Vidcast Reflection

Vidcast Reflection

Julie Roberts
Shantel Bernabeu

The name of our Vidcast is The Animal Kingdom. The core curriculum used was Utah State 2nd Grade, Language Arts, Standard 3 Objective 1. The lesson plan is titled: Plant and Animal Communities. Our vidcast can be found at: The Animal Kingdom

The Animal Kingdom is a great topic to present to a 2nd grade classroom using a vidcast. We knew that teaching this subject of the animal kingdom, would need visual aides to build schema and would allow the students to see images from each animal classification. Using a vidcast is a great way to introduce a new topic and is also a visual and audible tool in teaching concepts and skills. After introducing the animal kingdom topic with a vidcast, students will have the basic knowledge to begin other learning activities on this subject. It is a great tool to use as an introduction to a new chapter or area of learning.

We created our vidcast in the Photo Story 3 program. This program is a free download and was very user friendly. We were able to find great pictures of different animal classifications to add to the photo story. Once we added and edited the photos, we added background music and recorded audio facts teaching the characteristics of each classification, to each slide. To provide text information for the viewer, we created two Powerpoint slides at the beginning and end of the vidcast.

Our vidcast follows the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. We used the standards in the following ways: 1-a. & d., 2-a & d, 3-a, c & d, 4-a & c, and 5-a, c & d. In creating our vidcast, we modeled collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with the students in the vidcast (a virtual environment). We also used several different sources to find the pictures, information, and we used Youtube to post our vidcast as well as posting it on our Resources/Tools page on our classroom website where it is available for our students, the parents and other teachers to view. We used the Utah State Core Curriculum on which to base our vidcast. The program that we used, Photo Story 3, is a great way to teach the students digital-age technology. It is a tool that they can use to create a report or project for assignments. This tool will allow them to transfer their current as well as new knowledge to new technologies and situations. When teaching our students how to use this form of technology and any other form, we will teach them the importance of always citing the sources used. We clearly stated where we found the information for our vidcast at the end of the vidcast, which promotes and models digital Citizenship and Responsibility. The information on our Animal Kingdom vidcast is easily understood by the 2nd grade students in a fun technological way.

Utah Professional Teachers Standards are based on INTASC standards. When creating our vidcast, we incorporated these standards:1-b & e, 2-b & c, 3-a & b, and 5-a & b. A vidcast is a teaching tool that engages all students and enhances their learning through visual aides, while using time effectively in the classroom. This vidcast was designed grade appropriately and aligned with Utah Core Curriculum standards. The information on the Animal Kingdom was given clearly and accurately, providing visual and audio for diverse learners. The vidcast was created to follow Utah’s educational laws and demonstrates ethical and moral conduct in providing learning material to a 2nd grade classroom.

Drawbacks to using this technology would be when teaching a curriculum that would be greater understood as an inquiry based lesson. Inquiry based lessons are lessons that are taught in a way so that the students are able to do things hands-on to better learn a concept. The vidcast is teaching the students about the Animal Kingdom but they are not able to interact with it in anyway.

Vidcast is a great digital tool to use when teaching a concept that is best taught using many pictures and audio. It works well for most subjects such as teaching math concepts, science, history, geography, and as we have done with our vidcast, language arts. It can be used in conjunction with hands on activities as well, by showing a vidcast and adding an additional hands on activity afterward. We plan to use this series in our future classrooms as a teaching tool as well as teaching our students how to use the tool so that they can also use it to create their own projects.