Oceans Toolkit > Getting to Know the oceans through aquariums

Oceans Literacy

The concept of Ocean Literacy as an aspect of Scientific Literacy has been defined by ocean scientists and educators through seven key principles:

Developing Young People's Ocean Literacy is challenging because the Ocean is large, complex, unexplored and difficult to experience directly. This means that young people can find it relatively abstract . We can define “Ocean Literacy” - an understanding of the ocean’s influence on us and our influence on the ocean

The OCEANS project aims to innovate and extend best practice in the teaching of Ocean Literacy through the use of a synthesis of creative pedagogies and digital technologies that, previous research has shown, can help engage pupils and extend their understanding of concepts that are challenging to experience directly.

Our objectives are:

  1. To use creative pedagogies and augmented/virtual reality digital technology to engage young people with Ocean Literacy
  2. To explore the extent to which these pedagogies can support young people in accessing the Ocean through aquarium both face to face and on line. (In Spain classes can do on line visits to the aquarium)
  3. To explore the extent to which these pedagogies support young people's understanding of Ocean Literacy.

In this lesson we plan students learnt:

Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and compose clear information through writing and other media on various digital platforms. It is evaluated by an individual's grammar, composition, typing skills and ability to produce text, images, audio and designs using technology

Students need to acquire organization skills like planning, selecting, implementing, monitoring, and assesing skills in relation to information management, as well as critical thinking skills. All these is very relevant in teaching in 21st century..

The digital literacy should be focussed in levels:

Teaching and Learning Map

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Aquarium

The aquarium lets students to study the Ocean, supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems; the aquariums are an excellent resource to learn about the oceans.

A visit to the acuariun is a good way to learn about oceans, If we complete it with a VR activity it will be a good resource.

This also can be used as resource for teaching other students.

There are new opportunities for children to learn, touch, experiment, demonstrate theory with prototypes, design 3D objects. STEM education continually improves because teachers, and aquariums continually seek new ways of introducing content.

Teachers create learning design in a creative process based on the design of new practices/tasks , activities, resources which will underpin particular learning objectives in a given educational context and in these activities are supported by Aquariums .

The aquaria served as inspiration to work with VR . With CoSpace students described the diferente Halls of the aquarium and they have used creativity and at the same time they improved their English

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The Big Picture

The Ocean Literacy Principles help us to undertand that the ocean is essential to to the life of our planet.
Every ocean literate person should understand the following principles:

To students get to know the Oceans and its influences on our leve, teachers have made learning designs to work with their students

In this case we have selected the following topicis and students in groups choose one topic or more:

To work this topics, students in teams do great amount of research and data collection, they organize the information collected and analyze information, they decide how they present it. It can be in Podcadst, texts, images, videos , 3D design … and all will this they design a VR scenario

To start the tasks, the teacher prepares de steps and then student implement complex, creative and efficient task:

Students Acuario Approach

At the begining students individually preparen the foreing language and the topics When they are ready they start the collaborative activities

Students in groups write the script using the chosen tool: Cesga App VR tool/ coSpace, … Students in groups write texts for their 360º and VR works, in order to show evidences of knowledge adquired, show details, introduce reach resources like podcasts, 3D objects, posters, videos…

All these approachers are introduced to students through learning designn methodologies (1) el contenido del link aparece en (1) The link between creative pedagogies and the use of virtual reality tools allows students to engage in a meaningful way with the material nature of study. This is of particular interest with respect to the challenge of knowing the ocean due to its relative inaccessibility, which leads us to argue that these creative and innovative pedagogies have specific and important potential to address the problem we intend to address, such as accessing the study of large materials .... These pedagogies facilitate participation in dialogue and scientific argumentation and support the development of students' scientific knowledge and skills..

The use of this type of visual 360° itineraries are very useful for students engagement in the learning process. We can use this format to emphasize many details, and to offer additional information, use pictures, virtual reality to learn. The creation of 360 scenarios by students in an creative contributes to students acquire scientific knowledge and digital skills and competences.

Aquariums across Europe actively support and encourage innovative learning techniques for formal, non-formal scientific learning; they promote a greater cooperation with schools, in order to understand marine environments.

VR is an engaging way to teach content in and imersive way and it allows for students to interact and gives an overview of the topic as a whole (not in compartmentalized areas) and this coincides in STEM philosophy

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Creative Pedagogies

When teachers develop learning designs they cannot lose sight of the learning method and in terms of the study of Science

We propose:

Didactic proposal/lesson plan/ project:

Lesson planning to include the following:

Objectives, competencies Transversal skills, content, methodology (methods, strategies, media, resources, space, roles, activities, learning assessment) and assessment of learning proposal

Digital tools development:

Assessment type of assessments we are going to use (formative and quantitative assessment)

Reflection on experimentation:

Consistency of the activities and tools proposed related to objectives, competences and transversal skill we like to implement

Added value of the use of digital tools implemented.

Keeping on the metodologies it is really important to be creative and able to engage students in the learning process though learning

Taking this into consideration the teacher can implement creative pedagogies

"A creative pedagogy is recognised within a teachers ability to develop something novel and adapt to new situations in order to enable effective learning" Unusual solutions alongside originality are visible parts of creativity (Hackbert, 2010; Lemons)

See the creativity in this videos !!!

The use of this type of visuals and the creation of 360 ° designs or itineraries is very usefull for students engagement in the learning proccess offers a way to bring students closer to any subject, to get to know it in depth in a playful way

Students can create descriptions of different fish and even record them . Students can explore their creativity by working in teams and creating their aquarium or describing the aquarium they have visited.

Students are asked to use their creativity in their designs

We consider that working on a topic in an interdisciplinary way, can give students a more general view of the topic than if we do it in a separated área.

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AR/VR/360

During this lesson students gain knowledge about scientific topic about the Oceans and also some of the practices (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 30) These are the acquired practices:

To do this the teacher has to do a learning design for his/her students. Learning design as a methodology enables teachers to create or co-create, design, and to share effective pedagogically thoughtful designs and practices. Working with learning designs bring a focus to the learning activities, andprovides a framework for deep and creative reflection as part of the design process. It provides an opportunity for more structured teaching activities based on a learning workflow.

As educators, we need to acknowledge the role of digital play in our pedagogical interactions and the possibilities these offer for literacy learning. We need to examine ways that children engage with technology as they learn to read, write, listen, and communicate. It opens new opportunities to support, inform, reform, or transform the literacy with experiences into knowledge.

With learning design the teacher introduces de knowledge she likes as a complex and innovative task and students have to find the solution to these tasks

The introduction to technology is very significant and engaging, students should know previous steps so that the activities and tasks unfold in a smooth way.

Before facing VR, students should know some basic computer programs (hence the importance of learning designs as opportunity for more structured teaching activities based on a learning workflow). So in previous lessons the class had worked on podcasts, videos, and programming. Now we provide them the VR to solve the activity and work with them; students see it as an opportunity to apply all their knowledge and this allows them to be creative and acquire and share knowledge with their teacher and colleges and together they build learning design the can be used by younger students.

We should remark the learning designs as an opportunity for more structured teaching activities based on a learning workflow and the role the role of technologies as practical tools for transforming educational activity that allow students to enjoy, work remotely or produce materials for the immersive learning of other students

[TODO] Aclarar esto Learning design as a methodology enables teachers to create or co-create, design or re-design, and most importantly to share effective pedagogically thoughtful designs and practices. Learning design are the following three ideas from Britain (2004):

Working with learning designs brings a focus to the learning activities that lead to the acquisition of knowledge. While teachers create a learning design, they reflect on the structure of activities of teaching makes effective use of appropriate resources and technologies. Learning designs include the design of individual learning resources and activities, which facilitate individualized education by adhering to the curriculum. The design of learning as an area of research and development includes the collection of evidences which lead to le to the acquisition of knowledge, competences and skills

Learning design (according to Mor and Craft, 2012) is a creative process based on the design of new practices, activities, resources and tools, which will help to achieve the learning objectives Learning designs must be based on 4 aspects:

  1. Knowledge of the subject, provided by teachers
  2. Knowledge based on the pedagogical foundation, where both the teacher and the learning designer have a great influence
  3. Mastery of digital tools is a critical factor in the quality of teaching
  4. Experience in the field of practice, that the teacher in addition to the design of learning must also generate innovation in the teaching process

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Teacher Reflections

The teacher provides videos and texts about the ocean, with this activity students get knowledge about the topic but also practice the language (English), one by one reviewing the vocabulary, while the other are preparing the texts. The aim of this activity is students learn to extract the main idea from a video, text

We comment with the students the videos and texts and all students give their opinions working in a big group. . Some of the students extract the main ideas, Individually, and with this create materials “posters” or podcasts, resources for their VR Products. With this activity students are getting knowledge about sciences and at the same time learn foreign languages.

We ask students to look for external links to videos about the oceans. They have to do e selection of videos that are relevant for their work:

We can also ask students to produce they own videos from when they visited the aquarium and the market. At the same time students are getting to know sciences they achieve digital skills and enjoy.

We ask students to select images from the aquarium and from the fish market.

If any student like to design a 3D object for their VR scenario he/she can includes from the net.

We are going to introduce in the CESGA app the tool es very easy for students to manage.

Students create questionnaires that other students solve after watching the works, this is a significative learning in both cases Cesga App & CoSpace

Using CoSpace: Students are going to créate an acuarium (They have learnt before to work Coding in prevoius years) so is easy to use.

We ask students to chose a fish they liked in their visit to the acuarium descibe it and send it by email to the teacher , read it and the teacher corrects the pronunciation, one is correct the student makes a podcast with it, example:

Students put all materials together and start to write the script and design the scenario of the aquarium, they choose the music [TODO] Poñer o video do aquario feito los alumnos

Once finished this materials seen with VR glasses (Oculus quest) It is very engaging for students I felt that I could ask my students to do anything I want. They were very happy doing all this activities!!!

Then I started to explain the tutorial of CoSpace even there is a tutorial in the tool I preferred to do it by myself it would be easier for students , I explain it through videoconference but they were wishing to do it by themselves wth the video tutorial Students get familiar with different with emergent digital tools. With this activity students have to select the information they like to include, but also which is the best format texts, images, audios, videos , 3D models (we use the ones existing in Internet)

Students didn´t have any difficulties and they got a lot of knowledge. Students also try to do activities as individual works

They are excited and proud because they’ll have the opportunity to watch it with VR glasses; the teacher organices some activities for them like provide information , answer questions,… This is a good activity for inmersime learning.

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Design Material

Students learn best when they are actively involved in real tasks; learning design provides teachers with the opportunity to plan instructional activities in a sequential way that run smoothly and lead to effective learning; the main focus is on learning activities. The general concept of learning design can be seen in the construction of activities that promote collaborative work and active learning; the pedagogical framerork combined with the knowledge of digital and emergent technologies that supports teaching and learning activities in which students and teachers work side by side to build knowledge and develop competences and transversal skills.

The objective of this project is to create Virtual Reality involves getting students to do a significant amount of research and data collection, organize the information they gathered, and decide how to best present it in narrated or written format. It is a good way for students to what they have achieve in their learning. Collaborative Works are a fun and easy way to get students connect to the materials worked in class, in any grade or subject. it gives te oportunity, to do research work , produce own matetials (posters), 3D objects, imges, ,...all this to show what they have achieve during the learning process. The use of this type of visuals and the creation of 360 ° designs or itineraries is very usefull for students engagement in the learning proccess. It offers a way to bring students closer to any subject, to get to know it in depth in a playful way. We can use this format to emphasize many details, offer additional information, use images and virtual reality to learn. This is a useful tool for interdisciplinary work in different areas of the curriculum. Students can create descriptions of different fish and even record it as podcasts. Students can explore their creativity by working in teams and creating their aquarium or describing the aquarium they have visited. We consider that working on a topic in an interdisciplinary way, can give students a more general view of the topic than if we do it by compartmentalized areas and this coincides in STEM philosophy. In this lesson we have used the CLIL methodology for learning science content, in this case an aquarium and the world around it, marine currents, the danger of microplastics,... CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning, and it's a usefull language immersion method that aims at teaching subjects such as science, to students through a foreign language. At the same time they are learning English they a acquiring scientific knowled knowlege.The integrated language science approach is described gives sctudents the opportunity to learn sciences by immersing students in reading, writing, talking, listening and viewing activities and can cut across subject matter areas.” In this approach students are taught in a way in which the language is uised to learn and to conmunicate Learning objectives:

Steps to do the work


Do reseach work, activities lead by the teacher,...: this helps to acquire new competences and skills. Students are able to extract own ideas and communicate experiences ,descibe animals, ideas and knowledge.

Students write the script using the chousen tool VR, cospace, ....: Students in groups write texts for their 360º and VR works, in order to show evidences os nowledge, show details, introduce reach reasources like audios, 3D objects, posters, videos,... Produce the VR /AR/ Cospace product : once they learnt to use the tool, they in teams procede to create uding the most adecuate reasources.

Digital Rights & Responsibilities: Teachers must help students to know how the technology must be used in an appropriate manner and we made sure basic digital rights must be discussed, and understood in the digital world when they produce their own works.

Digital Security (self-protection): we prepare students to take elctronic precautions to guarantee safety, students learnt about backups of data, and control of the equipment, etc ...

Create a VR/ AR/ cospace: Students create their products using this activity is easy and motivating way for

Developing the lesson plan/Project


Plan (activities):
  1. We plan and overhaul the English language we like to introduce with this lesson plan
  2. The studens have to watch 2 videos and a guide and Choose one topic and make a poster about it . It only shoud include text ( make it editable) with this activity learners are preparing resourcess for the final product
  3. We probide students a text on marine courrents (simple) and students have to anser a questioneire. (in this way they can prepare audios for thier vistual reaclity product , later) 4. Choose a fish, describe it (written), work it (orally) and record it ( The fish you like to have in your Aquarium We divide the class in teams each team can choose a different project even they can ba creative and adapt it

4 º Project Work


The teacher explains how to do it, or as the traning was on line; we used a tutorial.

The objective of this project is to create Virtual Reality. This enables students to do a significant amount of research and data collection, organize the information and knowledge, and decide how to best present it in narrative or written format.The use of this type of visuals and the creation of 360° itineraries is very usefull for students engagement in the learning proccess. It offers a way of bringing students We can use this format to emphasize many details, offer additional information, use pictures and virtual reality to learn, It is a useful tool to work in an interdisciplinary way different areas of the curriculum. Students can create descriptions of different fish and even record it , Students can explore their creativity working in teams and create their aquarium. This was the result:
https://edu.cospaces.io/UVN-XMN

Using an aquarium 360º pictures of the aquarium of A Coruña and the CESGA App create a virtual reality project. In the project include information in exercise 1, 2, .. and also use tests (posters) images, sounds, 3D objects, ... The team must: research the the resources, selected them and define the areas they want to focus on and how to present the info. They will have to look for 360° photos to create their virtual tour to the aquarioium probiding clear and usefull information. This were the results:
https://vr.ocean-connections.net/view/1591866508894

The students get to know how cospace work (The teacher explains it or uses v a tutorial.- There are tutorials probided by the tool but we produced a more simple one) Studens design in teams a nice envirooment explain all information and knowledge they like to communicate and with the recorded sound they do the an animated virtual reality scene. This activity is a good way for students learning. it allows students to use 360° to which complementary information can be added through different types of icons or forms available on the web or with resources of the own platform. Again the resource can be used for other students learning. This is the final product , we didn´t have much time to finalize the project https://edu.cospaces.io/CCU-DTP

5º Evaluation process


Self evaluation Each student plans his own learning

You will reflect on which with your objectives for your learning and for team work and you have to design your learning cycle.

Each students must take responsibility for his/her own learning and know in each task that you do what you are expected to learn.

For this you must first design "My learning cycle" (according to the rubric?)

Self assessment students write in their diary about their own activity/work Each student writes about What I have learnt.

To search information in Internet, build up .... What were my difficulties? What do I have to improve? What are my strengths?

Group assessment? ( The points can vary)


Teachers and students agree the assessment criteria, they write it in the whiteboard assessment criterio. One group presents the work and another group does the evaluation , this group gives the feedback from the work done:

Assessment criterio Relevance of the topic chosen, images , and resources used , information, communication ... Is it Clear ? Does it use apropritate digital Tools ?

What will you add ?


Does the presentation provide evidences of the knowledge to be communicated?

After ther project work a team makes a presentation.

Other team evaluates it acording to the creteria agreed by the teacher and students. But they also can use a rubrica.

The team in charge of evaluation will debate on the marks they put their collegues work, they have to justify why give that mark.

The teachers comment the team work on assessmemt and what is his or her point of view The main objective is students use the error to improve their learning. When the VR is produced by one class the whole group together with the teacher analyzes the results and they reflect on what they have learn, which are the week points of the work, what were their difficulties and what were their strenths.