Month: October 2009

Maths Maps – A New Collaborative Project

Google, MathsPublished onUpdated on45 Comments on Maths Maps – A New Collaborative Project

I am excited to introduce you to my new project idea that I hope will result in some engaging content for our classes. It is collaborative in the same way the Interesting Ways resources are and I will need your help to make it a success.

Elevator Pitch

  • Using Google Maps.
  • Maths activities in different places around the world.
  • One location, one maths topic, one map.
  • Activities explained in placemarks in Google Maps.
  • Placemarks geotagged to the maths it refers to. “How wide is this swimming pool?”
  • Teachers to contribute and share ideas.
  • Maps can be used as independent tasks or group activities in class.
  • Maps can be embedded on websites, blogs or wikis.
  • Tasks to be completed by students and recorded online or offline.

Some background

Four years ago I created Google Earth resources for the classroom and posted them to the GE Community Forum. Two of them were called Maths in Madrid and Maths in Las Vegas. These were based on the fact that there is maths all around us, every day, everywhere we look. Google Earth (and Maps) gives us a great perspective on it all. It also provides easy access for our students to see rich visual content that depicts everyday maths. I have always loved the idea of children seeing the maths they are working on.

The only issue with Google Earth is that it is restrictive in two ways. It is not browser based and it is impossible for me to create a resource for others to collaborate on.

Luckily Google Maps has caught up and using the collaborative features I can now invite other teachers and educators to help build on these resources. It is exciting to return to these old ideas and work on them with you all.

First Attempts

Earlier today I invited some people on Twitter to help me make a start and it was great to see loads of ideas added to the Maths in Madrid map I had generated, based on my original work. There were questions about shape, time, money, rotational symmetry, you name it! (Thanks to all those who helped!)

View Maths in Madrid in a larger map
Please don’t add to this map any more – see the Measures in Madrid map below.

The problem here is that although the ideas were organised under maths topics (see map) with different coloured pins, there was no distinction between age appropriateness. There would be too much to filter out for the teacher or student.

With help and direction from those collaborating, I took a simpler approach and created a Measures in Madrid map that collates maths ideas about the one topic. This time the placemark icons are used to distinguish which age group it is best for. See below.

I think this is much easier to use because the map is about one topic, but shows the grade/age level too. Many different maps can be created to cover lots of different maths topics.

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Measures in Madrid – How can you contribute?

  1. Explore the map below for the ideas already added, follow the link to open it in a new window.
  2. Make sure you are signed in to your Google account.
  3. Click on EDIT in the left panel.
  4. Zoom close to the city and it’s surroundings. (Don’t forget Streetview)
  5. Find some MEASURES ideas you can see.
  6. Add a placemark (use the right colour for the age group it is best for – see purple pin)
  7. Explain the activity in the description.
  8. Change the title to show how many ideas there are.
  9. Send out a Tweet or write a blog post to highlight this resource and encourage others to contribute.


View 7 Measures Activities in Madrid in a larger map
There are endless amounts of maps we could make and once this one is up and running I will be highlighting some more. I will be embedding them all on the MATHS MAPS page of this blog too.

Please help by contributing just one placemark – let others know about the maps so we can gather lots of ideas.

10 Improvements to Google Squared

GooglePublished onUpdated on2 Comments on 10 Improvements to Google Squared

Google Squared is a wonderful search tool, undiscovered in my opinion, for the primary classroom due to the structure it provides – but also because of the flexibility to work directly in the search environment.

(Read Google Squared: A Complete Guide for more information about how to use it in the classroom.)

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Ponte stretto by DanielaNob 
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

As it is still in the Labs I think it is important to contribute in a small way to the changes that could take place so based on my classroom experiences, here are mine:

  1. Search for values and add back to the square – would be great for children to decide that the presented values are not accurate enough, go to a regular search and then have a little button beside the source to ADD TO SQUARE.
  2. Change source for images too – when values have other possible sources we can change them. Sometimes the image is not as useful or appropriate as it could be. Would be useful to change the source or select a different image. Would also be great to integrate Creative Commons licensing for the images.
  3. Confidence rate the data used – some of the values presented show a confidence rating, would be useful for us to be able to rate that info too. If it isn’t relevant to the search we have done then we can say.
  4. Colour change for added search – when you “Add to Square” it would be useful to be able to have a visual cue to the separate searches you have added.
  5. Embed – would be great to be able to grab the code to embed the Square in a blog or other site. You can do it from the exported Spreadsheet but would be nice to be able to add it straight from the Square.
  6. Send the Square – would like to be able to grab the link or email directly from the Square.
  7. Suggest a category from a duff search– rather then having to build from scratch after a duff search – it would be good if Squared was able to suggest a category from what you added. Did you mean…
  8. Other media – please add Youtube and audio clips – we have been looking at Whales using Squared and would have been great for the class to see and hear these amazing animals right there in the search results. Maybe you could add Twitter as well – tweets from users about the category. “I just saw a humpback whale on our boat trip…”
  9. Description source – changing the source of the description would be useful to allow greater access to the text. Especially useful when using Simple Wikipedia for example. Perhaps you could also change language as well for the whole Square.
  10. Fix the Image insert for exported spreadsheets – when a Square is exported to a Google Spreadsheet the image appears as the URL. As Spreadsheets supports images it would be great to see these right there in the sheet so what you Square is exactly what you export.

I hope that the engineers at Google find them useful. Please let me know how you think Google Squared might be improved, especially in light of classroom experience.

Welcome to edte.ch

BloggingPublished onUpdated on11 Comments on Welcome to edte.ch

edtechThanks for joining me here in the new home for my blog!

Over the last 3 years writing about my ideas and experiences of implementing technology in the classroom has been really important to me. The conversations and connections I have made via my blog have been fantastic and I truly value you reading, commenting and thinking about what I write.

Although this is a fresh start – I still intend to use it as a space for sounding out my ideas and sharing how I use educational technology. Here are some of things I would love for you to check out:

Pages

  • Interesting Ways – a home for all of the Interesting Ways to Use series of presentations.
  • Presenting – details about ways I might be able to help you or your school.
  • Writing+Courses – a record of the projects keeping me out of mischief.
  • Contact – track me down.

Featured Content

I hope you like the scrolling Featured Content banner at the top of the page. I have always struggled to find ways to highlight useful posts from the past. Some of the Google Docs work that is still relevant is over 2 years old. The banner displays 5 random posts from any category I set. I have set aside a “featured” category and added almost 50 blog posts I think are still useful.

Sidebar Widget

Make sure you check out the little sidebar widget goodness that helps to display the slimmed down CATEGORIES, TAGS, ARCHIVE, POPULAR POSTS and RECENT COMMENTS.

Most of all please make sure you update your RSS readers if you want to keep up with my posts.

As always I would love to hear from you – please let me know what you make of the new blog . If there is anything amiss then let me know, as Doug Belshaw says it is in “perpetual beta” and I have enjoyed the tinkering so far.