For the language focus of our project we hope to develop the use of the past and future tenses and also enable students to use 'se' for the Passive: eg. En 2008 se celebra en nuestra ciudad La Capital de Cultura. Se montan muchos conciertos, y otros actos culturales." Our students should prepare an introductory PowerPoint presentation containing a limited number of digital photos and a second more advanced one containing audio, created with Audacity sound editor or narrated using the Narration feature in PowerPoint. The purpose of doing these two presentations is to familiarise students with photos and audio and the theme before they create their Photostory, which will contain photos, narration and music. Students will work with their teachers in the UK and Spain to identify which aspects of culture in their cities they wish to focus on. They will work in groups of 4 with each group having a technical "leader". They will use digital cameras ( we can borrow from the Media Dpt or students use their own) I will allow students to use mobile phones to take pictures so long as they download at home and place images on memory stick to bring into school (mobile phones are not allowed in school).
In this phase, teachers will work with students developing the vocabulary and grammar of the topic. They will complete reinforcement activities which created by the teachers using Task Magic, and maybe Hot Potatoes, plus electronic worksheets. Teachers will create PowerPoints to introduce vocabulary and grammar. Each group will compile up to 20 digital photographs which will be uploaded into a Shared Area on our network. Groups will then work with the pool of photos to compile a simple presentation of up to 8 slides maximum in which they will use the vocabulary and grammar we have learnt to talk about Capital of Culture Year.
Teachers will create a Gallery of photos taken by students. Students will also use the Forum to post short notes for students abroad to read and reply in the same way. Students will view a sample PowerPoint presentation of 5 slides prepared by their teacher. Teachers should use the narration feature to put audio in the presentation. Groups will then go back to their original presentation and modify it so that it contains an audio narration. These will be posted on the project page. Students will write to each other in the forum about the presentations.
Teachers in both schools will demonstrate to students how to make a slideshow using Photostory. Students will then work in groups to use up to 10 photos and the record audio and music mix feature of the software to create their slideshows, which will be posted to the project page. We will discuss in class what our partners have done and write to them using the Forum.
We will use questionnaires distributed to the students to assess how much students liked the projects, and what they feel they have learnt from it. The project teachers will assess for their own school what they feel are the main gains from the project and how they intend to build on what they have done. These conclusions will be posted to the project page.
Students swap photos, and messages about cultural life in their respective cities. They also help each other with their target language. Please note that postings to this forum are checked by an administrator before they go live on the system. It may take some time for any postings you make to appear within the forum.