Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Week 5 - YouTube
This week I have embedded the use of a YouTube presentation as a informal formative assessment based on assessing my prep students current understanding of weather symbols. This lesson was the culmination of the students efforts to learn and understand the use of various symbols around them.
It was interesting to note when students heard terminology they understood their ears would perk up and when the students were able to see their symbols which they had created the week before in action on a weather report they we beside themselves. It was inspiring for me to see that one of the students who normally doesn't enjoying giving input was one of the first to remember one of the harder symbols overcast, because of the visual ques he received from the video.
Something I am beginning to appreciate more and more specially with younger children is that you cannot put a value on different and new ways of engaging them. The variety of information available on YouTube is unbelievable. However finding the right use and purpose for the video I believe is the hardest part and also a must.
I can see that by the way the students reacted, if i were to show that clip at the start of the unit they would of been a little engaged but the meaning of the clip would of been missed and thus the learning would have been only very superficial.
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So true Justin, to engage younger students we must use a variety of methods, and the use of podcasts should not be underestimated. I also agree that perhaps the best use of a podcast is at the end of a unit to consolidate all information gathered and learnt. Great blogs, keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi Justin, I had the same experience using a learning object with my class - see Eureka posting on my blog.
ReplyDeleteJust shows that you can not make assumptions about students. Imagine recording the student's making their own weather report and replaying that to them. If only there were more hours in the day!
It is all about finding ways for them to use the information we are trying to teach them in an authentic way, and you have certainly done this by having them "read" a weather report. I bet they pay more attention when the weather comes on the news at home now as well - more practice and they don't even know their learning.