Blogs Project for Secondary
Arty Facts: Photo-blogging Cultures
Short description: In this eTwinning kit, learners from classes in two different countries (Country A and Country B) produce two separate class blogs through which they find out more about each other on a personal, and also a cultural level. To do this, each class introduces themselves as individuals via their class blog, and then shares aspects of their culture with the other class, also via the blog. The blogs in this project use text and digital photos.
Age group: Duration: ICT Tools:
12 - 15 6+ classes of one hour each Blogs, digital photos
Note: Teachers who are unfamiliar with blogs will first need to go through the blogs tutorial to learn how to set up a class blog in Blogger.
Subject: Foreign Languages, Literature and Culture
Theme: Cultural artefacts, culture and countries, cultural preconceptions
Pedagogical value: Learners will make personal contact with learners from another country, and then will share and analyse cultural artefacts (objects) from their own culture. Finally learners will be encouraged to examine if their attitudes and perceptions to the other culture have changed, and if so, how. The ability to challenge and examine cultural preconceptions is a key intercultural skill.
Objectives: Learners will: present themselves through personal artefacts share and analyse cultural artefacts from their own and their partners’ culture examine their own cultural preconceptions develop their ICT skills by learning to use a blog and by taking digital photos
Process:
1 Getting started – making contact and setting up blogs Teachers from the partner schools in Country A and Country B get in contact and check their availability – class days, times, contact emails, etc. – as well as class level, age and size. Each teacher sets up one class blog for his/her class (see the Tutorial on Blogs for how to do this), and enrols his/her own learners, and Country B’s learners. Each teacher then posts a brief description of the blog project as a first blog entry. Below is a sample photo and introductory text which teachers may use:
Arty-facts: Photo-blogging Cultures!
In this blog we are going to tell students in [Country B] about ourselves and our culture. We will use digital photos of objects that are important to us, to tell our partner school about ourselves, and we will use photos of things from our country to tell them a bit about where we live. We will also find out about [Country B] in their class blog! We hope you enjoy reading about us and our country!
Each teacher also posts a second blog entry to his/her respective class blog, with a digital photo of a significant personal object, and an introduction. We suggest including the following information in this posting: Personal information (name, age, town, brief physical description, pets, hobbies etc) A brief description of the personal object* Why it is significant
Note that this introductory posting by the teacher will act as a model for learners for their own introductory postings and objects, so it can be made longer or shorter, and more or less complex depending on the level of the learners *Ideas for personal objects can be given to learners: a piece of jewellery, a CD or DVD, a book, a photo or picture, a toy or trinket, a shell, a plant…
2 The class blog – introductions [first and second class] Each partner teacher explains the project to his/her own learners, and shows them their recently set up class blog, which already has the project introductory text and photo, plus a personal introduction and a photo of a personal object from the teacher. Each learner needs to go home and decide on one personal and significant object through which to introduce him/herself to the partner class. Learners are then going to: a) post an introduction, plus a digital photo of their personal object, to their own class blog b) look at the partner class blog and read about the learners and their objects c) post comments to the partner class blog on the introductions and objects The teachers from Country A and Country B will need to decide on a clear timeframe and deadline for taking photos of personal objects e.g. two weeks. As learners will need to use digital cameras to take a photo of their object, the logistics of this will need to be planned carefully by each teacher, within the time frame. The photos can then all be transferred to a school computer to upload to the blogs. Once the digital photos have been collected and put on a school computer, and each learner has prepared his/her introductory text, in the second class, each teacher takes his/her class to the computer lab to post each introductory text and photo to their respective class blog. A clear deadline for this also needs to be negotiated by the teachers of each class.
3 Responding to the partner class blog [ third class ] In a subsequent class, once both Country A and Country B’s learners have each posted to their respective class blogs, learners visit the partner country’s class blog, read the introductory postings, look at the objects, and post comments. (The teachers could assign learners in each class which postings to reply to, to ensure that every posting receives a comment.) Again, a clear deadline needs to be set by the teachers for this to happen, preferably on the same (or very close) days, as learners will be very motivated to go back to their own class blog and read the comments on their own entries– the time between steps 3 and 4 (below) should be as short as possible to maintain motivation.
4 Reading the comments in the class blog, and a second posting [ fourth class ] Learners go to their own class blog again and read the comments posted there – they can reply to comments on their own postings if they like. Learners now prepare a second posting for their class blog, this time in pairs. To do this second posting, in pairs learners need to: a) choose an object which they feel represents their culture**. Note that the cultural object should be significant to their own culture as far as possible (as opposed to part of the global culture). b) find a digital photo online which they feel represents or shows their chosen object, and save it to a hard drive. You will need ensure that copyright for images taken from the Internet is respected (see the Tutorial on Blogs Step 5 for more on this issue) c) write a short description of the object, explaining why it is significant in their culture. The teacher can set a world limit for this (e.g. 100 – 150 words) d) post the cultural object description with the photo they found online, to their own class blog ** Ideas for cultural objects (also called ‘artefacts’) can be given to learners to choose from, or alternatively teachers can assign each pair a category: food & drink; festivals or significant public holidays; clothes; language; songs; paintings & painters; everyday customs & habits; superstitions; politeness & social norms; school life; cities; transport; architecture … A clear deadline for this stage needs to be agreed upon by the two teachers.
5 Finding out about cultural objects in the other country [ fifth class ] In this stage of the project, learners are going to look at (and comment on) the cultural objects chosen by the partner country. Before going to the partner class’ blog to read about these, we want learners to first think about their own cultural perceptions of the partner country. a) Learners in 2s or 3s brainstorm one or two cultural objects from the other country’s culture for each of the cultural categories suggested above (see **). b) The teacher builds up a mind map on a poster of the brainstormed objects. c) Learners go along to the partner country’s blog, and see which of the objects they brainstormed (if any) are in the blog. These are marked by the teacher on the mind map - any new objects for each category are added to the mind map, in a different colour. d) In pairs, learners post comments in the partner country’s blog about the cultural objects portrayed. These comments might include changes in perception as a result of seeing the blog (e.g. I thought that the most typical food in Spain is paella, but now I see that you eat x as well or I didn’t know that there is a new metro system in y etc.) Again, a clear deadline for posting comments needs to be set by the two teachers, with as little time lapse as possible between this stage and stage 6 (see below), so as to keep motivation high.
6 Reading comments on cultural objects – summing up [ sixth class ] a) Learners go to their own class blog again, and read the comments from the partner class on their own cultural objects. They may respond to comments. b) Each teacher leads a discussion with his /her own class (in L1 if necessary) on how perceptions of the partner country’s culture have changed as a result of reading the blogs. Learners could be encouraged to fill in a grid like the one below, or to create a mind map: Country: What I thought before
food & drink festivals & holidays clothes Art (songs; paintings etc) everyday customs & habits superstitions language politeness & social norms school life cities transport architecture [other categories]
What I know now
c) Depending on age and maturity, learners can also be encouraged to consider what views the partner country seemed to have of them (again, in L1 if necessary).
7 Follow up ideas Learners prepare a poster, or a Powerpoint presentation, or a text on a) what they have found out about the other country and/or b) how the other country sees them They present this to other classes in the school Further topics are explored in the blogs between the same two classes. These could be cross-curricular in nature: E.g. History: a famous inventor/writer/painter etc from each country is presented by pairs on the respective class blogs, and comparisons are drawn
This tutorial was developed by Nicky Hockly of The Consultants-E. www.theconsultants-e.com