Activity #5 - Animoto/Rubrics

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

Animoto is a great way to share pictures and images of many different ideas. I would be very open to exploring Animoto with my students because it could be very challenging to find particular images with certain shapes, letter, and numbers. I would like to have students create an Animoto showing the progress of math steps and solving them using words, numbers, and pictures. I especially appreciate that these videos can be shared at home. Video production requires the application of a variety of research, organization, visualization, and interpretation skills (Howland, Jonassen, Marra, 2012). With criteria, students would be required to think deeply and utilize their critical thinking skills in order to effectively produce their video.

Rubrics on the other hand are considered more for teachers to develop. Usually, students are provided with a teacher made rubric so they are aware of how they will be assessed. Students are able to understand where they lacked sufficient skill or where their strengths are because they are able to pretty much grade themselves. I have never had this opportunity nor have I been comfortable enough to present it to 6^th graders, but I would like to see learners create their own rubric in which they are given the opportunity to express what they feel are the most important topics or items to master.

Activity #4 - Moodle/Concept Mapping

Wordle would be helpful in my classroom for vocabulary words. Math is like a whole new language and it would be awesome to list math words for different aspects of math and have a nice Wordle to display to remind kids of the most important words to know and understand. This would be a great pre- and post- class or group activity. It will withdraw prior knowledge of certain words and we would be able to compare the pre-Wordle with the post-Wordle to see how students’ understanding developed by the end of the unit or lesson. Wordle is so easy to use and very versatile.

I had never really thought of using concept mapping for math, but now, I envision great things using this activity. 

Students can use a mapping concept to show and explain the steps or procedures to the different ways to solve problems. I would like them to show the preferred process and a process they have seen or even used themselves. From this, they will be able to compare and explain why the preferred route is correct. I would have the students search and include links to websites, webpages, or videos that explain the process in a more clear way for others to understand. Concept maps are a great way for students to learn to organize their scattered thoughts, which will lead to increased, and organized understanding, which will lead to deeper thinking abilities.