Let’s start knowing a little bit more about the city that we are going to visit in this project. Our first stop in New York is going to be The Empire State Building. The second-tallest skyscraper in Manhattan, the Empire State Building was built in 1931 and changed the skyline of New York forever. The observation deck can be visited on the 86th floor for a bird's-eye view of the city.

robertpaulyoung. Empire State Building, New York City, USA (CC BY)

At the end of the session,you will have:

• been introduced to New York, one of the most important cities in the world. 
• known all the outcomes you have to produce in this project.
• started thinking about which five things you are going to include in the infographic about your own life.

Watch the video New York City Tourism and taste some of the events and places New York offers to the tourists. Which place would you like to visit? Which one has impressed you the most? 

After having watched the video, try to answer the following questions orally:

• Do you know any other famous places in New York? Do you know the name of the five different neighbourhoods in New York?
• Have you ever been to New York? And to any other American cities in the United States? Do you know of anybody who has?
• If so, do you remember any of the monuments or places you visited? Any interesting or favourite landmarks?
• Would you like to visit this city in the future? Who with?

If you want to know more details about the most unbelievable city in the world, watch this video.

As you could see, this is a good resource to see places and hear sounds about the city we are going to work on along this project. Which has been more surprising to you? Is there anything that you already knew? Have you chosen your favourite place in New York?

You can answer and summarize these three questions in a short monologue and you can share it with your classmate or with the rest of the class. You can also record it and upload it to your learning diary as a podcast.

As you are going to see in a few moments, The Empire State Building will be the first place you should include on a Google Site map. Don't forget about it!

Meanwhile, visit its official website and explore all the things you can visit in the building.

At the end of this project, you will have produced the following outcomes:

StockSnap. Checklist (CC0)

Task: Each project has a completely different task, with different steps to complete it. In New York, you have to produce an infographic  with five outstanding experiences of your biography: places you have visited, cities you have been to, people you have met, etc. and spread it through Twitter. All the steps within this task will be identified thanks to their colour, orange.

Challenge: Along the different projects, there is a challenge which is common to all the projects, with a Google Site, where you have to search for certain information of the different English-speaking cities you are going to visit. The different activities are also going to be distributed in different steps and you are going to have some help to look for and select the information for the collaborative challenge. This is designed to be done in groups of 2/3 students. All the activities within this challenge will be identified thanks to their colour, green.

If you think you need more info about how to create a site, you can look for more details visiting the beginner's guide to creating a site. 

Learning Diary: You have to use a blog (wordpress, blogger, edublogs or others), as your learning diary. You will publish the different reflections on the activities you will find throughout the project, the videos of the conversations with your classmates, the reflections on the daily work, all the different tasks, the link to your Google Site challenge, and all the other activities that you will be discovering along the projects. All the activities within this task will be identified by their colour, blue. If you need extra help on how to start a blog, please check some easy steps.

Twitter will be a tool you should use to spread and share your work. Along the project you will be required to publish on Twitter using one (or both) of these hashtags: #taskbiography and #EDIAnewyork

If you are new to this network, take a look at the following link for new users.

All your work along this unit will be evaluated according to the 'Assessment rubric: New York'. You can use it as a guide and a reference for your work: