The Project

Celebrating is getting together to remember or celebrate a special event such as an anniversary, a national day, a popular tradition, etc. Celebrating is getting together to share something important in our lives such as experiences or special moments. People's lives in their different aspects, family, school, work and friends are full of moments to celebrate. Many of them have a symbolic value. This project aims at strengthening the value of celebrations by discovering their roots as well as their culatural relevancy to live them with greater intensity and commitment to later share them with other schools. In this way, we will be enjoying our shared history in a special way. We will have the opportunity to learn about celebrations in the world and we will also discover how different people celebrate the same event differently. Objectives 1) To foster multicultural awareness and information exchanged based on the openness to cultural diveristy and the knowledge of other peoples. 2) To understand the usefulness of technological tools and web 2.0 to socialize and build shared knowledge. 3) To develop a sense of commitment and responsibility taking decisions in view of the information given 4) To work collaboratively with students from other schools reinforcing their opinions and appretiating the ones of others. 5) To develop creativity 6) To learn to communicate knowledge and adjust explanations to the audience Activities Students should be grouped in teams of 4 or 5 members according to their interests Step 1:Introductions: The participant classes introduce themselves in the project forum: members, school, city and country. All the productions in this project will be shared in the project blog. Step 2: Geographical location: In a collaborative interactive map generated with a server of map apps such as Bing maps or similar, the participant group will will place the school in the map including some information about it. Step 3:Celebrations choice: What celebrations are in your school lives are important and meaningful so as to share them with other communities? What folk or local celebrations are not so popular or so much well-known? What event, anniversary or national date is the most important for the school community so that it is celebrated in a special way taht is worth sharing with others? Each subgroup will choose a school, folk, local or national celebration to develop informative material to be shared with the other participant schools. Step 4: Choice on how to deal with the material to produced and socialized Will students explain what the celebration is about? Will students deal with their meaning, importance, characteristics and so on? Will students include extra cultural, geographical, historical and institutional information? Will they produce a complementary touristic guide apart from the characteristics of the celebration? Step 5:Digital format choice: How will the material be presented? Will students create a multimedia presentation, a blog, a wiki, an interactive poster? Will the presentation be a leaflet, a spot, a poster? Either the class or each subgroup in particular will choose the digital tool they will use to show the results of their investigation. IN THE FORUM: share with the other participants which the celebration chosen is, how you will deal with it and what kind of material you will be producing. Step 6: Information search This will be the moment to register, draw conclusions, note down what students know and what they want to share. Always register the URL for the websites consulted. Step 7: Celebrations georeference All the participant groups will collaboratively develop the "World Map of Celebrations". This map will include basic information and links to deepen the information developed by the participant schools. Step 8: Plan, design and development of digital product A high quality digital product must be planned taking into account the knowledge expected to be taught as well as the message to be transmitted. It is worth thinking about making a visual organizer or a guided topicboard for students to organize all the information available. Finally, the final product will be designed following the steps outlined in previous plan. Step 9: Final publishing The participant groups will publish the material developed in different virtual environments including the exchange forum and the project blog. Step 10: Optional: Complementary ludic ideas Treasure hunt: "Find world celebrations" For this part of the project, we propose a virtual game to search infotmation in the web. It is open to all the participants in the project and their educatinal communities. Its main topic will be the celebrations around the world. This proposal will last five weeks. Particpaqnts will have to solve some problems showing their knowledge and intelligence as well as their abilities to search and understand information. The problems will be published weekly and may have different characteristics and different degrees of difficulty. A score will be indicated for each problem to be solved and participants will get that score provided that they solve a problem correctly. This online game will take place at the project blog. Expected results The production of digital material (videos, documents, leaflets, multimedia presentations, websites or others made with different web 2.0 tools) to give information about different celebrations in the world. At the end of the project, students will have: - chosen the best digital tool according to their message. - developed informative material. - included multimedia elements to strengthen their ideas and facilitate understanding. - organized information in a clear way taking advantage of the digital tool chosen. - shown the websites consulted to take the multimedia tools used following the established reference protocol (Title, author, URL, consulting date) - presented material in an organized and clear way. - developed a collaborative attitude towards team work by planning and organizing tasks, keeping deadlines so as to get good results as a group. - taken part in a ludic activity along with their peers. Communication and exchange: During all the project, studentsand teachers will communicate through a social close network: http://proyectosenred.fundacionevolucion.org.ar/ Project facilitator: Cristina Velazquez cvelazquez@fundacionevolucon.org.ar Project e-mail: celebraciones@fundacionevolucion.org.ar Project audience: All levels: kinder, primary school, high school and tertiary level NOTE: This project pays special attention to future teachers for them to get experience in taking part in interinstitutional collaborative projects. In Teachers' Training Colleges, there are several celebrations. For instance, in Argentina, Kindergarten Day and Kindergarten Teacher's Day is on May 28th and Teacher's Day is on September 11th, among others. It would be interesting for participants from other countries who join the project to share when and how they celebrate their teachers' day. For example, in Mexico, it is celebrated on May 15th whereas in Peru, it is celebrated on July 6th. Calendar: Project enrollment: Until September 30th, 2013 Project participation: Open the whole year Languages: English Spanish Curriculum areas: Technology Language Social Studies Arts To enrol, fill in the form in the bar on the right.