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PADLET

MY PADLET

JOOMLA and Other Web Creation Matters

Joomla is free software for creating and maintaining your own CMS content management site/web page.  Of the many many tool extensions available, I would choose the subcategory of Style and Design, as this is applicable to any web you may consider creating. Although I haven't used the programme as of yet, it looks very interesting and useful.

Having looked at all of the educational institution web pages listed in the task, the one I like most is actually the first one of the Salesianos in Alicante, because of its simplicity and visuality.  The others appear to be less professional and complicated, offering too much information or options at the initial glance.  The Salesianos' page is also a very pleasant colour, whereas some of the pages have too much white. I also find too much content in blue to be boring.

When it comes to economics, my field area, my favorite blog is El Blog Salmon, because of its simple layout, easy to read and up to date articles about the economy and all that related to it. However, it is a blog written in Spanish and mainly about the economy in Spain. If I have to choose a blog on economics in English, it would have to be the blog site for the LSE, London School of Economics, for me the cathedral of all economics, LSE Blogs.  In all cases, colour, simplicity and content are of utmost importance.

Teaching Stategies

                                          Freepikpro

Traditional Teaching 

This involves a classroom aligned in the traditional manner with the teacher at the front, in front of a black or whiteboard or a slide projector screen.  The teacher is the only person speaking and explains the class matter content to the students, who are all facing him/her.  This has the disadvantage of being potentially boring, in which case the students will quickly lose interest and so concentration span, in the end not listening to the teacher or learning.

Participative Traditional Teaching

This is the previously mentioned traditional method, but involving the students to a far greater degree, requiring that they participate actively by means of answering questions previously prepared and formulated by the teacher. This method promotes learning by comprehension, creating the necessity to continue learning, and creates an environment of individual and cooperative work amongst the students and requires that the students take responsibility and protagonism in their learning.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a method which organises activities within the classroom and converts them into a social and academic learning process.  The students are divided into small groups, for which the classroom is set out in a series of groups of circles of usually 4 tables and the activities are carried out collectively by the group.

This method depends upon the exchange of information amongst the members of the group, so also promoting social skills. The members are motived by individual achievements and those of the group. The groups should be as heterogeneous as possible and develop a group identity by mutual help, valuing each individual and creating synergy.  This promotes positive interdependence and the results of the group will finally be the consecuences of the individual investigation of the members. Once completed, the task is presented publically to the rest of the class.

Advantages include motivation, initiative, and implication, understanding the what, how and why of the task, increase in volume and quality of work, command of concepts, development of critical thinking, discussion strategies and developing social skills. Examples of Cooperative Learning are:

1. Learning based on Problem solving

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an active learning method centred around the student, in which a group of students are given a real or fictitious problem or problematic situation to solve. This acts as a guide to the investigation and knowledge acquisition and allows the students to develop hypotheses to explain and identify the learning needs which will permit him/her to understand the problem and achieve the learning objectives set forth.

The objectives of this method of learning are to help students develop cognitive skills, such as analysis, argumentation, and interpersonal social skills such as communication and cooperation.

It is necessary for the teacher to be a tutor/guide in promoting collaboration in the group. The objective is not to solve the problem set forth, this is simply the medium by which the student acquires the objectives of the PBL teaching method.

2. Teaching by Projects

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a learning method which requires the students, divided into small groups, to plan, create and evaluate a project based on the needs of a particular situation in real life beyond the classroom. It requires interdisciplinary activities and bases learning on the student in the long term and not on short isolated classes.

There is not just one method of teaching by projects and on the whole, the method is far more interesting for students, who find the projects to be challenging and motivating because they form an active role in the complete process of choosing, planning and execution.

Constructivism considers learning to be the result of mental constructions, that is, children learn by constructing new ideas or concepts based on their present and previous knowledge.

Words, Dictionaries, Thesarus, Word Cloud

Dictionaries:-

I searched for the word "Economy":-

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, (OED):- The state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.

According to Merriam-Webster:- the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period.

In Word Reference:- Economía

Word Reference is purely a translation dictionary, in this case between English and Spanish. Merriam-Webster gives a definition in the English language. OED gives the definition in a chosen language from amongst many languages.  My preference is that of the OED, not only because of the greater choices of language, but because fo the more formal definition.

In the Learner's Dictionary:- The process or system by which goods and services are produced, sold, and bought in a country or region.

The latter is a simpler definition, which would be of better use to students.

The Thesarus does not provide a definition for the word searched, but synonyms or antonyms.  Many options are offered and in order to chose the right ioption, I would suggest cross checking each one with a dictionary, so that we make sure we are using a word with the correct meaning or in the correct context.

In Corpora I searched the phrase "The world at large". Linguee not only offers uses of the phrase, but also the translation into Spanish, whereas the British National Corpus simply offers the use of the phrase in English examples.

All I consider to be of useful help.

Lingustic Exchanges in the Teaching of Initiation into Business and Entrepreneurial Culture in English as a Foreign Language

I have chosen the level of first to third grade of ESO (obligatory secondary education) and more specifically the third grade.  According to the levels of linguistic exchange specified I think that it will first be necessary to introduce concepts to the students.  I'm sure many of the terms will be familiar to them, however it is more than  probable that they will not be fully aware of the correct meaning of the terms, especially in the first grade, although they should be aware of most of them by third grade, but not to the level of the glossary prepared in the first task.

In terms of language the students are expected to be able to recognise the terminolgy specific to the subject and their school grade and use it correctly in written and oral activities and on a personal, academic, social or professional level.  However, this does not correspond with the A1 level of the foreign language used as the vehicle to teach the subject content. 

The advantage I can see with this subject asnd as I'm sure occurs in science based subjects, many of the terms are very similar, for example:
Economy - Economía
Salary - salario
Interest rate - tipo de interés

Of which there are many more examples, I'm sure we shall have the opportunity to experience more of these terms in following blogs.