Reflection on the process of creating your final project

I really like teaching about weather and I feel like I finally have sometime more to offer the kids. In the past, whenever we studied weather, the kids are just naturally excited because there are so many natural phenomena that occur with weather and air. However, as I was completing this project, I started to gain a whole new perspective on how I can facilitate their learning and keep them engaged throughout the unit. This project that includes a real life scenario and Voicethread is the perfect way to grab their attention. Last week, I tried out a program (2Create) on our computers at school where kids had to record their voices to match an illustration they had made. I was so surprised just how trilled they were to be recording and playing back their voices. While I was looking through the ISTE NETS, I really had to be careful about what my goals were. Since this is the first time I am creating this kind of project, I wanted to cover them all! I ended up only selecting 3 standards and I still think that I am being overambitious. I am getting ready to do this unit with my kids this year; I plan to use it as an assessment for my weather unit and I look forward to seeing if I over did it and how the students will respond to it. I expect that this project will motivate students to do some research about their weather condition and also the Voicethread component will provide an venue for kids to practice reading and fluency. My only concern is that my kids will be unfamiliar with Project Based Learning and may find it too overwhelming. But we’ll see…