I was surprised that one would need/want to use folders when working with Google Earth, but when the tutorial suggested putting all the place cards for a project in one folder, that made sense. I was really surprised that Google EARTH includes Mars, and that you can do all the same things with it that you can with the earth. (The Sun feature however is not about the sun itself, but shows a time elapse picture of how the sun shines on an area on earth, including sunrise and sunset.)
The middle school lesson plans were exciting and I could see how Google Earth could really help them to look at events through a geographic (and even historical) perspective. I especially liked the idea of using Google Earth to look at migration patterns and the push and pull factors behind immigration, as well as the prehistoric migration of humans across the globe. I like that it can be incorporated into other subject areas, such as history (locations of and physical distances between battles) and even literature (birthplaces of writers and locations of events in novels and poetry), and even science (environmental issues and perhaps even the location of species).The high school lesson plans referred to visual field trips (including ones the students designed) migration patterns of whales and how they affect the Maori people, and tracing the paths of historic explorers.
I viewed one of the education link that had additional ideas for how Google Earth (as well as Google Sky) could be used to understand changes in the environment , natural disasters, and to view an earthquake in real time. I was excited to see several links to tutorials on Google Earth that were not videos!!! The fact that lesson ideas were arranged by themes made the site much more useful, and it was exciting to see how it could even be used in mathematics (something that seemed shocking when I first looked at it, but then seemed like an obvious application that I should have recognized).
Friday, July 20, 2012
Finders Keepers
I'm having trouble appreciating the appeal of any of the three tools we studying today, so I'm going to try really hard to imagine I'm living someone else's life--someone who would have a real use for these tools, because I can't imagine ever wanting to use them myself.
To bookmark items in Delicious you must either know the url, copy it from your browser's bookmarks, or go to the site and then save it to Delicious. This only seems worthwhile if you are constantly accessing numerous websites from computers that are not yours. I suppose this could come in handy for a teacher who works from several classrooms and is unable to save sites to browsers. Another feature is that the sites you have saved can be (and are expected to be) viewed by others. I suppose this may be useful if you and other teachers have saved numerous teaching resource websites and want to keep each other updated constantly on your newer discoveries without needing to discus it together.
Google Reader might seem more appealing if I wasn't already utilizing Facebook for much the same purpose (plus allowing me to keep in touch with others through updates, messages, and chatting). It is nice that they have bundles of things you might like to follow, as well as allowing you to choose items individually. When I fist followed FB and wanted to fan news sites from a wide variety of viewpoints, it took a while to choose a wide selection, so I can see the benefit of this preselection for news and other various types of things people might want to keep up to date with. Of course developments in educational research and teaching methods would be a selection any teacher would wish to follow.
I can definitely see the value of Library Thing if it was used to keep track of a shared collection of books, such as a separate library collection for teaching staff (although I would assume using the school's library system would be simpler). I don't really see the appeal for an individual to keep track of their books this way, or why s/he would feel the need to share it with the world, but to each his own. I suppose it could be useful to keep track of journal articles this way though, and I suppose a community of teachers might want to make this information more available to each other. I also do like the idea of encouraging students to discus their favorite books with each other. I'm not sure I would encourage them to make Library Thing accounts, but looking at this tool does inspire me to perhaps have a project where they exhibit their favorite books.
To bookmark items in Delicious you must either know the url, copy it from your browser's bookmarks, or go to the site and then save it to Delicious. This only seems worthwhile if you are constantly accessing numerous websites from computers that are not yours. I suppose this could come in handy for a teacher who works from several classrooms and is unable to save sites to browsers. Another feature is that the sites you have saved can be (and are expected to be) viewed by others. I suppose this may be useful if you and other teachers have saved numerous teaching resource websites and want to keep each other updated constantly on your newer discoveries without needing to discus it together.
Google Reader might seem more appealing if I wasn't already utilizing Facebook for much the same purpose (plus allowing me to keep in touch with others through updates, messages, and chatting). It is nice that they have bundles of things you might like to follow, as well as allowing you to choose items individually. When I fist followed FB and wanted to fan news sites from a wide variety of viewpoints, it took a while to choose a wide selection, so I can see the benefit of this preselection for news and other various types of things people might want to keep up to date with. Of course developments in educational research and teaching methods would be a selection any teacher would wish to follow.
I can definitely see the value of Library Thing if it was used to keep track of a shared collection of books, such as a separate library collection for teaching staff (although I would assume using the school's library system would be simpler). I don't really see the appeal for an individual to keep track of their books this way, or why s/he would feel the need to share it with the world, but to each his own. I suppose it could be useful to keep track of journal articles this way though, and I suppose a community of teachers might want to make this information more available to each other. I also do like the idea of encouraging students to discus their favorite books with each other. I'm not sure I would encourage them to make Library Thing accounts, but looking at this tool does inspire me to perhaps have a project where they exhibit their favorite books.
MAC OS
I was introduced to the idea of computers in elementary school in the eighties, but they never had much appeal to me. I had played Oregon Trail and that lemonade stand game, and when I was in high school I learned enough about word processing (Wordperfect, Word, Microsoft Works) to get my assignments turned in. I've never really even been big on surfing the web, until I went back to school at UT and realized the books I had checked out for a research paper were all over fifty years old. I am more familiar with the Windows operating system, but I have used MACs a few times. I had never even heard of the linux operating system until I read this assignment.
Most of what I learned from the atomic learning was basic terminology and basic concepts of what a MAC can do. For example:
-The dock is the row of readily accessible icons on the bottom of the screen
-Stacks are piles of documents placed together. (I'm not sure if they are the exact equivalent of folders, or just very similar.
-Quickclick allows you to see what a file is (at least vaguely) without taking the time to actually open it. (very cool)
-Clicking the red box doesn't actually quit the application.
-The launchpad gives you all the icons for various applications.
-Widgets can be added to your dashboard. (They seem like really simple gadgets.) They are a sort of quicklink. Additional choices can be downloaded.
-There is a time machine backup system (but you need an extra hard drive to use it). In case your hard drive ever crashes, this has automatically backed up everything on the hard rive (not stuff on your flash drives, ect). It also allows you to go back and retrieve files if you've erased them by mistake.
(Unlike how the name implies, to find something old you don't have to give up new material, you can selectively retrieve just the one thing you regret losing. --Not like the undo button on a word document.) This is the best computer related invention of all time!
Most of what I learned from the atomic learning was basic terminology and basic concepts of what a MAC can do. For example:
-The dock is the row of readily accessible icons on the bottom of the screen
-Stacks are piles of documents placed together. (I'm not sure if they are the exact equivalent of folders, or just very similar.
-Quickclick allows you to see what a file is (at least vaguely) without taking the time to actually open it. (very cool)
-Clicking the red box doesn't actually quit the application.
-The launchpad gives you all the icons for various applications.
-Widgets can be added to your dashboard. (They seem like really simple gadgets.) They are a sort of quicklink. Additional choices can be downloaded.
-There is a time machine backup system (but you need an extra hard drive to use it). In case your hard drive ever crashes, this has automatically backed up everything on the hard rive (not stuff on your flash drives, ect). It also allows you to go back and retrieve files if you've erased them by mistake.
(Unlike how the name implies, to find something old you don't have to give up new material, you can selectively retrieve just the one thing you regret losing. --Not like the undo button on a word document.) This is the best computer related invention of all time!
Drawing
My first reaction to google drawing was that the name was a misnomer. It was cool, yes, and it could be very useful for making flow charts and for communicating information visually, but it wasn't really drawing, and it wasn't creative. Then I saw how the basic shapes could be used to "draw" Goofy!
I learned that you can import images by uploading them specifically, typing in a url, or doing a google image search. Images can be similar to the stock images, or they can be actual photographs. Textboxes can be part of the drawing and/or a drawing can be embedded into a regular google document. After being embedded into a document both the original (saved) drawing and the new copy can be edited separately. I especially liked the drawing of the seating chart for a wedding, and thought the idea could easily be adapted to make drawings of molecules.
The examples from the lesson plan (for elementary students!) were much more complicated than I would have thought possible. It definitely allowed students to be really creative, and I loved the way the children's drawings incorporated real life images. This would be a really useful tool to get students who don't feel comfortable about their artistic ability to still be creative in a visual way. For those students who are artistic in a more traditional way, drawings gives them a new medium in which to express themselves.
I learned that you can import images by uploading them specifically, typing in a url, or doing a google image search. Images can be similar to the stock images, or they can be actual photographs. Textboxes can be part of the drawing and/or a drawing can be embedded into a regular google document. After being embedded into a document both the original (saved) drawing and the new copy can be edited separately. I especially liked the drawing of the seating chart for a wedding, and thought the idea could easily be adapted to make drawings of molecules.
The examples from the lesson plan (for elementary students!) were much more complicated than I would have thought possible. It definitely allowed students to be really creative, and I loved the way the children's drawings incorporated real life images. This would be a really useful tool to get students who don't feel comfortable about their artistic ability to still be creative in a visual way. For those students who are artistic in a more traditional way, drawings gives them a new medium in which to express themselves.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Google Maps
I've used Mapquest but never Google Maps. I was surprised by some of the features of Google Maps (some of which may be on Mapquest as well) that I thought would be really useful, both for in regular life and for teaching. I like that when getting directions you can avoid highways and tolls and that you can plan your trip for the car, walking, or even public transit. I especially like that the same site can give you both directions and a visual of what the location actually looks like. (How many times have you followed directions correctly, only to be unable to recognize your destination?)
I viewed the lesson plan and map for the Language Arts Lesson on the historical novel My
Brother Sam is Dead and the map for the science lesson on the weather. I really liked the placemakers feature that allowed students to show a location and to tell more about it. The map was really helpful for students to understand the distances between battles and cities mentioned in the novel, and to understand how these effected the lives of the characters in the novel. It was also interesting to see that even information unrelated to geography (such as discussion questions) could be added to peacemakers on the map, and how the key on the left provided a sort of timeline as well. It was also interesting to see how students could connect how different weather phenomena are related to geography,as they can see that the locations where tornados are prevalent are on the plains, ect.
I viewed the lesson plan and map for the Language Arts Lesson on the historical novel My
Brother Sam is Dead and the map for the science lesson on the weather. I really liked the placemakers feature that allowed students to show a location and to tell more about it. The map was really helpful for students to understand the distances between battles and cities mentioned in the novel, and to understand how these effected the lives of the characters in the novel. It was also interesting to see that even information unrelated to geography (such as discussion questions) could be added to peacemakers on the map, and how the key on the left provided a sort of timeline as well. It was also interesting to see how students could connect how different weather phenomena are related to geography,as they can see that the locations where tornados are prevalent are on the plains, ect.
iPad apps
My favorite app was the first one I looked at, Your World. It gives a picture of the world, which you can turn even more easily than a globe. On the bottom of the screen are outlines of various countries, which you attempt to place on the world. Initially the map shows only a grey outline of the land masses, but as each piece is filled in it appears as a natural geography map. By typing the W icon after a country has been selected, you can access a wikipedia entry that gives more information about that nation. Images can be emailed, posted to Facebook or Twitter or saved as a photo. Achievements are earned as you complete various levels, such as Africa, the Americas, and U.S. States. This app would be amazing in a social studies classroom! It gives students a real-world perspective of where each nation is located and what it looks like (rather than an arbitrary set of boxes on a map with just one orientation), so students are better able to understand how each nation is located in relation to the others, and are more likely to recognize them on various maps (rather than just the one they've studied). The division into regions would make it much easier to incorporate into lessens about the regions. The email feature would make it easy for a teacher to use completion of a map as an assignment or even a test (especially if one sees testing as not only an assessment tool, but as an additional teaching tool.) Can you imagine, a test that is actually fun to take?!
Lincol...grams (Lincoln Telegrams) is an app that shows actual (letters?) written by President Abraham Lincoln and organized by date. Each entry includes an actual image of the letter, a transcription (the handwriting is difficult), a very brief summary of its content, an explanation of the context of the letter, and a number of inferences about what the words imply about attitudes or other events. This app could be used not only in lessons about the civil war, but as an introduction to or illustration of the concepts of primary documents, historical context, and making inferences. For this to be most effective, it would probably be best for the teacher to choose specific selections for students to work with.
I had trouble using Xperica HD (partly because I don't remember much of the science!), but I loved the idea, and hope I could eventually use it with more practice. It gives visual demonstrations of numerous scientific experiments. This could be used as an initial exercise before doing actual experiments( to help students get it right the first time and avoid wasting time or materials) or as a replacement for expensive or risky procedures.I especially liked that it included an apparatus list (It's hard to follow instructions if you can't identify the equipment) and it explained the aim of the experiment, as well as giving step-by-step instructions. There was also a Learn icon that gives additional information to put the experiment in a broader scientific (and even historical) context.
I also briefly spent briefer amounts of time with The Weather Chanel, Science@VL, History Tools, America Lite, NewsPro, and Globe, since I was completely unfamiliar with Apps.
Lincol...grams (Lincoln Telegrams) is an app that shows actual (letters?) written by President Abraham Lincoln and organized by date. Each entry includes an actual image of the letter, a transcription (the handwriting is difficult), a very brief summary of its content, an explanation of the context of the letter, and a number of inferences about what the words imply about attitudes or other events. This app could be used not only in lessons about the civil war, but as an introduction to or illustration of the concepts of primary documents, historical context, and making inferences. For this to be most effective, it would probably be best for the teacher to choose specific selections for students to work with.
I had trouble using Xperica HD (partly because I don't remember much of the science!), but I loved the idea, and hope I could eventually use it with more practice. It gives visual demonstrations of numerous scientific experiments. This could be used as an initial exercise before doing actual experiments( to help students get it right the first time and avoid wasting time or materials) or as a replacement for expensive or risky procedures.I especially liked that it included an apparatus list (It's hard to follow instructions if you can't identify the equipment) and it explained the aim of the experiment, as well as giving step-by-step instructions. There was also a Learn icon that gives additional information to put the experiment in a broader scientific (and even historical) context.
I also briefly spent briefer amounts of time with The Weather Chanel, Science@VL, History Tools, America Lite, NewsPro, and Globe, since I was completely unfamiliar with Apps.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Sites
It's completely unrelated to our actual goal tonight, but I have at least learned (more or less) how to open and work with multiple windows tonight. Here is my incredibly skimpy (yet somehow existing) website.
https://sites.google.com/site/kimshypotheticalclassroom/home
https://sites.google.com/site/kimshypotheticalclassroom/home
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