Teaching with Europeana

First of all,  I would like to start this first blog post in 2020  by wishing  all of you a  very Happy New Year loaded with love,  joy and health. 

A new year always makes us reflect on the importance of  finding new ways to face the essential  challenges in our lives, both personally and professionally. As I write this blog to try and help you on the latter, let me start by reminding you of Europeana, a wonderful platform I wrote about in a previous post you can read here.  

March 2019 marked the official launch of the Teaching with Europeana blog. Since then, the Europeana Education Community has grown and shared numerous inspirational learning scenarios and creative stories of implementation. But are you aware of all the possibilities the blog offers?

In  the  video below these lines,  teachers share their experiences using the blog and explain how its resources  can be very helpful for a variety of content areas. 

From this blog,   I would like to extend my congratulations to the  people and networks behind Europeana   for  making cultural heritage available to a very global audience.  

I am looking forward to meeting you in our next  seminar session on January 21st. Apart from focusing on  supporting students' written and spoken output,  we will enter the Europeana  platform and  blog to choose the most suitable resources for our  CLIL contexts. 

Europeana platform, Europe's digital platform for cultural heritage

Today I am writing to let you know about a very powerful platform called Europeana. 

Europeana is Europe's digital platform for cultural heritage. It provides free, online access to over 50 million digital records coming from over 3,700 libraries, museums, archives and galleries across Europe. Europeana features art from over 3,000 institutions across Europe, from the likes of Rijksmuseum, the British Library and the Louvre, as well as local museums from every corner of the European Union. Highlights include Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, and music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Undoubtedly, a very helpful source for those teachers implementing Art both at Primary and Secondary levels. Click here to see the Art-Europeana collection.

Europeana offers a Music collection which includes recordings, pieces of sheet music and other music items from across Europe so Music teachers will benefit from this platform too.

Teachers who wish to introduce Natural History content in their Science classes 

will have the opportunity to explore the natural world in 3,415,528 drawings, specimens, images and documents in the Natural History collection.

211,249 items on the topic of migration to, from and within Europe are thoroughly depicted in the Migration Collection. 

I am sure this platform founded by the European Commisssion in 2008 and updated with new features including a translation tool into 27 languages will enable you  to enrich your classes.

ART AND MUSIC

Encourage your pupils to develop their creativity by listening to music they like and creating a work of art to represent how it makes them feel with this activity from Tate Kids.

The Idea:

Different types of music can create different responses. Responses to music can be made through drawing, painting, 3D sculpture, movement, dance, story, poetry, photography, slide projection and video. You can probably think of others, too. The idea here is to show how the music inspires you. Your work will show how music makes you feel, what it makes you think of and what you can create from what you hear.

 The Plan:

You are going to respond to your chosen piece of music by creating a sculpture known as a 3D kinetic (that means movement) sculpture-drawing. This means you will respond by creating a sculpture that represents the way the music makes you feel.

  You Need:

• A selection of any bits and pieces you can find, including lolly sticks and different sized and coloured pieces of paper.
• String, wool or ribbon, so you can make a music sculpture mobile if you wish.
• Scissors, sticky tape, glue.
• A hook - if you want to hang your mobile up.
• Your chosen piece of music or sounds.

  

Do it!

• Listen carefully to your music and think about how the music moves.
• Does it make big swooshing shapes? Does it make small, quiet movements or is it jerky and repetitive? Perhaps it sounds like it is creeping along the floor? Or is it more like it is flying and swirling through the air.
• You might find yourself moving to the music. That’s good – dance if you want to.
• Now you are ready to make your 3D sculpture by choosing bits and pieces that represent the feel of your music. For example a curled waving piece of paper might move in a whirly, swirling way or a collection of lolly sticks might clink against each other in a jerky, clicky way.
• Hang your sculpture up like a mobile so it can rotate and move freely.

 Top Tips:

• Think about how the sounds fit together and move. Then try to make your 3D sculpture move in a similar way.
• Try different ways of responding to other pieces of music or sounds.
• You might enjoy just working with a sound effects CD.
• You could make a response to the natural sounds around you – go into the country, into the city or by the sea if that is possible.

See it: 

Art competitions for children and teenagers

Look and Learn is a London-based picture library specialising in educational images and a member of BAPLA (the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies).

Since 2006 they have run monthly online children’s art competitions with the explicit objective of creating the world’s best gallery of children’s art. All entries appear in their online gallery, and children and their sponsors (teachers or parents) get their own personal online galleries. 

There are two main choices for your Art classrooms: 

1) Enter the Art gallery, just  click on any picture to enlarge it, download it or  send an e-card of it to friends and family. 

2) Take part in monthly competitions (entry to the competitions and gallery is free). 

Competitions focus on a different theme each month and  entries are  divided into three age groups (0-7, 8-11 and 12-18). Entry to the competitions and gallery is free so I am sure you will be interested in taking part in the next competitions  with your students. 

From these lines,  I would like to thank  Look and learn for offering children and teenagers this great opportunity to enjoy Art. 

HEALTHY OCEANS, HEALTHY PLANET

La Mar de Ciencia” is a competition for young artists interested in Science and the sea. Students of Primary and Secondary grade levels from Spain can present their videos, drawings and stories through the website www.lamardeciencia.es until March 10, 2017. “La Mar de Ciencia” is an initiative of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the Balearic Islands Coastal Observing and Forecasting System (SOCIB) and "la Caixa" Banking Foundation and its aim is to bring the marine sciences closer to the students and raise awareness about the importance of improving our knowledge on the sustainable management of the oceans.

As a novelty, this edition, entitled "Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet", allows group participation in the video mode and the contributions can be presented in Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician and English. The winners will enjoy a scientific weekend in the Balearic Islands to learn more about the research carried out at the CSIC centres, participate in a SOCIB oceanographic campaign and visit the Marine-Terrestrial National Park of the Cabrera Archipelago. The classroom with the best video will be awarded with a digital whiteboard.

I reckon that this is a great opportunity to develop  students' awareness on the  enormous impacts that humans have  on marine ecosystems and resources.

If your students choose to focus on the Mediterranean sea, the program "Medclic: the Mediterranean in one click"  can be of great help.

For students aged 14-18, National Geographic offers a great amount of lesson plans on the threat which is being inflicted on our oceans.   I would  recommend the following one:

 http://www.nationalgeographic.org/lesson/human-impacts-world-ocean/

Let me finish by  stepping  back into the 17th century to pay my humble tribute to  Blaise Pascal, great mathematician, physicist and philosopher, who  warned us about the threats oceans have to face.

Among so many home truths, he said:

"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble". 

Therefore, we can and we must do our best to protect our oceans and today we can start by encouraging our students to take part in the competition I suggested above these lines. 

  

The Jigsaw Technique as a way to facilitate reading in CLIL contexts

The video above describes the cooperative learning technique called "Jigsaw reading" in a very clear way but below these lines you can find my description and reflection on the topic:

Defined broadly, Jigsaw is a grouping strategy in which the members of the class are organized into "jigsaw" groups. The students are then reorganized into "expert" groups containing one member from each jigsaw group. The members of the expert group work together to learn the material or solve the problem, then return to their "jigsaw" groups to share their learning. In this way, the work of the expert groups is quickly disseminated throughout the class, with each person taking responsibility for sharing a piece of the puzzle.

Let me suggest a simple way to carry out this technique: 

           -   Divide the reading text into separate extracts and form student groups. The groups    should be diverse in terms of ability.

    -  Form temporary expert groups in which students are assigned to the same extract. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group.

  -  Then bring the students into jigsaw groups that are composed of one student from each expert group. Have each student present her or his extract to the group. At the end of the session, you may give a quiz so that students are held accountable for learning all the material.

The teacher's role in the jigsaw is to facilitate learning. When students are in expert groups, the teacher can support students by encouraging them to find ways to put information they learned into their own words, to relate the material to their own lives, and to give examples that help them explain the material to their group. Students should be encouraged to help each other and to make sure everyone in their group understands the material and will be confident presenting it to his or her group.

How can we make use of this strategy in any content areas?. Here you can find an example for a Science class. 

Describing paintings in English

Describing paintings is an ideal way to make students practice their vocabulary in all sorts of fields and language levels. It is also suitable for the advanced learner of English as a complete description should include the artist’s intention and the impression on the viewer.

  STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

  It's not easy to follow a picture description if the writer jumps randomly from one point to another.  Therefore, make sure that your picture description is logically structured, for example: 

     - From left to right (or from right to left)

     - From the background to the foreground (or from the foreground to the background)

     - From the middle to the sides (or from the sides to the middle)

     - From details to general impressions (or from general impressions to details)

The structure you finally choose depends on your taste and the picture you want to describe.

PICTURES IN GENERAL

    - Short description of the scene (e. g. place, event)

    - Details (who / what can you see)

    - Background information (if necessary) on place, important persons or event

PAINTINGS

   - Name of artist and picture, year of origin (if known)

   - Short description of the scene (e. g. place, event)

   - Details (who / what can you see)

   - Impression on the viewer

   - Artist's intention

   - Perspective, colours, forms, proportions etc.  

TIPS

 If you want to practice describing paintings, check out the websites of some galleries and write down expressions that might be useful for your descriptions. 

On the website of the National Gallery in London for example you'll find lots of interesting paintings with descriptions.

The website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art  provides a detailed description of a painting with interesting background information, e. g. how to use colours, how to give the impression of movement or perspective etc.

Without having to “travel” so far, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum offers both a wide range of paintings and descriptions on line which you can access from here   as well as some educational programmes for teenagers

A pack of on-line resources to help you work on Art in your classroom can be found on the website of the Tate Gallery in London

 LANGUAGE SCAFFOLDING

 Useful words and phrases  for picture descriptions 

     

Visiting museums on line: The Art Project

Do you know the Art Project? It is a wonderful tool for students to explore different museums from around the world and discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels:

Arts Alive

Click on the picture to visit this Canadian site where lots of ideas and resources may be found to work on drama, music and dance.