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My name is Erika Amatulli.
I studied at The University of Milan from 2009 to 2015. The first cycle of my university studies consisted of a three-year bachelor program in Philosophy. In 2012 I earned a 1st level degree in Philosophy of Logic.
The second cycle of my university studies consisted of a two-year master program in Philosophical Sciences. In 2015 I earned a 2nd level degree in History of Logic.  Furthermore, I studied piano at The Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado from 1996 to 2008, earning a Diploma in Music Theory and Solfeggio at The Conservatory of Trento “F.A. Bonporti” and passing the 5th year piano exam at The Conservatory of Genova, “Niccolo’ Paganini”.

From April to June 2016, in Milan (at “the Scuola secondaria di primo grado Moscati Mameli”), I had the opportunity to teach three children (two Chilean children who had just moved to Italy and one Chinese Child) Italian as a second language. I was a volunteer and, without any previous experience, I tryed to teach these three children the basics of Italian, helping them do their daily homework and improve their communication skills. Thanks to this first experience, I started to develop a strong interest in language education (how languages are learnt and taught).

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From January 2017 to June 2018, I developed a project addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years old) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion concerning ‘Interculture, Citizenship and Costitution’ in a Primary School near Milan (Istituto Comprensivo Mediglia). Furthermore, in the same school, I had the opportunity to work as a special ed teacher with two boys.

My project (“Citizenship and Costitution”) included five learning units, concerning different topics: “the History of the Self”, “Environmental Education”, “Nutritional Education” and “Road Safety Education”.
The content and the degree of detail was calibrated in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence. The majority were from Egypt and Morocco. Some of them, representing the first generation who was born in Italy, spoke Italian as a second language fluently, others, who moved to Italy over the course of the year, had to start with the basics.

Working with small groups of students and in a different classroom, I decided to use only my laptop.
My students could freely have access to it and use it for our purposes.
Finally, during the year, everyone could check his/her Learning Diary (our portfolio), constantly updated and personalized.

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3) First module: What is Cultural Heritage?

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3) First module: What is Cultural Heritage?

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How do you think cultural Heritage can be best preserved?

The first video presents some beautiful examples of Cultural Heritage, in its tangible and intangible aspects.
The second video shows the real power of Cultural Heritage. It can affect our state of mind in different ways; looking for different scenaries, we always experience a lot of, sometimes opposite, emotional states.
Preserving our Cultural Heritage is extremely important. Every educator has a positive duty to teach the necessity of its respect, considering not only examples of the national heritage, in its tangible and natural aspects, but also elements of the Cultural Heritage of other States. I believe that the process of converting resources into digital forms can help save and promote, on a large scale, the Cultural Heritage, especially the intangible Cultural Heritage.

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4) First module: European Year of Cultural Heritage

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4) First module: European Year of Cultural Heritage

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Please: come up with and describe in a few sentences a potential activity/event for the European Year of Cultural Heritage that you could organise in your community. Please sheare below

At the moment I am teaching in a Primary School near Milan. A potential activity for the European Year of Cultural Heritage that I could organise in my community might be a photo contest.
Every student might take a picture of an element he/she aknowledges to be important/ famous in Milan, and, of course, related to the Cultural Heritage of this Italian city. It might be a photo of a building, monument, sculpture, handcraft, dish etc. All the images should be associated with a short explanation of the reasons of the student’s personal choice and should be made publicly visible (also online, through the School website). A jury, made of students, parents and teachers, could decide (explaining all the criteria) the winning images and the best photographers.

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5) First module: (European) Cultural Heritage in Education

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5) First module: (European) Cultural Heritage in Education

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Is cultural Heritage included in the curriculum of your school?
If so, please share with your peers where you are from and how cultural Heritage is represented in your curriculum

I was born in Milan, a big city in the northern part of Italy. Considering the schools/university I attended when I was a student (in Milan) and considering the primary school where I am working at the moment (near Milan), I think that Cultural Heritage is included in the curriculum. Every subject we teach can be seen as a product of our Cultural Heritage, every tool (also technological tools) we use can be considered as an essential part of our Cultural Heritage. Of course, we are often unaware of this and we forget to make explicit what is already implicit in our lessons. Developing a project called “Citizenship and Constitution”, mainly addressed to children (of different ages and nationalities) who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion, personally, I tend to underline the importance of our Cultural Heritage, in some of its different aspects, mainly tangible, intangible and natural aspects.
Another thing…: Currently, a group of children (who are 10-11 years old), guided by one of my favourite colleague, is taking part to an eTwinning Project!.

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Try it out: Have you had a look at the Europeana website? What is your first impression? Do you see some contents that could be useful in your classes? Share some ideas with your peers in the Padlet below to get you ready for the next modules

Yes, I had a look at the Europeana website. I immediately thought that it was a huge platform with a lot of interesting materials (written texts, audio-files, images, drawings, etc..) which can be used in order to carry out research in many different fields. From my point of view, one important aspect is represented by the reliability of all the sources that are included in this platoform. Sometimes, young students complete their research using sources and materials that are not relevant or that are not acceptable, for this reason, I think, Europeana website might represent a good starting point for them!
As I have already said, working in a Primary School, I had the opportunity to develop a project called “Citizenship and Constitution”, mainly addressed to children (of different ages and nationalities) who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion and I really believe that Europeana website might be useful to integrate and to enrich the materials I usually prepare for my children, especially considering the vast archive of images I have just discovered in this platform.
From my perspective, the section of the website related to Migration is the most interesting and I really want to follow its development.

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7) First module: Find a representative artefact in your city and take a picture in front of it

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7) First module: Find a representative artefact in your city and take a picture in front of it

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The Scala Theater

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For this activity, we would like you to explore the thematic collections, galleries and exhibitions in Europeana platform. Try to find one resource you think you can use to create a learning scenario. Then, explain what it is about and suggest some possible activities you may develop in this scenario.

Developing a project called “Citizenship and Constitution”, mainly addressed to children (of different  nationalities) who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion, personally, I would like to focus my attention on the sections (thamatic collections, galleries and exhibitions) of the Europeana platform concerning the topic of Migration.
One resource I would like to use in order to create my potential learning scenario is one of the Europeana Galleries, “Famous Migrants” (in order to create my learning scenario, I intend to use also other resources of the Europeana Platform). This Gallery includes many pictures (portraits, photos, sketches..) which represent famous men and women, European migrants or refugees, who became great artists or scientists.

Considering the groups of children I am currently working with (10 groups of children belonging to 10 different classes), my potential learning scenario could be addressed to 2 groups of 3 children (9-10-11 years old). I may develop 3 possible activities linked to this particular resource.

1 st activity (4 stages): creation of a group PPT Presentation.
First stage: Teacher’s brief introduction to the Europeana Platform and to its resources.

Teacher’s explanation of the main objective of the Project: “Group PPT Presentation of ONE EUROPEAN ARTIST’ S LIFE AND ONE EUROPEAN SCIENTIST’S LIFE”. As I have already said, this virtual Gallery consists of many pictures (portraits, photos, sketches..) which represent famous men and women, European migrants or refugees, who became great artists or scientists.

Each group of students should select one picture of the Gallery (one famous artist and one famous scientist).
Many of these pictures can't be re-used because of the Copyright, but they might be considered as the children's research starting point  (identification of the famous artist/scientist whose life will be investigated).
Each group should carry out reseach on the famous artist’s life or on the famous scientist’s life, using resources only included in the Europeana Platform or integrating them with external resources.

Each group should explain the main reasons of the scientist/artist’s fame and awards, especially paying attention on his/her movements across Europe (use of maps) and the main causes of them.

Second stage: teacher’s explanation of the individual roles every student must have within his/her group.

Considering the roles in every group, two students will have to summarize the content of the texts of their research, writing a new short PPT text based on the information they read on the platform or new consistent information they decided to add. The other student will have to select other consistent images/videos ( found on the platform or not) related to the PPT text written by his/her schoolmates.

Third stage: creation of the PPT presentation.

During the lesson (laboratory), all the students of a group can talk about the information they discovered and analysed. At this point, they are invited to consider which kind of information or images/videos (found on the platform or added) have to be used in order to create their PPT presentation (selection of the material).

Fourth stage: oral presentation

During the following lesson (laboratory), all the students of a group must have the opportunity to present a part of their PPT presentation, sharing their work with all the other students.

2 nd activity: test

The teacher should combine the 2 PPT Presentations and share the whole work with his/her students using an online platform like Nearpod. In this way, he/she can also provide other useful information, create open questions, short quizzes, questionnaire related to the topics taken into account by the students (with immediate feedback). Alternatively, he might use also another interesting learning tool like Quizlet.

3 nd activity: realization of one drawing or one animation made by the students of each group and its integration in Nearpod.

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9)Second module: looking for one object that can be reused in a lesson in Europeana Platform: 

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9)Second module: looking for one object that can be reused in a lesson in Europeana Platform: 

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After exploring the Guide to using Europeana in Education, we would like you to browse the thematic collections, galleries and exhibitions and find one object that can be reused in a lesson.
Once you have found it, write a note on the Padlet and add the following information:

·  Title of object

· Author of object

· Type of license (how you can use this object)

· Link to the object

As I said in the previous activity, I decided to browse the thematic collection “Migration”. I am going to present my object:

·  Title of object: dipinto | Raffaello Gambogi

· Author of object :Raffaello Gambogi (1874-1943)

· Type of license (how you can use this object): No Re-use. In copyright.

· Link to the object:

dipinto - http://europeana.eu/portal/record/2048011/work_66405.html. Raffaello Gambogi. MuseiD-Italia - http://www.culturaitalia.it/opencms/viewItem.jsp?language=en&case=&id=oai%3Aculturaitalia.it%3Amuseiditalia-work_66405.

Considering the copyright, I decided to look for the original source, as suggested by the Guide to using Europeana in Education.     I discovered that I should obtain other permissions for my intended use, but at the same time, I could find the name and the address/phone number of the person I should contact in order to obtain a temporal authorisation for my intended use.

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10) Third module:Explore the learning activities of the Historiana Platform and find a learning activity you would like to use in your classroom. Then, add a note which includes:Title of the activity.Link to the activity.Explanation of how you would use it in your classroom.

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10) Third module:Explore the learning activities of the Historiana Platform and find a learning activity you would like to use in your classroom. Then, add a note which includes:Title of the activity.Link to the activity.Explanation of how you would use it in your classroom.

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Developing a project called “Citizenship and Constitution”, mainly addressed to children of different  ages (6-11 years old) and nationalities who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion, I might decide to adapt and use the following learning activity of the Historiana Platform. It belongs to the section “Applying Historical Knowledge”.
Title: Iconic Images. What are the iconic images of World War 1?
Link: http://la.historiana.eu/la/activity/iconic-images/
Explanation of how I would use it:
After reading three different poems about war and about peace written by different poets, I could ask my students (10-11 years old), divided into groups (made of three students), to search for two iconic images of World War 1.
All the students in a group would have different roles:
Firstly, one of the students should explain the reasons of his/her group’s choice to the other groups.
Secondly, another student should describe the image his/her group found, looking for some extra information, for example, the possible author (if known), the exact moment of the year when the photo was taken, the exact place where the photo was taken, some background information (the personal histories of the people involved, if known).
Thirdly, the last student should write a short text in a PPT presentation  (one slide) adding  all the information collected my the second student and the reasons of the choice explained by the first student.
All the PPT Presentations should be corrected by the teacher and shared through an online platftorm like Nearpod.

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http://vangoyourself.com/
This is a very inspiring application that will allow you to easily engagé your students with cultural Heritage. To recreate a famous painting, you just need to go to this website and then follow these simple steps:
Choose a painting to recreate
Take or upload your own photo and twin with the original, for Others to enjoy
Publish and share your masterpiece.
Indicate in your note:
-your name
-the title of the painting
-the link to the painting

http://vangoyourself.com/vango-queue/the-milkmaid-jan-vermeer-1632-1675-vangod-by-erika-amatulli/

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12) Fourth module: Do you use Project-Based Learning  or Augmented Reality in your classroom? If so, please share your experiences in this Padlet! If not, think of an activity  involving PBL or AR that you could use in your classroom and share your ideas with us.

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12) Fourth module: Do you use Project-Based Learning  or Augmented Reality in your classroom? If so, please share your experiences in this Padlet! If not, think of an activity  involving PBL or AR that you could use in your classroom and share your ideas with us.

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I have never used AR in my classroom, but, I have developed a PBL since 2017. As I said many times, I had the opportunity to develop an intercultural project  “Citizenship and Costitution” addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion in a Primary School (at “the Istituto Comprensivo Mediglia). It included five units, concerning different topics: “the History of the Self”, “Environmental Education”, “Nutritional Education” and “Road Safety Education”.
The content and the degree of detail was calibrated in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence. The majority were from Egypt and Morocco.
Some of them, representing the first generation who was born in Italy, spoke Italian as a second language fluently, others, who moved to Italy over the course of the year, had to start with the basics.
The main question which represented the common ground of the five units was:
“Nowadays, which is the real meaning of Citizenship?  What are the conditions that allow us to be Real  Italian or even European Citizens?”
They were very complex and very big questions, especially because the possible answers had to be understandable for children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years).
The first key concept that led me through these different units was “the necessity of raising awareness about children’s personal history, about the different environments (physical, social, linguistic) they had the opportunity to experience, about their rights and their duties, about their material and spiritual expectations.
Of course, these aspects offered a lot of connections with the first part of the Italian Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration of the Right of the Child and, finally, the Declaration of Animal Rights.
The second key concept was “the identification of the social rules required by different contexts (family, school, natural green environment, nutrition, road), and the importance of their respect.
The third key concept was represented by the expression of the main values which can guarantee a pacific coexistence among different people and, maybe, even among different nations: “the fight against any form of racism, the values of diversity, peace, brotherhood, friendship, solidarity, hospitality and intercultural exchange”.
All the children could be involved in different kinds of activities, working alone or in small groups (made of two, three, five students).
They read short texts (photocopies) like poems, extracts, short stories, etc..,
they expressed/wrote their short reflections,  they drew many paintings experimenting with different techniques (sometimes using my laptop)and  they had the opportunity to see many pictures (Internet) and photos (recognising themselves) I could take during the lesson.
All these works were collected in 23  portfolios.

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13) Fourth Module:You are now familiar with the advantages of Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Can you think any difficulties that might arise while using this method? Please also share your solutions to the problems in this Padlet.

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13) Fourth Module:You are now familiar with the advantages of Collaborative Learning (CL) in the classroom. Can you think any difficulties that might arise while using this method? Please also share your solutions to the problems in this Padlet.

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Working with small groups of children, I often use this method. Considering the disadvantages, I noted that, usually, in every group, there is someone (a few students?) who is (are?) more active than others (less involved in the proposed activities).
To avoid this problem, before creating the groups, I tend to assign specific roles to every member of the group: every member has a specific task to carry out.
I am also aware of the fact that in every group there is always someone who tends to be the leader and to be the person who establishes the standards of the proposed works, judging their acceptability.
In general, these students are the students who have the best results in the classroom, who are the most responsible and meticulous. Even though these features are generally regarded as very important qualities, in a small group of students, they can become elements that limit the others’ actions, expression and creativity or, even, elements that generate unrest, even conflicts .
In my opinion, the teacher is the only person who can mediate between different needs, between the value of the efficiency and the value of all the students’ free expression, which might imply imperfection and mistakes.
Another problem concerns the assessment of a group work. It seems difficult and partial.
Having created the groups, the teacher should present to his/ her students which criteria (at least three criteria) he/she intends to use in order to assess the final product,.The teacher should consider/ evaluate the tasks carried out (individually) by every component of the group (different tasks, different roles) and then consider/evaluate the whole work, seen as an outcome of the collaboration between different students. The final mark shoud take both aspects into account.

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My badges!