Implementation of ‘The Power of Advertisements’ (SOI-PT-119)
Context
The Learning Scenario (LS) “The Power of Advertisements” was implemented in my 10th-year Portuguese class (secondary level), students from 15 to 16 years old. Lessons took 90 minutes (45+45), without breaks.
Students already had some knowledge about the topic from previous years, but in the 10th it is mandatory to discuss the way in which advertisements daily affect our behavior. They also have to study some of the techniques used to accomplish that aim. Education for Media and media literacy are key themes to be taught at the 21st-century school and part of the guidelines of the Portuguese National Educational Strategy for Citizenship and Development. It is also relevant to point out that Speaking has an important role in a student´s practice and evaluation. These are some of the reasons why I chose to implement this LS.
Putting the LS into practice
My class already knew Europeana, even though students had not explored it before by themselves. However, they easily accomplished the first task and showed interest while selecting the advertisement from the past. Since we don´t have computers in our classroom, students, working in pairs, downloaded the picture to their smartphones (some used tablets from the School Library) – BYOD approach. I made some modifications to the original LS concerning the following steps: students used their notebooks to describe the picture and register image credits, they used their paper textbook to study AIDMA principle. They explored online advertisements from the digital textbook (viewed on the Smartboard). They took notes, comparing modern ads to the ones of the past.
For the next step, instead of creating slogans, I edited and reused a Kahoot I had made about advertisements – gamification approach. This approach worked very well with these students because they get more focused and engaged in the tasks; learning is reinforced when I explained difficult questions, regarding the results.
Then, each pair prepared the oral presentation of the chosen add to the class, using the previous notes. Some connected their device to the Smartboard, others open Europeana directly on the Smartboard browser and others just sent the picture by email. Since I have 14 pairs in my class, time wasn´t enough to finish all the presentations during the second half of the lesson. We had to leave “Class discussion” and “Feedback” for the next lesson, which was useful to consolidate and revise some points. Students evaluate the activity in a very positive way and considered that it contributed to a better learning.
Final remarks
In my opinion, the frame of this LS provided a very stimulating learning environment. Students developed IT literacy and digital skills by using Europeana, they developed media literacy and critical thinking skills (they compared pieces of advertisement, they discussed in groups and they became more aware of the way in which advertisements influence consumer´s decisions) and they improved their oral communication and collaboration skills. Oral presentations were an extremely rich moment of the LS implementation. The idea of the sticky notes, despite being so simple, proved to be very effective, because it allowed peer assessment by pointing out strengths and opportunities to improve.
Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario?
The power of Advertisements by Olivera Ilic
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana Collections and provided by Wellcome Collection.