Analysing and evaluating a reference open educational project

Hello everybody! Welcome to my first entry of my blog!

Today I have learnt how to evaluate an educational project. This is made by a checklist that is very usefull because there you can see all the characteristics that a good project need, so at the same time you are analyising a project you are learning how to do it in a correct way.
As I was saying, I had to choose an educational project between a list that our instructor gave us so I have chosen the following blog: Uso de recursos educativos abiertos para el aprendizaje integrado de contenidos y lenguas extranjeras (AICLE). If you want more info about the blog click this link: REA-AICLE
In this blog there are a lot of resources that the people share. You can find resources of a lot of subjects, ideas, materials and so on. As I have said before, in the blog there are a lot of resources, but I am analysing only one of them. To do this evaluation and the analysis I have chosen the project I've got a pet made by Mar Moreno Sánchez (you can click in the title of the project). I think it is an interesting project and at first sight it seems very complete.
First of all I have used a checklist where you can see different criteria to demonstrate if it is or not an effective project based learning.

Here you can see the checklist I have used to do the analysis with the results.

Now, I am going to do a deeper analysis of this post, commenting each point of the checklist.

1. Key knowledge, understanding and success skills: this project is focused on identifying some pets so they learn new vocabulary (naming pets in this case) and its pronunciation. Also the project develop more vocabulary taking advantage of the topic, so the pupils can learn new verbs such as climb, swim… or nouns such as leaves, insects... There are included in the lesson activities to develop the critical thinking such as answers questions about a story, as well as activities that develop self management, for example individual activities where children have to do them by themselves. In this project does not exist any group task, so there is not collaboration between students. I consider this type of activities very important; it is truth that there are ages where it is difficult to do these activities especially at early ages, but I think is better to do something by groups because it is very important to develop social skills.
   
2. Challenging problem or question: the question I could say for this project is: what is a pet? The project is guided by the answer to this question because all along it, the topic is developed through songs, stories, activities and so on. The level of all these activities is suitable to students in second grade. I also can say that this question allow learning more information because at the same time they are developing the main topic, they are learning related information.
3. Sustained inquiry: the students are involved in an active methodology where they are allowed to ask questions, to think by themselves, to talk about their own experience and so on. So, from my point of view this project is well focused to involve the student in the teaching process.
   
4. Authenticity: the project is very connected to students ‘own concerns so they can explain their own point of view or opinions, their experiences and their wishes. Also it has a real-world context because it is a very extended practice to have a pet at home or everybody know someone who has one or more. Also I can say that the project can make a real impact in the children because through this topic they could learn how to take care of a pet, what they eat an so on.
5. Student voice and choice: I only can say that in this project there are individual activities where they have to administrate the time guided by the teacher, but it is truth that they are children at a very early age so is quite difficult to give them more autonomy.
6. Reflection: in the unit five of the project there is an activity where the students have to talk about pets they know so I think this is a good opportunity to the students to develop all the learning they have acquired in the previous units. Apart from this activity there is no other similar or another one where the students could have any other chance to demonstrate what they have learned.
7. Critique and revision: at the end of the project it is offered a feedback to the students. But it is only a feedback that the teacher has to do; there is not in the project any chance to the students to give feedback by themselves. I consider quite important to do a feedback to the children to know their opinion in order to improve the project for the next time.
   
8. Public product: in the unit four of the project the students have to do a cut out about animals so this is a way to demonstrate their learning beyond the classroom. I think this a good idea if we take in account that they are seven years old children, so they are not able to create more difficult products yet. 

Here is the end of my analysis I hope you find it usefull and you can take some ideas for your Project Based Learning. Now, I want to share with you the presentation that I have done with Genial.ly hope you like it!