Submitted by: Lisa Moore, Hilary Deegan, Cheryl Reed, Rachel Smith, Kim West
Collaborators: Ann Dedek, Librarian
School: Short Pump Elementary
Summary
Prior to this specific lesson, as part of a larger research unit on animals and their habitats, students chose an animal to research in the library using a variety of materials and websites. Students then used their research information to create several visuals in order to present their animals and habitats. This lesson focuses specifically on the use of VoiceThread to create each individual student’s “Wild Self,” where they shared information about their animal and its habitat using text, audio, or video. Then, students were able to gather and record information about other animals from their peers, as well as provide open-ended feedback about the product to their classmates. Students used VoiceThread as an effective communication tool to both share information and provide feedback to peers in an engaging format.
TIPC Ratings
This lesson is Developing in Research and Information Fluency as students used classmates research projects to gain new knowledge about animals that they had not researched directly. They recorded this new information into their science interactive notebooks.
This lesson is Ideal/Target in Communication and Collaboration as students used VoiceThread to share their animals. They responded to classmates research with their posts. By using VoiceThread, student projects were able to reach a larger audience.
This lesson was Approaching in Critical Thinking and Problem Solving as students generated and responded to each others work. They used digital tools to accomplish this such as the text, audio, or video options on VoiceThread. To improve this strand, a student reflection component could be added.
This lesson was Approaching in Creativity and Innovation as it incorporated allowed students to generate their own avatars, respond to classmates work with either text, audio, or video responses.
Student Artifact
