ANALYST ROLE WEEK 9: ADRIÁN AND MARTA

WEEK 9 ANALYST ROLE: ADRIÁN AND MARTA

Hi again, everybody!😊 We hope you are going through this quarantine as well as possible.

 After a few weeks something convulsive, it seems that we are already getting used to working online, and that little by little we are coordinating better.😇 This week we have carried out a very entertaining task, in which we had to explain the PLE concept, and develop our own PLE to explain how to use different tools that can facilitate learning remotely. These tools are podcast, youtube and announcement board.

For the development of this task, we decided to make a video call after our teacher's class to solve some doubts, and see how we would organize our group to carry out the task. Finally we decided that we would divide our group into three groups of three people, Marta, Jorge and Carmen Rocio would be in charge of the announcement board, Sergio, Adrián and Carmen Llamas for the podcast, and Miguel, Juan and Paco for YouTube.👀👀

The three groups went to work and collect information about their tools on Tuesday afternoon, and finally on Wednesday afternoon we gathered all the information we had collected, and we explained the three concepts to each other in order to develop our PLE. Finally, our classmates Jorge and Sergio presented our diagram in class, giving a short explanation about our project.

Reflecting on the work done this week, we believe that the best part of the activity was when we had to look for information about the three tools, since we saw that these tools can be used in the educational process constantly, making the learning process be more effective and fun. We found numerous valuable information that made us learn a lot about these tools. To give an example, we found a teacher from a school in Seville who had created a playlist on spotify with the contents that could not be seen in class due to the quarantine. We imagine that the enormous passion with which teachers carry out their work was the motivation that led him to  carry out such an original and didactic project.👍👍

On the other hand, being honest, the worst part of the activity was its complex structure and the short time we had, since it was quite difficult for us to fit the three tools into a PLE and explain the three concepts in such a short period of time.(six to nine minutes). We would have liked to have had a little more time to develop all the ideas we had in mind, or another option would have been just to have to work only on one of the tools, in order to have carried out a more exhaustive analysis of it.

Focusing on our work as a group, we believe that the best time of the week was Wednesday afternoon, when we all connected in hangouts, as it was enormously gratifying to be able to explain to each other the new concepts and ideas we had learned as well as the different uses that other teachers had made of these tools. We organized the video call as if it were an expert committee, in which a member of each group had to explain everything related to their tool, and then the other six participants had a round of questions to clarify doubts. It was a format that we had previously seen in the 24-hour channel news, in which they dedicated a programme  to explain the situation of the coronavirus in China using this format. This makes us see that even in the most difficult moments we can continue learning and improving.😁

 On the other hand, we must admit that one of the worst moments of the week was when we decided to make a video call after the class with our teacher, since we were not very clear about what we had to do and each one thought that we had to develop the work in a different way.

 It was a moment of high tension, in which the pressure sometimes overcame us and we even spoke to each other in a slightly rude way. We imagine that the pressure to carry out this activity along with the fact that we cannot leave the house and we have great uncertainty about what will happen with the exams was the trigger for this discussion. Fortunately, after a while we all calmed down and realized that we all work and learn best when we do things collaboratively.

Without a doubt, realizing that we all work better together has been one of the things we have learned this week. Despite the fact that several people have different approaches to how to do a job, we have learned that the best way to work is taking into account all of them, and incorporating different ideas from all the members of the group.

We would also like to emphasize the importance of having learned what a PLE is, and learning how to use it, since we believe that it will be a tool that will greatly facilitate our work as teachers in the future. The different utilities that YouTube, podcast and announcement boards can have in the teaching process have also been very interesting to us, we have learned how to use them in different contexts and realities, and we believe that it is something very valuable that will help us in our professional future.

Regarding what we need to keep as a group, I think that it is our involvement in terms of tasks, since we always try to understand and carry them out as soon as possible so that we have enough time to modify them in case any complication arises. This is why we start to inform ourselves about the assigned task as soon as our teacher Linda's class finishes, since we have the habit of making a video call in the afternoon of the same day that she sends it, and the fact of knowing clearly what we have to do for that moment, facilitates and speeds up the development of the work✅💪.

Nevertheless, what we would need to improve as a group is our ability to focus on the project when we are in a video call. Although we know perfectly well the purpose of the videoconference and the points from which we have to start discussing about the subject, sometimes we disconnect from work and talk about other things💬. This may be because we appreciate talking to other people due to the confinement situation we are experiencing, but fortunately we always try not to waste too much time and focus on our goal⏳🙇.

We also want to add that we have realized that the content of this project is related to the tasks already carried out, since this work demonstrates the importance of educators having to adapt to computers to innovate in their teaching methodologies as cited in the complexity theory and change in schools. And in order to do this, these tools exposed in this task, would be really useful to be able to create environments in which students can continue learning through technology💻.

Moreover, this work is also related to a previously studied content called connection beyond the class, since what this task has taught us is that students not only learn from the contents that are exposed in a class, but they can also do it from a YouTube video or after reading a news item on a bulletin board. In short, people's learning goes beyond what is in books📚🔀📱.

Finally, we could connect the use of PLE with social networks, since some of them like Twitter, are also educational potentials that allow us to communicate, reflect, debate and share. One of the components of the PLE is the PLN (Personal Learning Network), and this component is what directly relates it to social networks.

And that’s all! We hope you found it interesting and you have learned something new from us. Until next time!😘💓