The lab days represent the experimental step of the Teachers’ Handbook produced by the CURRY project. In lab days, teachers and learners test Teaching Activities, to evaluate their effectiveness and reproducibility.
| LAB DAYS BELGIUM: | |
| Date and place of the Lab Day |
March 14th, 2022 – conducted at Atheneum Gentbrugge |
| Name of teachers |
Thomas Vliebergh (teacher of Dutch and ICT coordinator), Didier Delaruelle (teacher of history and financial coordinator) |
| Number of students participants | 21 |
| Age/class | 12 years old – 1st year of secondary education |
| Title of the activity |
Een website of blog maken met Google Sites (Building a website with Google Sites) |
| Language | Dutch |
| Duration | 2 hours |
WORK STEPS
For this session pupils of the first year of secondary education were given the goal of developing a Google site (via Google Sites). The goal was to transform given information about current events (in this case about the Ukrainian president Zelensky) into an informative website.
These elements had to be included:
- A short biography, based on an given article: 8 questions had to be mentioned on the site
- A site in a site: they had to include a news article about the war in Ukraine and display it withinthe Google Site as a functioning web page (not a screenshot)
- A Youtube-video, dynamically playable within the Google Site
- At least thee images, taken from elsewhere.
The site had to be formatted in a way that they deemed suitable for the subject. For example, with the colors from the Ukrainian flag (blue and yellow).
The pupils worked in pairs and had two full hours to complete the task. To learn how to build a Google Site, they used the lesson materials which contain six short lesson videos.
At the lesson start pupils collected the materials they had to include in the website. Then they visited the page with the lesson videos.
One pupil had to create the site, the other was added to the site via the ‘share’ button. This way, the pupils worked within the same document.
At the end of the lesson, the best websites were selected via vote. The winner got a little present (some chocolates).
POSITIVE ELEMENTS
- For most pupils, building a website was an entirely new thing.
- They liked working in pairs, so that the task wasn’t too daunting.
- The liked the subject (the war in the Ukraine), because it made the task relevant and pressing.
- It felt different from a classic lesson to them.
- The task was clear and doable.
- They thought there was sufficient time allocated for reaching the goal.
- It was fun and creative.
CRITICAL ELEMENTS
- Working in pairs also means having to cooperate in a suitable way. Not all pupils found this easy.
- Having to collect the site content partly themselves took more time then some anticipated.
- Having to ‘design’ the site (choosing fonts, colors, … ) was a little difficult for less creative types.
CONSIDERATONS
We would add a complementary color picker so that less creative pupils would also be able to pick a pleasing color scheme for their Google Site.