' We are amazed because having our own radio programme is not something that everybody can have. Radio is one of the most important media of our days, apart from TV and the internet. But we have to be careful of what we say because we must be objective. We don’t have to convince anyone about an idea or anything else. This is one of the most important problems of media nowadays: they are not being objective. On the contrary, they are trying to convince the population of some ideas in order to have homogeneous thoughts.'
A team of ESO 4 students working on the Project in 2010
The OLOA Project is a learning sequence designed as a webquest for Basic Users of English as a foreign language. It promotes work in collaboration in a competency-based learning environment. Its learning objectives, contents and assessment criteria have been designed according to the ESO 4 language-based curriculum in force in Catalan Schools.
What does OLOA mean?
We think that technology supports teachers’ work inside and outside the classroom and offers us opportunities for enhancing preparation. Integrating ICT and radio into the sequence is what gives name to the project: On Line and On Air. In a collaborative environment, learners follow the learning path of the webquest (On Line) to create a news bulletin to share and exchange with a real audience (On Air).
The final task to accomplish in this project, a radio news bulletin to be posted to a team’s blog, is pre-recorded and has to follow a given model suitable for Basic Users. The final task is not only language-related. It is part of a wider context which will give it full meaning. On the one hand, teachers are encouraged to transfer their personal use of ICT into classroom situations that help students. On the other hand, learners are asked to develop all those abilities necessary in a digital environment: the ability to read, understand and transform the information, the capacity to choose and think critically and autonomously, the capacity to solve problems and be creative, the capacity to communicate using simple language, the ability to place oneself in a given context or society and the ability to work in teams.
The final task to accomplish in this project, a radio news bulletin to be posted to a team’s blog, is pre-recorded and has to follow a given model suitable for Basic Users. The final task is not only language-related. It is part of a wider context which will give it full meaning. On the one hand, teachers are encouraged to transfer their personal use of ICT into classroom situations that help students. On the other hand, learners are asked to develop all those abilities necessary in a digital environment: the ability to read, understand and transform the information, the capacity to choose and think critically and autonomously, the capacity to solve problems and be creative, the capacity to communicate using simple language, the ability to place oneself in a given context or society and the ability to work in teams.
These three interrelated aspects shape our sequence:
