Ingenio y Talento eTwinning: Cacoo para integrar diagramas en proyecto eTwinning

Claire Chevalier and Ángel Luis Gallego, eTwinning ambassadors in France and Spain and Latin teachers in the Lycée Benjamin Franklin de Auray (Francia) and in the IES Vegas Bajas de Montijo (Badajoz), show us how to use the Cacoo tool.

The importance of visual learning: infographics in the classroom

We live immersed in a predominantly visual culture. In the different communication media, in the social networks, and in the different formats used to provide information for the public in general, we often come across attractive infographics which catch our attention. 

eTwinning Ingenuity and Talent: using Pinterest in an eTwimming project

 Ángel Luis Gallego, an eTwinning ambassador and Latin teacher at the IES Vegas Bajas de Montijo (Badajoz) school shows us how to use Pinterest using as an example the development of his eTwinning-Comenius project 'A Short Latin Movie'.

One of the complementary activities which we have carried out in the eTwinning –Comenius project “A Short Latin Movie”, developed at the IES Vegas Bajas de Montijo (Badajoz), was How do you see Europe?

in which we used Pinterest.

Pinterest works as a social network in which the users can share images (called pins), repin them and even vote with a “like”, as they do in Facebook or Twitter. It is extremely simple to use, as we will see below. The success of Pinterest has shown the way for other sites like Flikr, which has incorporated similar functions, like the creation of the user’s own albums and selection of favourite images.

Pinterest was initially designed as a platform for small businesses. The entrepreneurs used the boards to show their products for free. In this way, Pinterest became a shop window for original craft products or even alternative fashions.

Remember that you can also use Pinterest from your cell phone, downloading the application free. Being able to use a Pinterest board from the cell phone can often be a strong motivation for students.

 Registering in Pinterest is an easy task. You can do it from your Facebook account or by email. In the latter case you just have to fill in a short form.

Once you have opened your account, you access it by typing in your email address and your password.

Choose your interests: choose at least five boards by clicking on the “follow” button. There are very many boards in each category.

After you have chosen the boards, the programme will take you to your main page, where you can see the pins of all the boards you have chosen. If you want to follow any particular board you just have to look for it in the top left hand corner, choose the board and click on the follow button.

To create your own board click on the + sign which is in the top right hand corner, next to your name and choose “create board”. Give it a name, description and category

If you already have other boards, you can do this from the same page.

For the “How do you see Europe” activity we created a board in which we asked the students to show and explain in an image how they see Europe, not just the good things about our continent, but also the things that can be improved, the things that unite us and separate us, and what was can do to all feel part of the same common project. 

Once the board has been created, the first thing we have to do is invite the students (who have already opened their Pinterest account). To do this we edit the board, include the students and save the changes.

Once the students accept the invitation, this board will appear in their profile.

To add the image, we just click on “Pin it” which we can do from our computer, from the Internet (by copying the URL) or by repinning a Pinterest image.

When we pin (add an image) we have to select the board and describe the image. The students can express their opinions here.

To finish the student can repin the image on another board, click on “like”, and include a comment. To do the latter he/she just has to click on the image and include a comment.

As you can see, Pinterest is an easy-to-use tool with considerable possibilities for collaborating. For example, it can serve as a useful tool for showing the different ways of life on our continent. We can create a series of independent boards where the students compare landscapes, clothes, recipes, hobbies, whatever we like.

We can also create thematic boards, as in our case, around a proposal. Different fields like history, the environment, solidarity, and the notion of Europe are topics on which the students can express themselves, debate about the pins, etc. Lastly we can go a step further and use a board as a creative space where the students can upload their own work and the rest vote using “like”.  

Fuente imágenes: Cabecero SNA. Cuerpo del texto: imágenes de la red Pinterest y el desarollo del proyecto eTwinning-Comenius ' A Short Latin Movie.

eTwinning ingenuity and talent: presenting 2.0 tools at the 2013 Lisbon Conference

We are including the presentations on 2.0 tools given at the 2013 eTwinning Conference (Lisbon) by three of our teachers who were awarded national eTwinning prizes in 2013: Margarita Gentil Benítez, Sergio González Moreau y Marta Pey Pratdesaba.