Jessica and I are planning to facilitate learning activities as the students create collaborative, original podcasts. In groups the students will have to explain the phases of the moon. Building up to this activity the students studied the sun, moon and Earth relationships. Completing a hands-on assessment, student groups created a working model of the Sun, Moon and Earth. I am creating a web page that explains our sequence of activities and will post it soon.

This week the students will answer the question of why the moon appears to change shape in the sky. They will use books, United Streaming videos, interactive notebooks information and Explore Learning Gizmo’s (http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspResourceCatalog)to develop their understanding of this concept. Explore Learning creates effective, interactive science and math simulations, which guide students to understand concepts. They began creating such materials for middle and high school students to use. I have been recently THRILLED to discover that they are making their way down to creating activities for elementary aged students -beginning by posting Gizmo’s, for grade 3-5 Science concepts!

For an assessment activity, each group will  write and produce their own podcast explaining the phases of the moon. However, only one podcast will be posted to the web to help avoid redundancy of material content. The students will vote as to which podcast they would like to post. All the podcasts will be put on our local, shared server and there 3rd grade classes will preview each podcast and vote on which podcast should be posted. All the podcast will remain on the server this year to serve as an optional review tool for students as they prepare to take standardized test in the Spring.

Some people may think , “Oh, go ahead and post every podcast on the website.” Jessica and I thought about this…we believe that doing so would be modeling ineffective web publishing practices. Students need to learn how to evaluate the meaningfulness of content and to post appropriate materials on their website. Our selection process, we believe, is a way to model effective posting behaviors.

Let us know your thought on this selection process! We are always open to new ideas. Thanks!