Education is an important subject and sector for BERRIA. Essential for the transmission of Euskera and social cohesion. That is why we would like to increase our contribution in the field of education. For this we have created the BERRIA Classroom.
At BERRIA, we prepare and offer some of the content we publish at BERRIA for use in school. On the one hand, because we see that there is a lack of resources in Euskera, or that the resources that are there are very dispersed, are not updated or, if not, reach the teachers. On the other hand, we want to offer reference materials for the Basque Country, its own, for its students. From the watchtower of a Basque national newspaper that follows the world and the present.
These contents are complementary materials that can be used in school, in many cases related to the present day, or that deal with themes that do not appear in textbooks, always within the curriculum, but extend it to other subjects simultaneously.
With this project, we can extend life to the elaborated content that we generate, because we believe that there are interesting contents that deserve further expansion and exploitation. In passing, we want to make our daily work known to students, providing material that allows them to use it in their daily activities.
Likewise, this project aims to increase the relationship between the educational community and BERRIA, both with teachers, students, parents and school centers. The BERRIA Classroom is therefore fully open to receiving contributions. And it is that the first thing we want is to reach the teachers, because we believe that through them the contents will reach the students.
STUDENTS AND CURRENT TOPICS, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF TEACHERS
We think mainly of students over 12 years of age, to whom we direct the contents of BERRIA Classroom, but we do not rule out that they may also serve for some classrooms of the last grade of elementary school, high school or university, something that each teacher or classroom teacher should decide.
We will not classify articles by age or course, because we believe that the situation changes from school to class and from classroom, and that the same articles can be useful for students of different levels. Here too the teachers will decide what is good for them.
The articles were not classified due to difficulty, but their style and difficulty level were taken into account. That is, we try to place in BERRIA simple, more difficult, very technical, playful, long, short items..., various articles and contents. In short, offering diversity. Because we believe that the offer to work some content is very interesting that the economy is the article or infographic of BERRIA that we publish in scientific pages, but at the same time we want to show in BERRIA Classroom shorter, lighter articles (but not less empty) or funny videos that can be worked in other subjects or areas. Therefore, we want the offer to be comprehensive, and for this more and more content on the web, better. That is why the task we have now is to increase the bag of 180 articles that existed at the beginning of 2022.
BERRIA collects the published content, but in most cases it has been summarized, explained some concepts that appear in the articles and completed the contents using other articles or supports. To determine which article we have received the information, at the end of the articles the direct links for reading the original versions appear.
We have not produced didactic sheets because we do not want to enter the field of material production and because our articles do not want to replace the contents or textbooks needed for the curriculum. The same article can be used for more than one thing. The decision on the use of these texts is therefore left to the faculty.
We believe that these texts can be adequate to work on the understanding of the texts, to promote debates on different current themes, to gather practical examples of these theoretical contents through world and close news that relate the subjects to the present day... Some articles can be useful as a source of information for the projects that students must carry out.
An open web that is renewed every day
We collect the contents we publish at BERRIA, adapt them to the students" school use and place them on the .eus/gela portal. Every day, when classrooms are open, we upload new content. The website is open and public.
On the front page there is a search engine that allows you to search for articles. You can search by type and list all the news, all the videos, all the opinion items, all the interviews, all the infographics and all the podcasts.
You can also search for articles by subject: Ethical Values; Calling -Geology; Economy - Entrepreneurship; Philosophy; Physics - Chemistry; History; Physical Education; Euskera; TICs; Classical Culture; Literature; Literature; Mathematics; Music, Dance and Theater; Plastic and Audiovisual; and Technology.
But there are articles that can be worked on in more than one subject. To this end, we have created specific searches to facilitate access to certain articles. For example: bertsolarism; women and gender; Basque; youth; human rights; education; environment; emergency climate; coronavirus; historical memory; migration; health; and social networks.
Some contents also include other more detailed labels, such as geographic location or association to a specific event.
Through all these tags you can look for articles, but you can also write any word and look for it. By entering a certain word in the search engine and searching, you can enter a new field and use filters to refine the search and search for that word along with certain filters.
In the front page appear first, chronologically ordered, the last contents we have introduced on the web. The latest content does not have to be the one published in BERRIA in recent days. It can be weeks or months ago. But it may have gone up because it has to do with the present day, or simply because we think the topic that it is about is interesting to work in schools and among the kids. Also because ephemerides give an excuse to show that content.
Some of the articles we will highlight on time as they are of interest. The articles most used by teachers and students also appear differentiated. Articles with infographics and/or videos can also be accessed directly.
On the other hand, the lower part of the cover has included access to some specific websites of BERRIA, which we consider can be useful for students: Access to the portal of Basque music Badok.eus; to the updated map of the Machian murders that occur in Euskal Herria; to the website where the report of the 1936 war is made and its consequences; and to the link of the Textbook of Style where students can find some general criteria for writing in Basque.
Together with the website, a newsletter has been created which reports weekly on the new content published on the website. In this way, teachers subscribed to the newsletter will be able to know the new contents of the Class. Every Tuesday we send the newsletter to the subscribed teachers. So far, 800 teachers.
Again, the Classroom has launched a teacher forum explaining how the web content can be used in the classroom or advising other teachers.
It also has an email address: ikasgela@berria.eus
Relating to the educational community in the development of the ‘BERRIA Classroom’
Before the launch of the website we started to contact the education sector. When BERRIA Classroom was just an idea, at the beginning of 2021, we had meetings with several professors. A dozen teachers and professors from public centers and ikastolas from all over the Basque Country advised us about the offer, the classification of the contents, the consideration…
These contributions mean that the BERRIA Classroom is being built, and suggestions received in the presentations, which will serve for the development that BERRIA may have.
In autumn 2021 we have made several presentations before and after the launch of the website. We have met with 300 people: with the Basque Government, with the 'Berritzegunes' of Irun and Barakaldo, with the Federation of Ikastolas, with the editorial Ikas-Elkar, with the EIBZ of Navarre, with two webinar with 90 professors, with several professors of Irales from Bilbao, Eibar, Donostia and other professors. BERRIA Classroom, which we believe has provided a sufficient guarantee for the progress and development of the project.
And that is that only the BERRIA Classroom has begun. A vocation to be more than having an adapted newspaper library of BERRIA and especially of potential. Some of the proposals on the table are the creation of original articles, the offer addressed to elementary school students or the journalistic projects that can be worked in the centers.
Now, once the website has been launched, it is up to us to gather the real experiences that teachers have had in their classrooms to know what works, what serves them, what we do not invent and, above all, what they would like to receive BERRIA.
Today there is only one journalist who feeds the BERRIA Classroom in half a day and experiences what BERRIA can do through these first steps of the project. If the usefulness of BERRIA Classroom is confirmed in the coming months, we hope to receive a boost from both the education sector and the administrations to expand and improve the project. In the meantime, we will continue to work every day. Every day we renew the BERRIA Classroom. Because you learn every day.