TRADES OF THE FUTURE

DESCRIPTION

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This activity has included the development of four training workshops addressed to both external and internal teachers from schools which participate in the mobility programme.
The content of these workshops presented resources such as Scratch, Lego WeDo 2.0 and Makey Makey circuit boards and focused on assembly, production and programming of video games, simple robots and interactive educational posters which might later be applied in teaching-learning activities in pre-school and primary education.
These workshops were taught in English by two teachers from the Technological School “Conectados” from Murcia, as well as the school Headteacher, who contributed with different previous work done at school using the Makey Makey materials.
The participants in these activities were nine teachers from partner schools, local English language teachers and ICT teachers from Andrés García Soler school. The coordinator of this project and the Headmistress also participated. 
We used direct, active methodology, combining verbal teaching, in a big group, about the technical functions of the resources and then individual work using Scratch, paired work with Lego and Small group work with Makey Makey. Upon completion of the activities, we gathered together and shared our results and experiences of the activity. The workshops took place in the School´s ICT and Robotics centre. They were done in the opening part of the day. 
A summary of the results are as follows:
. We produced an educational videos game about Halloween.
. We have also programmed Scratch for the use of Translation.
. We created an interactive video game to teach students about countries in the European Union and their capital cities.
. We made a video about the contruction and programming of the Lego Robots.
. We also designed and produced interactive posters with Makey Makey. With the use of programming, this resource allowed us to make a digital poster through which we could listen to recordings of the pupils sharing the information on the poster.  
To see these results in more detail, they can be found on our Twinspace page, through the group’s eTwinning platform. 
In the second part of the day, the teachers attended different classes for example, Maths, Science, English, P.S.H.E and Music. In these classes, Teachers and Students from the School demonstrated the activities they usually do to teach and learn. In these classes we also used robotic resources to aid the student´s development. 

For the commencement of the activities, the Mayor of Lorca and a member of the city´s educational committee attended and delivered a welcome speech. We also took the opportunity to show visiting teachers our city of Lorca, and we also visited several neighboring cities. This gave the visiting teachers the chance to learn about the traditional jobs within the area which students will learn about in the coming months.

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BENEFITS

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The benefits for the visitors are the following:

. A greater understand of digital technology, with a specific focus on Module 5 of the Spanish Education Curriculum, “Thinking about Computing and Programming”. This part of the course teaches about the main components of a robot, how to programme from remote devices, how to programme and design video games using coding sequences on the computer. The module also contains aspects of basic electronics and digital reality. They have also improved and developed their skills in regards to the content of module 2, “communication and collaboration”, and Module 3, “Creation of digital content” and they have also learnt about using online resources for presenting and sharing the results of the workshops and the functions of the eTwinning platform. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Participants improved their linguistic abilities in the English language as they were required to use English in both educational training and daily life situations.
. Participants learnt about an alternative Educational System from a different country. 
. Participants also improved their ability to adapt to different environments and situations. They also became more open minded.
. They have enriched their teaching practice with more resources and can now better meet the new requirements of the current technological age. 
. Participants received a certificate of attendance for the different programming and robotics training workshops.
. This course has provided the participants with documentation that confirm their participation in European Programmes, like The Erasmus Project, which could be used to provide future professional opportunities as these certificates and experiences could also be recognized and approved by their own corresponding educational authorities.

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CULTURAL VISITS

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Residents of Lorca take great pride in their Semana Santa celebrations which take place each Easter.  There are six 'brotherhoods' in total, we visited the museums of the Blue and White Brotherhoods to see their amazing silk-embroidered cloaks and banners.  They are truly stunning works of art and our children will be lucky enough to see them and find out how they are designed and made. 

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We visited Agilas, a local coastal town, to find out what it was like living in the fort there.  We learned about how British engineers built a railway to transport goods to and from the harbour in the 1800s.

 

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