cyberbullying post it can be prevented or reduced.We know that the internet has several dangers and sometimes not knowing them causes us to commit them. For this reason, in this subject we would try to avoid them through knowledge.

DISADVANTAGES

On the other hand, we find the disadvantages. A new subject in a curriculum that has been without a great modification for a long time would imply a great change that would modify the entire curriculum.

We know the ITC subject, and we consider that the concepts covered in it would be similar to the one we propose. Also, not only in this subject but in any of them, social media is used as a resource. For example, when they search for a video, everyone uses the youtube application, even the students. in this way they learn knowledge in other subjects and with a purpose.

Otherwise, there is another problem with introducing this new Social Media subject, because the hours of teaching are limited, and if we introduce this subject we will need to modify all the curriculum changing work times affecting other subjects.

BULLYING

Sticks & Stones: a victim of bullying

 

Today, I want to talk about all those bad behaviours that our students have during their class year. But apart from those bad behaviours, such as talking while the teacher is speaking, or being annoying between students, I want to focus on the only fact that from my point of view it's the most painful, which is bullying.

What we know about bullying is huge, but I understand the meaning of bullying as the group of bad and violent behaviours that make people to others, during a long period of time, because of cultural, personal or social differences. 

This concept of bullying is a very complete one, and we can differentiate three types of bullying, which are social, physical, and online.

Online bullying is what we understand nowadays as cyberbullying, and it can be through different ways, for example, mails, texts, or apps of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. Cyberbullying occurs within a constant harassment from one person or group to another individual.

Due to the fact that every student has in their hands some type of technological device, it allows them to navigate through the internet, but also increases the possibility of suffering cyberbullying. This issue produces bad effects such as low self-esteem, being more anxious, or lack of concentration among others.

As future primary school teachers, we must take care of this issue, suggesting methodologies by working in groups. But these participants, from all the groups, must have different nationalities, cultures, pleasures… Also, we must design activities that allow our students to develop all their competences, making them more confident and more useful in their work class.

Types of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can occur within lots of types of harassment, which we mention a few of them here:

Mobbing: It consists of constant harassment at work. Most companies have web pages which also show personal information of their workers, which can lead to them being susceptible to bullying.

Grooming: It consists of an adult person faking his identity to establish a friendship with another person, most of the time being minors. The objective of the adult is to force the minor to send personal information or photos. We can consider this cyberbullying because of the treatment the minors receive.

Sexting: It consists of blackmailing a victim with the intention of receiving sexual content from him/her, and sharing it without consent through social media.

There are even more types of cyberbullying, but every one has the same purpose: to force a person, most of the time a minor, to share personal information by blackmailing him or her and share that same information through social networks, all of which can lead to being mocked or criticized. Those actions can lead to the victims to have depression, anxiety, or even dangerous traits such as being self-harmed or commit suicide.

Keeping in mind how dangerous cyberbullying can be, we, as teachers, have the role of making our students learn about how cyberbullying can manifestate through social media and how to use the Internet safely, like not sharing personal information, identifying which people can be trusty or not, etc.

After looking for some context to learn more about bullying and the different types, we have seen the next video. Now we are going to write a short paragraph which contains our ideas and comments on how to deal with cyberbullying in primary schools. 

 

This entry is about a video named Sticks & Stones, which is a short film about bullying. In it, we can see a blonde girl who has suffered bullying; and she has been mocked by her friends and school classmates. As a result, she is seen during the video with a deep state of depression; the main consequence of being bullied. Bullying is not only physical, it can also be psychological; and affect our feelings and point of view of our environment. Depression appears as a state by being bullied psychologically.

As we have commented before, the girl in the video has a deep state of depression. She only wants to be far away from other people: not only the bullies but also family, friends or teachers. The place she appears to be more comfortable is a lake, in which only her appears to be.

At some points of the video, we can see her mother cyring next to a photo of the girl, and near the end of the video we discover the saddest fate: the girl hanged out herself and commited suicide. The video then finishes with an advice which says:

"44% of suicides in the UK are a result of bullying. 20% of Secondary School students say they have seriously considered suicide within the last 12 months."

The analysis of this video and the first theoretical part, we consider that we must give some advices, alerts and steps to superate and achieve an environment in which work. 

First of all, we consider that if we want to teach our students about something in particular, we must teach them information about it. So the first thing will be to see what cyberbullying is.

Secondly, we consider that both parents and teachers must have good communication with children and, above all, know which pages they visit and if something suspicious happens.

To continue we must alert them of the risks that the network entails and that you are not invading their privacy, but protecting them since you are responsible adults.

We also believe that we must make adults see us as trustworthy people, who can be trusted if some strange event occurs or they are being intimidated by another person or child.

In short, they must know the risks and know that there are people who do not have good intentions. We must also maintain active surveillance and intervene as soon as possible.

Sources: https://www.stopbullying.gov/bullying/what-is-bullying

https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it

NEW LEARNING

NEW LEARNING

In the last post, we talked about how literacy has changed over these years, what kinds of literacy are, and why we must know this literacy in order to know how to carry out our teach properly.

However, learning processes have also changed from traditional learning, looking for new ways to develop new learning processes focussed on experiences and emotions, which help to reach a long and scaffolding learning.

Pedagogical learning, also called Didactic Learning, was the first type of learning which was developed by the teacher’s years ago. In this type of learning, the teacher is the one who always speaks, and the students only listen what the teacher is saying. It´s a question-answer learning process where the students build knowledge using processes like memorizing and repeating. Finally, the teacher is understood like the authority, and the students are just passive learners.

On the other hand, New Learning, it’s the new learning process every teacher uses these days to achieve good results in their student's academic and personal development. 

The architecture of this New Learning is so complicated. It is formed by three pieces, the physical, the knowledge, and the communication. 

The physical architecture explains the importance of how we build our class, how we structure the desks, the chairs... also the importance of decorating the class walls and the aisle between desks.

The knowledge architecture is focused on what the students know, what are their previous knowledge, what are their interests, and the use of scaffolding learning.

The communication architecture is focused on the relationships between students and teachers, and also between students and students. As well as to reach good learning, it is used also a part of the traditional methods, like reading or writing, others like speaking and listening. 

So, New Learning allows students to have lots of interactions between them, and teachers build student´s scaffolding knowledge with all the students interactions. It is used some new techniques of communications such as dialogue, which make students have an active role and being more participative.

Finally, if we want to be good teachers, we must keep in mind the pyramid of knowledge retention rates. Because it allows us to truly understand which are the best teaching methods. 

We can organize this pyramid in two different classifications, the passive teaching methods, and the active teaching methods. The passive teaching methods is composed by lecture, reading, audio-visual and demonstration processes. The active teaching methods is composed by learn by doing, discussion in group, and teach others what you have learnt.

In brief, all what I have said will be resumed in a pyramid graphic, where you will be able to see with more accuracy what’s are the numbers of percentage. 

Image: Google images and text edited by me.

Author: David Urigüen.