World Cup Scavenger Hunt - 7th grade

Practically all of my students are football fans and the World Cup was just too big to pass up. Even my 7th graders who are usually not so keen on football had a hard time escaping the craziness that swept the country. Hey! Even I had a hard time doing so!

So with that in mind I decided to include it in my lesson plan.

First, I created an online scavenger hunt using Google Docs. I divided them in groups and provided them with questions to Google (eg Which country won the first World Cup? How many World Cups did Argentina play? Which country won the most World Cups?) Each team had to find out the information and complete it in the shared document which was being projected on the Interactive Whiteboard. The team that got all the answers correct first, would win.


Pros and cons of the activity


Pros:

With this activity, students were able to develop search skills. I noticed some of them were totally clueless as to how to conduct a proper search. I helped them out by directing them to verified sites or choosing more appropriate search words.

By working in groups, it allowed them to compensate for whatever they were lacking: comprehension skills, search skills, use of the computers. Most of the times, they would call me for help and end up helping one another instead while I 'supervised'


Cons:

Using a single shared document (and having it projected on the IWB) proved to be an excellent opportunity to tackle some issues. One of the fastest teams participating in the scavenger hunt, decided to get the upper hand by deleting other teams' responses. So it was the perfect opportunity to discuss some digital citizenship elements, such as proper online conduct and respect for other people's work.

Given the competitive nature of the activity, English was definitely not the language used for communication (not even for the search itself) I was not terribly worried about that, because when the time came to share the results, English had to be spoken.


All in all, it was a great activity. It paved the way for the World Cup Project I have in mind for them.

GAFE Summit

This just keeps getting better and better!

I was fortunate enough to attend Argentina's first GAFE Summit. Organized and led by EdTechTeam, the one-day workshop focused on how to incorporate Google products in our lessons. Presenters Juan de Luca and Stephanie Cerda did an extraordinary job and I'm glad I was a part of it.