![]() I am very excited to share this idea from our 4th Grade teacher Mrs. Melissa Vannoy. She has allowed me to write about this lesson on my blog but she is the brains behind this awesomeness! In 4th grade, students must compare the phsyical properties of rocks. Mrs. Vannoy started this learning goal with a fun rock cycle activity she found on Pinterest involving Starburst candy. Using a little heat and pressure, the students transformed their candy squares into metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks. The learning didn't stop there. Throughout this rock cycle process, students used their iPads to document the steps with pictures. Later, Mrs. Vannoy asked them to create an Adobe Spark video to share what they learned about the Rock Cycle. Here were her guidelines: ![]() As you can see, she gave them the very basic components of the presentation and let the kids go from there. Together with their partner, each student created an Adobe Spark video complete with images of their starburst rocks and explanations of what they did to create each rock. Once the video was done, each group played it for Mrs. Vannoy giving her time to check the accuracy of their explanations and the quality of their work. Once Mrs. Vannoy approved the videos, each group created a QR code that linked to their video. Yes, the students created these. It was not another thing for the teacher to do. They simply copied the link to their Adobe Spark Video and pasted it into the QR code generator, qrstuff.com. Once their QR code was created, they imported it into Pages and added a title. Wow! That seems like a lot of steps right? It always does when it is all typed out. The knowledge gained from this activity was worth every second spent on it. Not only did they learn some cool techy tools but the bigger picture is that they processed their rock creating starburst activity. It was no longer just a fun thing they did in science class but something they had to think through. They had to process the what, the why, and the how of the rock cycle. I am pretty sure each one of these kids can probably tell you exactly how each type of rock is formed now! Check out their finished products by clicking on each image below.*Note that when you click on each video the Adobe Voice website says was produced by me. I can assure you, I did not create these. To have an Adobe ID, the students must be 13. Our 4th graders are not. So, they all login to the same account using an email address setup under my name. This also helps the teachers when they go to grade because they can login to that same account and access each Adobe Voice Project. ![]() This is one of my favorites. I love how the students took it upon themselves to create a video book complete with chapters!
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This blog is a collaborative effort between the Technology Coaches at the Palmyra R-I School District and the Knox County R-I School District. We are passionate about integrating technology into the classroom and hope we can inspire others to engage their students with technology.
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