Collaborative activities for Spanish Language and Social Studies

As wehave been telling you, have been telling you, several workshops were given in the multilateral eTwinning 2011 meeting: Let’s collaborate in Spanish, organized in Madrid by the National Support Service.  Today we are publishing the collaborative activities proposed for “Spanish Language and Social Sciences, hands on”.

When planning collaborative activities we suggest two key ideas: choose suitable ICT tools, the ones which naturally encourage pupils’ participation, and think multimedia. Text is not always the best option for working on the contents: videos, podcasts and photos motivate pupils and foment their creativity.

The school magazine is a well proven project model. It encourages pupils to do research and work on their expression and argumentation skills. If it is well used it can also involve a great degree of collaboration. For this it is important to “play” at being journalists, and set up a real editorial team in which the pupils have their different roles according to their interests and skills: writer, photographer, corrector, documentalist, designer, editor…When looking for interaction among pupils why not organize working meetings on Skype?

The second proposal is the creation of thematic tourist routes. The same city can be visited using the text of a novel set in it, the modernist façades of the buildings or the Roman ruins. When we talk about itineraries, we should talk about maps and geolocation: Google Maps

Lastly, how do you present a book club to pupils in the 21st Century? With trailers of novels, literary video write-ups, and voice commentaries using VoiceThread. Reading does not have to be an individual activity.