TREASURE HUNT: CARTOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS

JOURNALIST:

This week, we have took a look to the blog https://goo.gl/eCt2va , which had some interesting points about media bias, and also our friends'  http://loonatics.blogspot.es/ , which we think they made a very clear explanation and fluently presentation (although some parts of the slides were difficult to read).

Now, I'm going to tell you how has it gone this week with us, The Chalkies!.

We all knew that we had to focus more in the content than in the presentation this time in order to success. And that’s what we did.

In our previous work of TPACK, a part of being our very first task, we focused more in the presentation of it and that’s why we later misunderstood some concepts. However, in this work of Treasure Hunt, we did a good presentation as well as a bigger effort in understanding every concept.

Nontheless, every rose has its thornes! Our main thorn,  once again, was the time. Although we did a better organization  in order to get information about the topic, we were anxious and frustrated when time was against us. We wanted to do many things, but not everything was possible in such few time. Besides, we also wasted a lot of time discussing about how we were going to do things, that's a something we have to reduce in future tasks.

I mean, it is good to discuss in order to make a decision we all like, and that's what we actually do, but sometimes we just get pissed and too stubborn, The day we met to finish the task, we were all very concentrated on doing everything and all of us explained each other the information we had looked for.

There were some debates about which was the best map option to teach to our future students (Robinson, Merkator or Azimuthal), but we finally agree with Merkator’s one. That was because we thought that Merkator was the clearest at the time of learning countries and geographical concepts.

Nevertheless, we pointed that it would be also necessary to teach the other ones in order to make children understand the pointedly distortion that some countries had.  

During the meeting, our dear facilitator motivated us in the best way someone can be motivated: she brought us candies! that was good for us for sure, we focused more on our work (although maybe it wasn’t for our bodies!).

The stars were also doing a big effort, organizing  themselves for their oral exposition and having everything on point.

Wednesday came, and this time not only the Stars were nervous, the rest of us were too! We trusted our girls, and we  were definitely proud of how well they did it.

Another task completed, keep going Chalkies! A lot to learn and improve yet!

TO BE CONTINUED

SECOND STARS:

ISABEL:

"This week I have been the star of the group. At first, I was scared because it was a new role to do. However, I had the opportunity to have a helping hand: Marina García. Both of us were finally the stars and we had to reseprent the whole group.

We finished late the work and we had little time to study our presentation, but we decided to make it quite different to the other ones in order to do it funnier and more interactive. I worked really good with Marina and I felt very comfortable with her in front of our public.

 At the begining, we were some kind of nervous but when we started to talk, everything disappeared and we were sure about what we were doing, so we faced the work we made with our group, and everything went quite good."

MARINA GARCÍA:

My happiness arrived when I discovered my “no-role” for this task; I only had to help my mates as much as possible. My surprise arrived when the teacher announced that two stars had to performed this week. So that was my turn.

" At the beginning I felt secure; the task seemed to be easy.  However, little by little, I started to get nervous, I thought that there were such little time that it couldn’t be possible to finish our work as we wanted. This brought me insecurity because I had too little time to study and prepare my oral presentation.

I hadn't had spoken English in public for long time ago, and recovering my English fluency was more difficult than I had thought. The previous night to the presentation I spent some minutes in front of the mirror talking to myself, I was practising my presentation about maps projection: I tried to use my body language, to speak louder, to point out the slides so as to perform perfectly!

There we were. We were observed by 60 people and a teacher who were evaluating us. I was secure. I had self-confidence. Everything was going as we wanted. Just a problem with the screen light interrupted. My mate and I presented the task as we wanted and we trusted each other. Although we will always have something to improve, I’m sure that next time we will do it thanks to the teacher’s feedback and our mates advices.

The responsibility was not as scared as I thought.

Looking forward to working hard and advising others stars!
See you !"

TRANSLATOR:

This week we have learnt how media distorts the reality.Our teacher showed us it with the support of three differents kind of maps which are a tool for teaching. For this reason, I would like to define these maps.

Mercator map: Cartographic projection which creates increasing distorsion of size as you move away from the Equator.As you get closer to the poles, the distorsion becomes severe. Its area distortion makes continents in the middle and high latitudes seem larger than they should be.In addition,It is useful for nautical navigation.

Robinson map: Map projection which shows the entire Earth with less distortion of area. However, this feature requires a tradeoff in terms of inaccurate map direction and distance. The distortion near the North and the South poles is quite important. The straight parallels imply also a severe angular distortion at high latitudes near the margins of the map.

Azimuthal proyection:Map projection which has increasing wawy from the central point. It doesn’t represent so well the Equator Area.Its distortion of areas and shapes increases with distance from the center point.It is useful for showing airline distances from center point of projection and for seismic and radio work.

Treasure hunt:Activity to learn concepts in which the students have to answer some questions with a given information and at the end they have to answer a big question without the information.It is a creative and funny way of learning ,it is based in a game in which one or more players try to find hidden objects or places by using a series of clues

Narture Scavenger Hunt: An example of treasure hunt related to science content in Primary School. For instance, we can organize a trip to the zoo .Before the visit , a list with some clues would be given to the children and they have to follow these clues in order to find the answers of the questions.

We leave the comparison table we made, it is maybe more visual and clear to see:

FACILITATOR:

Hello everyone, I am Alicia Gomis and this week I am the facilitator of the group, so as the name indicates my work is to facilitate and organize the work of the rest of members in my group.

I do work organization depending on the role that the other members have, and roles are:

-Journalist: Alicia de Prado

-Analyst: Elena González

-Translator: Sole Soriano

-Curator: Marina de Vicente

-Star 1: Isabel Ramírez de Arellano

-Star 2: Marina García

First of all I have to say that my role this week hasn't been easy because on Monday Linda gave us our task "Map Projections" and we felt really confused about what we had to do.

In the first practical session we decided the roles and we started reading the task. Once we had got it, I decided what was the work that each one had to take the next day to the meeting, and thus began the discussions because we didn't agree to the place to meet. It seems silly, but the work that day was a little uncomfortable due to the discussion.

We finally decided to meet in La Merced, and I as the facilitator, took them some candies to make them happy and improve their work.

Fortunately, discussions disappeared and we started doing the presentation like we know, without wasting time.

It has been a pleasure being the facilitator this week because it is easy to organize and facilitate the work to someone who knows what to do in each moment.

Well done girls!!! We can!!!

ANALYST:

Second week, second task but the same nervous and scary faces as in the first one. The best moment of the week came when we received the news that this week not only 1 but 2 members of the group were going to be the stars. We guessed that it happened in order to give us a bit more of confidence due to the fact that it is not the same to be by your own in front of the class than being with someone else.

When we met on Tuesday afternoon we discovered the best part of the activity: when we chose the two countries and compared them in the different map projections (Robinson, Mercator, and Azimuthal) we discovered how their size and localization changed according to their author. The worst part came when we had to make some decisions or make the power point due to the fact that we had different opinions and some of us were very stubborn, but we finally came into an agreement. 

All of us have learnt that the topic related to map projections is related with one of the elements that compose TPACK, which is the Content Knowledge. This term explains that knowledge has a cost: if teachers do not have a base of the content, that is what they are teaching, children can misinterpret that content. For example, teachers should advice children that every map distorts reality depending on the author’s wishes and the powerful people.
Talking about us as a group, on the one hand we need to conserve the good environment that we have and the dynamic, but on the other hand we should improve our creativity and do things quicker. 

This content, especially the Treasure Hunt is related to our degree since it is an activity used in schools to teach concepts. Students have to answer some questions with a given information and when they finish they have to answer a big question; so we will probably use it more than once.
We think that there are some evident social connections of this content with media, as some people say: “Nothing is as it seems”. Our stars gave a very clear example of it by showing a photograph that was published on a newspaper and comparing it with the real one. We could see that the one on the newspaper was photoshopped. 

When they finished we gave them a great applause because they did it perfectly.

CURATOR:

Hello! My name is Marina de Vicente and this week I have been harvesting our information resources! Look for it in this link: OUR CROP:https://bubbl.us/mindmap?h=31eafe/63e580/32QwUHp88ZY1s

Buzzfeedblue  (2015,February 2)Maps that prove you don´t really know Earth.Video posted by:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUF_Ckv8HbE

Isabel Perez Torres (1997-2014) Treasure Hunt. www.isabelperez.com/webquest/taller/treasure.htm
David Warlic,(2006,November 16) 21st Century Literacies: The Challenge, The Opportunity, The Tools. What now? Scavenger Hunts. Message posted to:literacymatters.wikispaces.com/Scavenger+Hunts
Alberto Rios,(2006,August)  Mercator map of the world.Message posted to: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/maps/page10.html
University of illinois, (2013,October),Globals currents, World Maps and Worldview: Social and Political Implications.Message posted to: publish.illinois.edu/globalcurrents/2013/10/16/world-maps-and-worldview-social-and-political-implications/
University of Wisconsin-Madison (Jan 19 - May 13, 2016), The Robinson Projection. Message posted to: www.geography.wisc.edu/maplib/robinson_projection.php