Creating meaningful unforgettable learning missions: Mission 2

Hey there! This is the next post about the mission. I have already post the Mission 1 and here you have Mission 2. So I am going to explain and show you the activity. Hope you like it!

Typical foods around the world!
The teacher is going to divide the class into groups of three people. The groups are reduced because it is an activity that needs a lot of coordination so it is advisable not to do bigger groups. The students have to create a comic telling a short story which leads us to know a typical food of that place.
The tool that they need to create the comic is Pixton. Each student can design two or more scenes, depending on the length of the story (that's why I recommend doing the activity in small groups) or they can do it all together, it's up to them!

Here you have an example of the comic:

Apart from the story they have to write the recipe of the food they are talking about. I have made it with Canva in order to do the example more visual but they have to do it with paper and pencil and draw a picture of the food.
At the end they have to present their recipes by groups. Here you have the recipe of chop suey:

The Mexican Boy de Beatriz Diaz

At the end of two activities the teacher has to create a debate with questions such as: do you think this is a healthy food? Why/why not? And so on.

Why this activity?
This activity was not included in the original prototype your open educational digital project. The original activity I explained there was also a digital comic and from that time I was in mind to use Pixton, but my idea it was far from the activity I have created. In a first moment it was the teacher who had to create a comic using this tool and tell them the story. So, teacher speaking/pupils listening. When I started to think about the activity I realised this was not a good idea because I wanted the children to colaborate. So I created this activity you have just seen: more collaborative and funnier than the older one.

Goals:
- To foster respect to all cultures.
- To improve cognitive skills such as reasoning, formulating open questions to justify their answers.
- To improve social skills: talk in public, give their own ideas, work with their peers...
- To use new apps to learn new content.

Target audience:
- Students on fourth grade

Timing:
- Two sessions

Tools:
- Paper
- Pen
- Colored pencils
- Pixton


How does this activity allign with the collaborative project I am contributing to?
The activity can be alligned with the collaborative project The ESL Times because this activity has similar goals as that project:

- Writing with the four languaje skills
- Using ICT when teaching/learning
- Promoting collaborative work, team work and autonomous work.
- Valuing the socio cultural side of the English language

Self-reflection:
I have created this activity to fuse in the classroom ICT, collaboration and content learning.
In order to do the Mission, I have used Pixton for the first time. I took a look of it some time ago because our instructor recommended us the page.  I have had problems publishing the comic from the page because it does not allow me and I cannot change the  privacy settings. I have tried all things but I cannot do it, so at least I have post images of the comic I've created. I am still investigating and even I write an email, if I do changes to this post I will tell you! According to the comic, at the beginning it seemed me difficult but later is like a videogame, because you can choose the expression of the face, the shape of the body, where the characters are, the background and so on. I realized that it was a funny page for children so I created an activity to use it.
Later, I have done the recipe searching on internet (if you want to take a look of the detailed recipe you can click here, is in Spanish) and I have done the instructions with an image that I have created with Canva in order to do it more visual. I remember that the first time I used it, it was like a new world for me, I did not know how to do anything and now, I am not an expert but I am improving a lot and I like it so much!
I am realizing everyday more and more that doing the challenges our instructor gives us that ICT can make us a more autonomous people. I say that becaus doing this kind of activities you have to investigate, you have to read how to use the apps that you are trying for the first time, you have to fail many times... But at the end you will have the final product, your final product. And the next challenge you will have to investigate some new apps but there will be one or two that you already know a little about them and you can mix both, the new one with the other you know. And practising you realize that you can do amazing things, do they (ICT) take time? of course, a lot, at least in my case (for example I have spent hours trying to change the privacy on Pixton), but it is worth because when you have after hours what you have in mind you are not another thing but happy. So this makes me think that this is the same with children, it is even better, because we have the opportunity of teaching them how to be autonomus since early ages; we have the opportunity to improve their social skills (which I consider the most important in the children development) through the mix of collaboration and ICT, . So, let's try it!