Goooooogle Earth!!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago in my Social Studies Seminar my professor praised Google Earth. Directly after class I downloaded it on my computer and was intrigued. I immediately looked up my house, the college, all the places I have stayed on vacation, my friends' homes, and gosh everything even our elementary school! Lets just say I played and I loved it! I decided to use Google Earth in a unit lesson on Greece and Rome, I thought it would be a great way to show relative location by first looking at our school, then Greece and the following day of study Rome. My professor loved my lesson and I can't wait to implement it in the schools.

Earlier this evening I was just browsing other blogs and came across Rob Lucas' blog which questioned the effectiveness of programs like Google Earth. I had similar thoughts when I first looked at it in class, like how effective would it be in the classroom? would students really understand what it was showing? but then after I found myself completely intrigued for more than an hour I knew it would be "cool" and I think that student's could learn not only relative geography but students can even see the topography of areas, and understand the natural resources surrounding the studied location. (like rivers-water, forests-lumber, etc) I'm glad that someone else sees how Google Earth stands out above others as a interesting and possibly great learning tool in the classroom!

Results!

So I last wrote about my upcoming Webquest on Explorers....and I know that I expressed my worries about how my students would respond. Well, it turns out that my Webquest was definitely a learning experience.

My students had just finished 2 hours of county-wide testing and I was hoping that the Explorer's Webquest would be a great "fun" activity after sitting for such a long time. But...what I didn't consider was their behavior after sitting straight for 2 hours, lets just say it was just plain awful! Luckily we were able to do our lesson in the computer lab itself other wise I think laptops in the classroom would have been more chaotic. Although behavior was not great and my lesson did not achieve as much as I wanted I thought it was a great inquiry based learning activity that allowed my third graders to work in cooperative groups, which sadly because of standardized testing does not happen much. I hope that this will remind me how much the students' enjoyed working together! It was a "learning experience" at best and challenged my authority and teaching ability for that matter, but I know that using technology in a new manner really did make the student's excited about the material. And that is enough for me to keep trying!

2 days and counting....

On thursday I will teach my first real lesson that integrates technology. I have spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting my lesson and the webquest that I am using. But now it comes down to how the students respond and how well it works in the classroom.

My webquest allows students to become explorers and sail with a famous explorer of the past, but this time they are steering the ship. The decide who they will sail under, Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cartier, or Christopher Newport after each student becomes an expert on one explorer. Before the students can "sail the ship" they prove their map skills by labeling the 7 continents, 4 oceans, equator, prime meridian, Spain, France, and England on a world map. I am excited just talking about it!

As I created my webquest I got so excited picturing the students on their laptops; laughing, smiling, debating with their group, and not even realizing how much they are learning. I can see my cooperating teacher loving the activities and how involved each student is. I can see her being inspired and asking me to help her incorporate more technology into her lessons. But at the same time it could all go wrong, the students could be lost; distracted by the computers in front of them. The lesson might be too complicated, or too easy. It is meant as a fun review of all of the map skills and explorers required under the VA SOLs. It's stressful not knowing how it will all turn out. Throughout my experiences in the classroom in and my technology class I have seen the benefits of using technology into the classroom. The idea has been ingrained in my brain, but I could see all that changing; could all of this be hinging on the outcome of one lesson?

Two days from now when my lesson is over, I hope that I am not frustrated with how the webquest turned out, but instead inspired by the impact that using technology made in my own classroom. Technology provides so many opportunities for students, I just hope that my webquest does the wonderful uses of technology justice and is effective enough that my cooperating teacher would be happy to see it used in the classroom again!

No matter what happens on Thursday I will always be proud of what I have accomplished and learned, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world. I may not have perfected the use of technology in the classroom but I know that I will continue to try. If you are interested here is My Webquest, enjoy!