ANALYST

a. What was the best part of the activity?

From my point of view, the best part of this week was working with the kids. We only got to work with two but they seemed to enjoy the activity and were willing to share their knowledge. The boy was very excited and made a load of jokes and the girl was a bit shy but very sweet and good to work with. They both got along very well too. It was really nice to see how they used their creativity to paint the template using all sorts of colors for the mountains and the sky and the girl even drew a pig in the sea. 

b. What was the worst?

I guess the worst part of the activity was that it could not take place on Thursday because the schools shut recently due to the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, we grouped together with the cheetah girls to exchange ideas of the stop-motion/storytelling activity. Our task was also to think about how to convert the activity we planned into a quarantine situation, which was a good opportunity to brainstorm. 

c. What was the best moment of the week (in the work of the group)?

The best part was to see that the kids really enjoyed themselves during the activities because of all the work people stuck in their jobs this week. 

d. What was the worst?

Surely the worst part of this week was that Molly had to leave us because the university she visits in her home town asked her to come back due to COVID-19 that is spreading over Europe. We are all very sad Molly had to leave Murcia. 

e. What have you learnt?

One thing that we learnt this week was that kids learn the best when they are given enough space to explore. They really enjoyed having the freedom to paint the template as colorful as they want to and taking part in decisions, for example, letting them choose which part of the water cycle they want to be. They enjoyed having their own little jobs for this activity. This is a good way to get their attention.  

f. What do you need to conserve –as a group– for the next weeks?

Especially in the next week, we need to conserve the communication within the group so we can continue working on our tasks in an interactive way. 

g. What do you need to improve –as a group– for the next weeks?

Due to the recent events with COVID-19 and the fact that we will be quarantined for at least two weeks, we as a group need to figure out how we deal with the situation and continue doing our weekly assignments without meeting up in person. We need to ensure that we communicate well via our WhatsApp group and also arrange times to Skype every week so we continue with our work. 

h. How is THIS content related to other contents in the course and your degree?

As in the last couple of sessions, this again was good practice working with kids and especially time management during class. We had a limited amount of time and managed it really well. Also, the task we did before these activities with kids in the last sessions our topic was TPACK, which is about integrating technology into teaching. With the augmented reality this is exactly what we did and this was good practice for us. There are all sorts of different ways of how technology can be used in the classroom and this was a good example. 

i. Is there any evident social connection of this content (news, politics, etc.)?

We did not only talk about the watercycle. Alicia also prepared a cardboard bucket with questions and the answers written on raindrops that the kids stick under the correct question. The goals was to save as much water as possible. We talked about the importance of saving water made suggestions on how to to do this and the kids added more ideas. Before COVID-19 spread widely over europe, climate change was all over the news and it is very important for mankind that kids learn to respect the earth and take care of it for the future.