Using Google Earth for virtual tours

I've chosen Google Earth as my technology for several reasons. First, I think it applies to every single discipline out there. Some examples of how to use Google Earth in your classroom are to take a tour of volcanoes around the world, measure distances and velocity, and so much more. For math specifically, there is a website, RealWorldMath, that is all about how to use Google Earth in a math classroom.

I focused on how to create tours using Google Earth. A tour can be made with only visuals or with audio and visual representations. It's sort of like Jing, which I used to make a tutorial for how to make a tour, only just for Google Earth. So next up is the quick tutorial on how to make a Tour for your students. To view the video as a full screen view, click the button in the bottom right corner to pop it out into full size. Press ESC to leave full screen view.



Now here is the .kmz file that I made using Google Earth. It is a tour of where several mathematicians are from that worked with trigonometry.

Online Presentations and Voicethread

Below is my presentation from Google Docs without audio



The next presentation was made using Voicethread and has the audio to go with it.

Podcasts in the classroom

First, check out my first try with uploading audio!



The music you hear is by Symphony 1C by compusician, Licensed under Creative Commons License - Attribution.

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but I really don't think podcasts will be useful for my class either. I don't really want my voice broadcast to the world, and in a math class I just don't know where it would make sense - unless I'm reading the textbook, and I never will, save cases such as that mentioned in the above podcast. English or history or language teachers would have a much easier time. But again, if anyone has any suggestions or points I'm missing please let me know! I may try to check out a few educational podcasts and see if they are interesting. If I am able to glean useful information from a podcast that could help my students learn, I should take advantage of that.

Editing pictures with Picasa...

Here are a few examples of my experimentation with Picasa while completing the lab for today. Press play for a slideshow!

Using Creative Commons Images

This photograph would be a great introduction to one of the many practical uses of the Pythagorean Theorem...constructing a gable roof, favorable for climates with a lot of snowfall. A gable roof is made from two identical right triangles with their hypotenuses as the slopes of the roof. Maybe if I thought about it some more I could come up with a homework assignment related to somehow measuring the roofs? Not sure how I would do that, but I'll give it some more thought as I'm sure I'll be teaching the Pythagorean Theorem at many points in the future.

Using pictures in general will be a great tool for me to bring the real world into the classroom. Memorization has become the norm for math, while I feel it is most important to relate the math to why it is useful and where it is used in life - in careers, everyday activities, etc. Making connections will allow the math to come alive and be more than simply numbers, letters, and sketches on the page.

Here is a picture of a statue of mathematician L'Hopital that I took in the Versailles Palace in France.


Photo Attribution:

Original Image: "Pythagorean Rooftops"
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/94/281272363_873302359a.jpg?v=0
By: mrjorgen

Released under an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en

Blogs and RSS Readers as Classroom Tools

Here is a screenshot of my Google Reader Page:
I could see English and Literature classes making great use of individual student blogs. But as a future high school math teacher, I can't really see much use for a blog past posting homework, calendars of upcoming due dates, etc. That way, when a student is absent from class, they can simply go online and check the chapters discussed and homework assignment for that day. The teacher would need to be extremely on top of the blog, as many plans change as the semester goes on and calendars are bound to change and assignments to move. Even then, sometimes things don't go as planned in a given class period and while the blog could be current as of the night before, the teacher may need to change it once school is out. If a student were home and checking the blog before that - which, let's be honest, they probably aren't even going to check at all...but if they were - the information would be incorrect. So while the idea of a classroom blog for such a purpose is great, I'm not sure how the actual practice would turn out.

I will definitely try to keep using the RSS Reader, it seems like a great way to bring all my information of interest to one place. Other than subscribing to an RSS feed to keep me updated on technology and pedagogy discussions and innovations, I'm not really sure I would
expect my classroom to use it or a blog regularly, as it's wrong to assume that every student has access to a computer and internet at home, and time in a computer lab would have to be scheduled.

In general though, I really do like the idea of having all classroom information in one place. The ease with which teachers could potentially communicate with students as well as parents through a blog is very appealing.

Blogosphere here I come...

Hello world...let's hope I learn something :)