Reflection #6: Vidcast Key Assignment

Vidcast Key Assignment Reflection

The podcast series “National Parks” is a series that my team members and I have created to tie to the 4th Grade Core Curriculum: Standard 1: Students will understand the relationship between the physical geography in Utah and human life. Objective 3: Analyze how human actions modify the physical environment. One of the indicators helped us choose our topic. The indicator states: Outline the development of recreation in Utah since 1900 (e.g. sports, tourism, state, and national parks).
We chose this topic to help students understand the importance of the environment, and with Utah being very diverse in many different environmental regions through plant and wildlife throughout the state, we felt it was important for them to learn about these national parks and what they can find there. We believe students will benefit learning about national parks because it helps them to understand what species of plants and animals live there and what they can learn about different rock formations and regions within the different parks.
This assignment can be linked to “helping customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources” in the NETS Standards because having them use digital tools and resources can allow them to learn how they learn best. They can express their learning through visuals (images), audio (voice recordings), musical (music playing for appropriate assignment). We hope this assignment by using visuals, audio, and music will help all the diverse learning styles of students to learn about the national parks in an interesting and unique way.
Also, we hope “to apply the curricula to students across multiple content areas” as INTASC Standards states. We hope that learning about the national parks will open up other areas of the curricula such as weathering and erosion, different types of rock formations, wildlife and plant life in different regions, etc. These things are part of what makes up a national park and it opens up many doors for teaching the other standards and objectives in the curriculum.
Potential drawbacks for using this series could be that I could be teaching in a different state, let’s say in New York for example. The students can watch the vidcast, but it won’t benefit them much because they do not live near Utah and it is not in New York State’s curriculum obviously. I wouldn’t be able to use this lesson for them, so I would have to use something else that would fit their curriculum. Another drawback is that the objective could change where they don’t learn about Utah National Parks anymore, so I would have to make changes or not use it at all.
What I wish to do for the series is create other national park vidcasts. Maybe I could create individuals ones just about California or Arizona National Parks. I could also make it interesting and more diversified by combining all of the eastern states national parks and talk about each of them and why each are so unique. I could address their similarities and differences in region, wildlife, and plant life. I plan to increase my abilities better to effectively study and research and possibly visit these national parks with my students so they can know of the importance of the environment and national parks in general.