Google Earth Virtual Tour

In my tour we visit the lands of ancient Native Americans - Great Basin, Aztec, Mayan, Incan, and Inuit. We see their ruins, watch movies, look at pictures, and read webpages about them. This completes a Utah third grade core curriculum objective. This, however, would be great for any age learning about Native Americans or the US, Guatemala, Canada, or Peru. The children are encouraged to explore and learn for themselves instead of the teacher telling them everything. This makes learning more meaningful.

It was fun looking at all the other ideas that people came up with. You can use Google Earth for so many different things, it's amazing. I liked how people put the images right in with the placemarks, I would definitely do that the next time I make a tour. It was great to see how you can use Google Earth for so many different things; I will be able to reflect back on all these ideas when I am a teacher and do something fun and interactive with my students.

Google Earth

I think that Google Earth is a way fun program and has limitless opportunities for use in the classroom. You can use it for just about anything from finding the distance across rivers, to finding famous sites, to finding where you live. I love how you can add placemarks and pictures to show why that place is so important. My favorite thing about Google Earth and what I would love to use in my classroom is the ability to find the settings in literature and to map out where the characters went. You can actually see the places that are being talked about in the books you read as a class. This can bring the book alive and make the kids more excited about reading.

Google Lit Trips has .kmz files ready to download of different books to use on Google Earth. One that I really liked was the one for The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox. This is a great book to teach about the slave trade and this Google Earth lit trip helps bring it alive and helps the kids see the trips the slaves went through.

Here is another one about history including civil war, revolutionary war, and some presidents.

Digital Story Reflections

I watched Hayley Singley, Hallie Shumway, and Courtney Lee/Ali Rogers' digital stories. I was amazed that each one was very different. Hayley did hers on her grandparents, Hallie on a poem, and Courney and Ali did a book trailer. I thought all of them were really creative, I didn't know there would be so many different things to do. I liked how Hayley's was so personal, I thought the narration of the poem fit Hallie's personality perfectly, and Courney and Ali's was intriguing and made me want to watch the book. I really enjoyed looking at my friends' work!


For the younger grades I would have to really help them with a project like this. We could probably create the pictures together, by drawing, acting, etc. and they could possibly help with the narration. For older grades they could probably learn how to do one all themselves, using Photostory. It would probably be best to put them in groups for this to help spread out the work load. If the program was too difficult for them then we could put everything together as a classroom and I could put it all into the program for them, but I think it would give them so much more ownership and pride to have them do it all themselves. Every grade could do theirs on a book they read, make their own stories, autobiography, biography, book trailer, almost anything really! This could be such a fun project for a class.

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type Digital Story

Why Let Our Students Blog?

Digital Storytelling

I thought that this week's assignment of digital storytelling was really fun. I enjoyed collecting the props needed and making the scenery for my story. I think that kids would have a lot of fun making their own digital story because it is so open to options of how you would like to do it. Digital storytelling would be great for any subject and can be useful in so many ways. It is also not too difficult and can be done by any kids with some supervision and help.

Storyboard

My Storyboard based on the book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that type.

My real pictures are taken of scenery made of paper and toy animals.