Category: My class

Google Earth – Where are we today?

Google Earth, Mapping, My classPublished on7 Comments on Google Earth – Where are we today?

I came up with this activity at about 8.55am this morning as my class was coming in. So I decided to do it with them. I chose a city and zoomed down to street level, but so you could see a few miles worth of the city.

I then asked them to guess where we were. I then realised we could play a 10 questions type game – where they have only 10 questions to guess the name of the city. It was great fun and soon they were firing away with the questions.

  1. Is it in the UK?
  2. Is it in Australia?
  3. Is it Athens?
  4. Does the city have any famous buildings?

Wow! This last question blew me away for about 9.00am in the morning – so I answered, “Yes it has some very famous historic buildings you might know.” Well it didn’t take long for a couple of children to guess it was Rome.

I then zoomed out a little and switched on the 3D Buildings network link (only in Google Earth 4) and we looked at the Collosseum. The children were enthralled as we panned and zoomed into the ancient structure. We even navigated so we were standing on one of the terraces of the great amphitheatre. Well the “wows” soon spread through the room – personally this sort of technology should be doing that.

There is nothing quite like starting the day with a “WOW”

We have to remember we are just looking at our planet, but it is Google Earth that allows us such easy and unique access to these wonders.
258541478 bf343a0e5c

So I got to thinkin’ as you do…how can I extend this game a little. So how about if the children were able to exchange a question for a certain amount of zoomed altitude! So the children only have 9 questions to figure out the answer and I zoom further our by say 2000ft Will it help or will they lose the detail they need? Risky…

What about exchanging 5 questions for a 3D model of a building in the city somwhere? Will they know the building? Will it help? Can they then ask questions about the building? (Will I even know the answers at 9.00am in the morning!!)

We posted to our blog where we had been and I must say we all had a great start to our Monday.

So where will we go tomorrow…?

Maths in Las Vegas

Google Earth, My classPublished on5 Comments on Maths in Las Vegas

I used Google Earth and a resource I had made about a year ago in my numeracy lesson today. It was just so much fun and the children were really responsive! Maths Vegas is basically a set of placemarks detailing some maths activities in and around the city. I remember that when I made it I sort of realised there was a great deal of maths available in real life it just needed unlocking. And the spyglass that is GE is a great way in.

255107050 466d7b4179
So we have been looking at the area of compound shapes and generally exploring 2D and 3D shapes again. So I zoomed into the city of Las Vegas with the 3D buildings layer switched on and looked closely at some of the buildings we could see. Identifying a cylinder and other cuboids. We then explored the area and perimeter of a car park that I had added. The children loved it and were really engaged with the work. One thing that was useful was the ability to use objects they know to help them estimate – so we estimated the breadth of the car park and looked at what units of measurement would be most appropriate and the size of one of the cars parked in the car park. This helped them realise the scale of their estimates.

The Maths in Las Vegas kml resource was posted last year on my part of the GE Forum

Article for Google

Google, Google Earth, Mapping, My classPublished onLeave a Comment on Article for Google

Esther from Google Maps has been in touch after reading my post about the local history work (see below). She has asked if I could write an article about how we use the mapping service in the classroom. It will coincide with some current work I am doing with my class about our local history. I am hoping to use Quikmaps (a mashup of Google Maps) to locate some old photographs on a current map. Should be fun.

Bubblr

My classPublished on4 Comments on Bubblr

This is a lovely little app that could prove to be very useful. As the site suggests Bubblr is:

…a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr.com. Begin searching images and add bubbles to them. So easy! Just type a tag and and press go!

The specific aspect I really like is the way that you can search for a username in flickr so that you only see those photos. If a class has an account it then allows a classteacher to direct children to a certain resource and certain images to use.

The comic strips are very simple to create as you drag images to a dynamic timeline structure and this linear style scrolling comic book is what you would get when published. Bubbles for speech, thought and just text are available to add and move, add text to. I found it really easy to organise and it could have many uses – for example it would be a good way to illustrate a historical timeline.

bubblr

Once again the published resource can be embedded into other sites including a wikispace – unfortunately I cannot embed it into a learnerblog for the class blog which is a great shame and I am finding that there are seemingly too many limitations to what can be achieved in the learnerblog environment.

EditGrid

My classPublished on1 Comment on EditGrid

After exploring a whole raft of web 2.0 applications I have been thinking about the application of EditGrid‘s spreasheets that can be shared online. I certainly think that they have the capacity to change the way that spreadhsheets are taught or at least to add an extra collaborative strand. And I suppose I started to think how could the primary ICT curriculum be covered in the use of Web 2.0 apps? Probably pretty well!

Anyway EditGrid allows you to create a spreadsheet (which by the way is a simplified version of excel) and then share your work as you would a Wikispace – I suppose it is a wikisheet; or a spreadwiki or a sheetwikispread!! These spreadsheets can then perhaps be embedded into a class wiki – using the embed media button at wikispaces.
The obvious use would be to deliver much of the spreadsheets curriculum for Year 5 and 6 – but I really like the RTU or Real Time Update feature of it that allows you to see real time changes. I think that simultaneous maths lessons with either whole classes or small groups working together on the same workspace may be an interesting option. There is also the possible use of the spreadsheet between schools in different locations.

Maybe there is someone out there willing to do that ?