There is something powerful about having first hand knowledge. My daughter and I were reading an animal book recently that asks you to match up the pictures with different features, like feet, fur, colors, etc. Usually we struggle through this book and she can’t quite seem to see all the connections. This time however she got all the matches right off. What was different? We had recently gone to the zoo. Now all those pictures represented real things and she was more in tune with what they were asking since she had her own experiences to pull from!
This started me thinking about the power of field trips and what it really means to have a student that has never left the town they live in. Then I thought of all the powerul tools we have to give students “virtual” field trips. Google Earth is a great venue to make this happen. With the ability to turn on different layers you can take the basic sattelite images and explore anywhere you want to go, includign the ocean. Turn on 3D building layer and see the skyline of major cities, or of historic sites like the Alamo.
Here is a quick tutorial on how to use layers in Google Earth.
Google Earth is a great resource for engaging students in learning by using real world places and great visuals. This is the first in a series of tutorial videos in using Google Earth in the classroom.
The ruler tool allows teachers/students to measure distances of real world objects without leaving their classroom. You can measure the distance around an object, between point A to Point B or find diameter and radius.
You could also use this in Social Studies when discussing where things happened and how far things are from each other. What did it mean to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a pilgrim? How far did Santa Anna travel from Mexico City to San Jacinto?
After posting the update about web cams, I started looking for other new ideas out there for math videos. Here are a few resources I found:
Infomercial:
Why do we need to know this? I’ll never use this in the real world. The answer to these questions can be found in this math infomercial. As you watch think about how the kids could create their own infomercial about your subject and discover for themselves how it really can be used in the real world!
This wiki is created by a math teacher and contains “collaboratively-constructed, student-designed review materials for building math skills!” – http://lovettmathcasts.wikispaces.com/
Just for fun.
You gotta love a music video produced by Mu Alpha Theta:
I’ve shared this before, but it is worth seeing again:
