The Challenge
Building life skills that support the development of creative, responsible and caring students
Do you use technology to help your students build 21st century skills? Then take the Microsoft MIXathon Challenge by working with your students to create a up to a 15-minute interactive “best ever lesson” on a topic of your choice, using Microsoft PowerPoint and the new, free Office Mix add-in!
Our Participation
I have know Office Mix since the first day it was launched as a free supplement of Microsoft PowerPoint. Those who follow our work are already familiar with the videolessons at the subject of History in 5th and 6th Grade. Also, last October we materiallised our research program with the title "Factors affecting the development of Flipped – Classroom model in teaching fractions to pupils of the 5th Grade", so there was former exrerience concerning the structure of an eLearning Courses on Office Mix. Therefore, there were enough motires for our participation to the contest which was to 31 December 2015.
Describing the lesson
Title: Introduction to the fractions
Objectives: Understand the concept of a fraction, as a procedure of equal division. Understanding the role of the numerator (as a part) and the denominator (as the whole) in the fractional number.
Skills: Collaboration, Communication, ICT for learning, Problem solving & innovation (creativity), Student self-assessment, Knowledge building & critical thinking
Objectives: Understand the concept of a fraction, as a procedure of equal division. Understanding the role of the numerator (as a part) and the denominator (as the whole) in the fractional number.
Skills: Collaboration, Communication, ICT for learning, Problem solving & innovation (creativity), Student self-assessment, Knowledge building & critical thinking
Pupil participation in structuring the lesson
- My pupils (D΄ class) after a class discussion about the subject we would choose, ended voluntarily in Maths and unanimously in the fractions which they had studied the year before.
- Then they choose the story that would be needed as a context to connect the lesson to everyday life. The particular story is a real event from the life of one their fellow students.
- They took an active part, under my guidance , even in selecting part of the graphics chosen for the eLearning Courses.
- Then they voted for whose kid’s voice would best accompany the story, ending up in Katia.
- Finally, to my surprise, they asked to have the chance to grade the lesson, if that was possible.
The Learn Object
A great part of the success or failure of eLearning courses lies on planning. Those classes planned with educational criteria can offer motivation, opportunities and possibilities to pupils.
In the following tabs you can see the components of the educational planning of the lesson and the reasons why they were chosen.
I consider that the approach “keep it simple” assists the effectiveness of e – learning both on the planning and designing level and on its content. Additionally an effective design of eLearning courses can improve the perception and the experience of pupils.
So:
So:
- the cognitive “overload” can be avoided
- the pupils can remember information easier
- they are inspired to take action
Learning happens when we manage to make our students derive satisfaction and joy from the learning subject. A part of this pleasure can be realized with an attractive visual the following were chosen:
- the theme (template) is a blackboard for obvious reasons
- the pictures and graphics support the information pupils have to learn in such a way that they have to put the least possible effort to learning it
- there is consequence and continuity in every slide as far as the layout is concerned
- my voice, covering the slides, is natural and instructive, as it would be inside the classroom
Inside the classroom, we try to create motivation for learning during our teaching procedure. The same is true for an eLearning courses. What’s more you can attract the students attention in just a few seconds in a digital environment. In this eLearning courses we used the following techniques:
- we wrote a short story from pupil’s everyday life
- we created a short introductory piece with a pleasant musical theme
The effective use of eLearning courses can be achieved when there is interaction and evolvement of pupil’s with the teaching with the teaching materials. In our eLearning course this idea was supported in the following ways:
The pupil
The pupil
- is asked to provide an answer before the presentation of the new knowledge
- he/she has to answer to several question in the form of a quiz
- he/she is given the change to freely express an opinion about the eLearning course
My experience on eLearning has taught me that two things are really important in their use.
- We should not place the emphasis on the possibilities provided by equipment we use but on the aims of the lesson.
- Even the most advanced technology cannot replace inspired teaching.
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