Post on 22-Feb-2023
Brief background on the school and classroom:
Liceo ‘Vico’ is a secondary school that during 2013/2014 school year has
undergone a deep re-‐organization of educational identity due to national reforms.
The students are at their fourth year of social studies and at their tenth year of EFL
without remarkable goals, it’s my first year of EFL with these students. Moreover the
class bears long term conflicts within student’s groups (all female) included cyber-‐
bullying habits and inadequacy of communication strategies within the student’s
groups and with the teachers. Owing to the lack of technical resources, students are
working BYOD with their mobile phones and with the Teachers’ tablets and
notebooks.
Age range of students: 17-‐18
Number of students in my class: 16
Subjects: EFL + Social Studies
Key challenges, trends impacting your work at the school and how they link to the
activity: Lack of funding, fear about own’s job stability, overall aging of teacher staff,
peculiar context of social and cultural deprivation, proximity with L’Aquila, an
enclave of similar and misunderstood problems.
The link with the activity must be found at a metacognitive level, because it’s
all about poverty: a poverty discovered, perceived, explored and narrated starting
from a cross-‐curricular project and weaving personal, social, environmental, cultural,
emotional aspects with the student’s EFL learning and digital life.
Learning timeline: Dream (2 lessons), Map (2 lessons), Explore (2 lessons), Make (3
lessons), Ask and collaborate (ongoing), Show and tell (permanent).
Evaluation – The 21st skills assessment has been implemented to: determine
meaningful work, reflect on students’ strengths and needs to
set authentic learning goals; let students see their own progress over time and think
about ideas presented in their work, identify the effort they put forth, feel
ownership and pride in their work, realize their work has personal relevance.
The product itself is an example of the student’s evolving and refining linguistic skills
and of their commitment to improve their learning within a mixed abilities EFL class.
Learning Activity: Dream
I’m an EFL teacher in a Social Studies curriculum. My Psychology&Sociology
colleague and I have devised a learning module exploring the theme of Poverty in a
multidimensional and cross-‐curricular perspective. The students ask for an approach
less linked to their textbooks and more involving in terms of social qualitative
research. That’s why my colleague and I have decided to challenge the girls in the
work about poverty, starting from the reality of their district thus letting them reflect
on the nearer poverties: [youtube.com/watch?v=0EJ8WI87hX4]
In EFL, soon starts the research of ‘keywords’ and short texts, to be used to
narrate the video to foreign friends. Meanwhile, with P&S colleague, students work
linking their previous knowledge and school projects with the themes of Poverty,
Sustainability, Dignity,…
Goals:
§ To learn about the theme: Poverty
§ To develop collaborative skills
§ To develop communicative skills: listening, reading and speaking
§ To highlight positive use of digital media
§ To reflect on their own learning
Digital technologies and tools : Facebook, YouTube, TED Ed
Learning Activity: Map
Students make a map in Prezi by adding the relevant English texts, built by
analyzing, choosing and writing collaboratively, organized in small groups, brief and
focused texts [prezi.com/uslhxwvpf2sg/poverta-‐parsimonia-‐dignita/]
At the same time, the groups start to sketch a wider mind map linking some
of the resources (texts, videos, infographics, links,…) gathered around the keywords
and texts chosen, pertaining the ‘Poverty’ topic.
A further work of research and selection of texts is done in their textbooks
and in Wikipedia, too. A poster ‘augumented’ with post-‐it notes and student’s
scribbles, is added to the classroom wall.
Goals .
To develop communicative skills: reading and writing
To develop planning skills
To develop information organization skills
Digital technologies and tools: Prezi
Learning Activity: Explore
Students, organized again in small groups, or individually, start a research,
and share outcomes into their FB class secret group: music videos in the English
language related to the vocabulary and the key concepts in the ‘Poverty’ topic, they
add the links of the lyrics, too. The preferred song is Don’t Give Up by Peter Gabriel
and Kate Bush, that is chosen by the girls to become the title of their e-‐book in
progress.
The selection of links is shown to the class, discussed, and pinned in the
ProffyTribe – Don’t Give Up board [pinterest.com/claudiavale/proffytribe-‐
dontgiveup/] along with additional resources I’m pinning while I’m observing their
outcomes in the groups during lessons. Students explore at home the Pinterest
board and come back to school with a selection of two songs and their lyrics, related
to the themes explored more deeply by each group.
Goals:
§ To develop collaborative skills
§ To develop communicative skills: mediation, reading, listening and speaking
§ To highlight positive use of digital media
§ To reflect on their own learning
Digital technologies and tools: Pinterest , YouTube, Lyrics Central, Wikipedia
Learning Activity: Make
Each group writes a short bilingual text on the chosen theme, types a section
of the e-‐book and chooses the content that has to be triggered by AR (Augumented
Reality). Students write their section in Epubeditor, they add the pictures and the
screen captured texts from their prezi map and export the e-‐book both in epub and
pdf format.
With Aurasma, on the cover of the e-‐book, they make the AR version of the
e-‐book by embedding its link and weaving interactive multimedia resources.
The QR code to the downloadable e-‐book is generated and shared.
Goals: To develop e-‐text production skills
To develop communicative skills: speaking, reading and writing
Digital technologies and tools: Open Office, Epubeditor (epubeditor.it/)
QR generator, Aurasma, Pinterest, Youtube
Learning Activity: Ask and Collaborate
Students share their work in the school’s and friends networks. They are very
proud of it and ask to let the headmaster know about it, to demonstrate they can
use in a meaningful , cross-‐curricular, and pro-‐active way their digital skills.
Goals: To highlight positive use of digital media
Digital technologies and tools: Aurasma, Facebook, Pinterest
Learning Activity: Show&Tell
The link to Don’t Give Up augumentexd e-‐book is added to the public
ProffyTribe FB Page [facebook.com/ProffyTribe/], each group and every student
show and tell their experience to their friends, parents, communities; the
augumented e-‐book participates to national selections and competitions.
Goals: To engage with a real-‐world audience
Digital technologies and tools: FaceBook, Pinterest, Aurasma