In terms of 21st century skills, our students have improved themselves a lot.
They planned their own work, they made decisions about the schedule and steps they will follow to accomplish the tasks. They decided how and when the tasks will be done and who are are going to do what. They all had roles and responsibilities. They were active users of ict during the project.
They designed logos and their own games by coding. They wrote songs together. They wrote scenarios and shot videos. They designed the final products in collaboration. They negotiated and agreed on the process, design, and conclusions of their work. If a student doesn’t have a PC she used mobile phone, if there is someone who has no access to technology, they worked together and helped each other.
Their communication was designed for a particular audience in mind. Their first aim was to reach their school mates and the people who are not aware of climate action, through you tube videos in which they showed some simple ideas to recycle. Students selected the tools, content, and the style to reach the audience.
They learned what real world problems are. They read and thought about climate change. They wanted to inform people about this and show people how to take one step further in order to protect the environment. They made an animation video to show people how social media and online safety effects people’s life.
The new curriculum focuses on values education so we embedded them in our project too by means of the related themes. The key values are friendship, justice, honesty, self-control, patience, respect, love, responsibility, patriotism and altruism. We were able to see all of these values during the project. If they weren’t able able to do the activity they told it honestly and asked for help. They respected each other and helped each other patiently without being selfish. They were all responsible and with the love of their country they want to represent their country as good as they can.
When we consider the themes in the curriculum we achieved many important goals in our project. The themes are from 10th and 11th grade.
In theme 2 “Hobbies and Skills”, expressing likes, dislikes and interests, expressing preferences, unit has been achieved by the ice breaking activities at the beginning of the project. They were creative as usual, they used cospaces and metaverse in the activities.
In theme 4 “Traditions” they learned how to describe things in the past. For the virtual reality tour, they wrote about the present and past of their cities on Trello board. They prepared questions and made a quiz show after their friends had a virtual tour.
In theme 6 “Helpful Tips” they learned how to receive and give advice. “Be Safe Online” and “Jane Goodall” Skype activity helped them to use what they have learned in class, in real world situations. These live activities helped them see everything they have learned in class, in a real world context. They also prepared a plotagon animation video about being safe online. It was about their everyday life. So they know about the subject. The gave tips about being safe online with this animation.
In theme 7 “Facts about Turkey” talking about landmarks and monuments, describing cities and historic sites, asking for and giving more detailed information task is achieved by preparing a Gimkit quiz game and city virtual tour by the students
In theme 8 “Digital Era” 1. Stating personal opinions in everyday conversations, 2. Stating preferences, 3. Stating causes and effects, 4. Giving an extended description and detailed information about people/places/events. The students had the chance to apply everything they learned in this theme by writing an online collaborative story together and making an animation and a trailer. While preparing the coding games they used achieved all of these tasks by stating their opinions about the games.
In theme 9 “Modern Heroes and Heroines” they learned how to talk about their personal heroes and heroines by writing about “The Most Influential Innovators”. They scanned online and printed newspaper articles about Jane Goodall to find out about her personal details.
They were creative, autonomous and effective in communication in all steps.