EnglishMania

Lots of work this week

The first steps have to be carefully designed to have a clear organization that allows to reach the content fast and easily. The first sessions with students started this week, too, and they helped to assess the final layout.

GENERAL ORGANIZATION

I set the CONTENT INDEX. I condensed all the articles in four folders. LESS is MORE.

000_A first lesson on eJournal: Obviously, it contains all the instuctions to manage eJournal tools. I had to write them in a row, because all articles are linked and you may loose track of links. The name starts with 000_ so that any teacher can easily find it as a Shared Folder in the eJournal system and use it in any eJournal.
2008/2009: It will contain all the instructions and productions for the different levels this year. MUSIC in ENGLISH has 3 levels developing the CLIL program in our school.
English language: I created two subfolders: Grammar, for obvious things, and Writing Tips, that includes a series of articles with information about connectors or style reference to develop PAU exam essay.
Projects: Miscellaneous folder containing the first chapter of this eJournal (Lapland, June 2008) and some of the school international projects.

DECIDING MEDIA LIBRARY ORGANIZATION

My previous experiences with eJournals showed me that Media Library organization is as important as the general layout, mainly because PICTURES CANNOT BE RENAMED OR MOVED AFTER BEING USED IN AN ARTICLE, AS WE WILL CHANGE THE URL and they WILL simply DISAPPEAR from the article.
I condensed it like that:

000_TOPICS: hobbies, artists, family, school, ... It contains a series of classified topics to be used in general articles.
001_MUSIC: symbols, instruments, composers, ... It contains the files corresponding to the CLIL groups, they study Music in English
002_COMPUTERS: parts, peripherals, ... It contains the files used by Computer Engineering students in technical English.
2008/2009: It has one folder per group. It's only used to upload the avatars as a first exercise on correct uploading and logical renaming of pictures.
THEN, MORE SCHOOL YEARS WILL COME

OPENING STUDENTS' SESSIONS

This is another important step. As we will need a system that allows to retrieve students of a particular school year and group, I decided to "think computer" and create an alphanumeric code for the Usernames and the same password for all the sessions (copy-paste)

Username: It's an alphanumeric short form+ the student's name

- The first two digits refer to the school year: 08=2008/2009, 09=2009/2010, ...
- Then, a group identifier: 3ea=3rd ESO A, 2fp=2nd FP, 1bb=1st Batxillerat B, ...
- Then, underscore: _
- Finally, the student's name en lower case.
EXAMPLES: 081ea-pepe, 083ec_maria, 082fp_joan, 081bb_cati, ...

Password: I used THE SAME FOR ALL THE STUDENTS. It saved lots of typing (password & confirmation)

THE FIRST TIME THEY LOG THEY MUST CHANGE THEIR PASSWORD

I gave these instructions in a paper handout for the first session, so that they have a clear idea of some of the rules.

DESIGNING ARTICLES

A first lesson on eJournal. THE BASICS

00_How to log in the eJournal Log in instructions and basic working tips

01_My first article Instructions to create the first production

03_Dealing with pictures How to create your avatar and how to upload pictures in the media library

04_Add pictures in Basic Paragraph Instructions to add pictures to basic paragraphs

05_Ask to publish Instructions of what to do once your article is finished

06_Columned paragraph Instructions to insert and manage Columned paragraphs

07_Change settings Basics to access and change personal settings

08_I forgot Instuctions to start an article in case of bad memory

1st article: ABOUT ME

I decided to develop 3 different articles associated to different levels:

LEVEL 1: 1st ESO, 2nd ESO, 3rd ESO and 2nd FP
LEVEL 2: 4th ESO
LEVEL 3: 1st BATX

GRAMMAR

I developed 3 articles:

Grammar_01_Simple Present Quick revision os Present simple rules and some links to refresh ideas and practice

Grammar_02_Frequency adverbs A quick review of frequency adverbs

Grammar_03_Present Continuous Quick revision of Present Continuous rules and some links to refresh ideas and practice

WRITING TIPS

01_Expressions in an informal letter Writing tips on an informal letter (or Email) layout

STARTING ARTICLES & CREATING AVATARS

Most groups have started this week to get familiar with the eJournal. They started writing their first article. As they had a personal introduction on paper (already corrected) they just have to adjust it to the article requirements.
To start uploading files in the Media Library, they have to create an avatar and upload the animated gif (the animation doesn't work here) and the face in the correct folder. They are really motivated and working on this as a weekend homework.

Next week I will publish the first productions of each level