The story of this e-connection starts in a University classroom (URJC), with a group of future teachers taking the Master's Degree on The Use of ICT and Web Resources in Primary Bilingual Education, and approaching Challenge Based Learning through the development of various projects, which will enable them to embrace this methodology with their own students when having the chance to teach real, but at the same time, seeking for project testers, that is, current teachers looking forward to putting the projects into practice in their own ongoing lessons.
One of those students is Billy Ramos, working on the Book ME-Library project to encourage reading and writing skills with mobile devices.
As soon as he is ready for his creations to be tested, I start my Twitter engine and post several calls there as well as in Facebook, where the overall experience is now part of the 30 Goals Challenge and we have become inspire leaders for other teachers around the world to accomplish the eStudents Connecting and Creating goal.
Among many other collaborative colleagues, to whom I am sincerely thankful, Julián Sanz, from Colegio San Gregorio, in Palencia - Spain, responds willing to integrate Billy's assignments into his We Are StoryTellers eTwinning Project for sixth graders, together with Carmen Pérez, a colleague of Julián's.
I quickly e-gather them so we collaboratively plan, schedule, organise, exchange ideas together with proposals, and, as Billy often says: 'We are on it like white on rice' very very soon.
Billy starts with a sweet video introduction for the kids to get to know him better and have a glimpse of the upcoming episodes from Book ME-Library.
Julián, from his end, starts presenting the mini-project to the educational community:
And ... Off we go! The kids from Y6 San Gregorio are looking forward to learning how to become digital storytellers, and there is Billy, in Madrid, to show them the essentials of any story: introduction, nub, ending.
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Meanwhile, in Palencia, Julián, Carmen and their teams of sixths graders, with the help of Billy's tips, are writing scripts and storyboarding trips, tsunamis, monsters, fantastic creatures and loads of other digital storytelling adventures that they share and edit in Google Drive until ready for the final design.
And, there is a new decision to be taken, which tool to use for the digital creation. The winning tool is ... collaborative Storybird, so Billy comes into action again and with his superpowers, efficiently screencasts a how-to tutorial about the artful tool.
On top of that, Billy heartedly creates a sample story with Storybird: Who is bigger than me?, especially dedicated to the Y6 kids from Julián's classrooms, which hides an augmented personalised gift; to open the gift you need the Aurasma app in your mobile device, follow the Book ME-Library channel and scan the book cover with the app.
You wouldn't expect me to spoil it for you, would you?
Now, the sixth graders have all the ingredients to cook and serve wonderful digital stories, feel they are storytellers and have the spirit of e-connected students at the same time. Here you are some of their outcomes, and don't miss the authors' pen-names!!!
And this is the ending of our own e-connected story or perhaps it is the beginning, who knows? But one thing is sure: "We taught and learned happily ever after".
