Elaborate

**The Elaborate Stage**
This phase provides opportunities for students to apply what they have learned to new situations and so develop a deeper understanding of the concept or greater use of the skill. It is important for students to discuss and compare their ideas with each other during this phase.

**Primary Pad** This electronic tool is a great way for students to facilitate discussions throughout their school and if needed across the globe via the internet. But it's not only for discussion, children can improve each other's sentences, play many words games( for example, a Student type a synonym and the others who or on the page will list as many as they possibly can). There are many exciting and great ideas as to how this tool can be best utilized and it will be interesting to see its development in the future.

Below is a link to a brief start that I made in relation to earthquakes which could get the kids started in their discussion []

**Lesson Ideas**


 * Begin the lesson with students going out to their tables and using post-it notes give students 2 minutes to write down as many facts as they can think of about earthquakes. Get the students to then come and stick these on the board, if there is the same fact just get the students to place that over the top of the corresponding one that is similar. Teacher can then facilitate a discussion about the facts which students came up with.
 * Students can then log onto their computers and click on the link to the primary pad which the teacher has posted online. Explain to students how to use this resource and how valuable it can be for their learning experience. Students can then facilitate their own discussion in regards to their knowledge of earthquakes. Its important that the students work cooperatively and purposefully towards the project to ensure that tool and the students time is utilised properly. For example, A students may post, "What is the largest earthquake within the last 100 years?", by posting this on the pad it gives all students a chance to respond to the question to help the student gain the right information. They can also post ideas as to how to go about using other resources such as the glogstar an the animation.
 * To conclude the lesson gather the students on the floor and get 3 students to come to the front of the class and tell the class 1 thing that they picked up about primary pad and why they find it useful to their learning.

**Digital Media Resource**

Students create a piece of digital media about the topic. This can involve:
 * podcasts (audacity, garageband)
 * movies (imovie, greenscreen)
 * animation (stop motion, pencil, flash)
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">websites (Wikispaces, blogs, dream weaver)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Below is a very basic animation and movie created about the topic. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">media type="youtube" key="xQ5r7_dFaTU" height="349" width="560"

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Lesson Ideas**


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This is the ideal stage for collaborative group work and creating a piece of digital media is a fun and engaging way of learning. Students choose the way they would like to present their information from the above list of digital media. In order to give the students ownership of their work and the freedom to explore the topic, there would not be many boundaries placed on the students, as long as they stay within the topic area they are able to let their creativeness flourish.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**VELS Link** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING - Information and Communications Technology

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Use ICT tools and techniques to represent and explore processes, patterns and cause-and-effect relationships. They document in their bank of digital evidence how these visualising thinking strategies help them to understand concepts and relationships. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: 21px;">Students safely and independently use a range of skills, procedures, equipment and functions to process different data types and produce accurate and suitably formatted products to suit different purposes and audience <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">s.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">To continue to the Evaluate stage click here