With interest in Glow
increasing rapidly around Scotland, these Glow Games were let
loose at the Scottish Learning Festival to help get people talking - and, of course, help with learning
too.
Once you get your Glow login, you’ll find they’re in there too - with some advantages.
If you’ve an edubuzz blog, why not embed the games in a post or page? Enjoy.
Above are the slides from my 2008 Scottish Learning Festival Presentation on Breaking Down Walls with Google Earthmany of the ideas I have already shared at Teachmeet07 and Teachmeet08. Screen vasts of the demonstration's are below embedded as Google Video files.
Idea 1 - Use the Google Maps mash-up Smoke Signal Generator (http://www.mapmsg.com/send/smokesignal)
as a different way to set learning objectives, homework tasks or to re-cap a
lesson.
You
can use the mash-up in exactly the same way as you normally use Google Maps to
find places by typing in the location. You can zoom in and zoom out in exactly
the same way and switch between map, hybrid and satellite view. The mash-up
however allows you to generate smoke signals from any location within Google
Maps. The screencast below shows the demo that I used at tonight.
Idea 2 - Turn on the Grid Lines and spin
the globe
This
is a very simple, yet powerful and magical idea. I believe that children find maps,
globes and places fascinating. A great lesson starter is just to have Google
Earth Spinningas your class comes into the room (they will
instantly start to comment and try to work out where places are). You can also
very easily turn on the Grid Latitude and Longitude lines to allow you
to quickly add an extra dimension to this starter activity. Here’s the
screencast showing you how to do this:
Idea 3 - Teaching about place and location
At
the front of your classroom have a bucket of European or
world city names (would also work with countries, mountain ranges, rivers etc…).
You can get lists from websites like www.citymayors.com.
Students
pick a city name from ‘the hat’ and type the location into Google Earth – class
watch as they fly from their school
to the city location. Once in the city Student gets one or two minutes to
explore in front of the rest of the class. As long as you have websites like Panoramio enabled within Google Earth
there will be no shortage of things to look at and you will quickly get a real
feel for what an area is like. I think
it is very important to always flay to your location from your school, this
adds to the experience of distance, place and space. Here’s a quick
screencast showing what I mean:
Idea 4 – Teaching Distance
The
Google Earth Ruler is really simple to use and allows you to quickly change
between units (cm, m. km, ft. yards etc…) There is a lot of scope here about to talk about
measurement and also ratios if you start to swap the units around. You can also
use the ruler to perform interesting tasks. For example you can calculate how
far the ingredient of a pizza have travelled before it gets to the UK. Here is the
screencast showing you how the ruler works:
Idea 5 – Sea Level Rise Mash Up
http://flood.firetree.net/ is a favourite
Google Maps Mashup of mine. It allows you to change the sea level height to
see areas of land that would be flooded due to sea level change. Its simple
but really effective, interestingly it wouldn’t take much for the Glasgow
Science Centre to be underwater.
Idea 6 – Look at what other people have
already created
At
http://www.gearthhacks.com you can download
klm files (Google Earth Files) about Current Events, Previous Events,
Sightseeing, Sports, Historical Places, Transport, Natural Formations and a
whole heap of other stuff. The Current event files are excellent. The
screencast below shows how quickly it is to download a Google Earth file on
recent Greece Fires.
Idea 7 – Flickr and Twitter Vision
Flickr
vision is a another great lesson starter activity or way to promote class
discussion. The site basically shows the geographical location of real time photos
being up-loaded to Flickr. It gives a real feel for what’s going on in the
world and sense of place. It can also be used to promote interesting
discussions. For example, you have to
wait a long to see a photograph being up-loaded from Africa, Antarctica or South America? You can see an example below:
You
can even use Flickr Vision in 3D:
Twitter
vision gives another interesting perspective. It basically shows text messages
of people thoughts from around the world.
Idea 8 – Turn Layers On and Off
Sometimes
things get really crowded and sometimes you want more detail. You can turn
layers on and off using the layers tabs. Fly to New York to see the 3D Buildings in action. If
you are struggling with Bandwidth Issues at school you can save on bandwidth by
turning the layers off.
This
video shows Google Earth working inside the web browser. As this becomes more developed
it will be great news for schools, as you won’t have to get Google Earth
Downloaded onto you school / home computer.
Monster
Milk Truck allows you to drive a virtual milk cart around the globe to
explore things. The video shows me driving around and then teleporting to Edinburgh – can you work
out which famous building I deliver the milk to?
When you get into some of the cities with 3D
buildings, it kind of reminds me of some of the early versions of Doom.
Which is interesting as one of the ideas that I have been talking about
recently is could Google Earth become in itself a rich gaming environment?
The plug in driving simulator is fantastic particularly for some
of the big US Cities that have 3D Buildings in them.
Basically, you type in where you want to start and
where you want to go to. Google Map directions appear on the left hand side of
the screen and calculates your route. A Google Map shows your intended route on
the right hand side of the screen and in the middle Google Earth fly’s you
though what your route will look like in 3D.
Idea 13 - Google Sky
Google Sky is a great resource for teaching children about the solar system. It has obvious links to A Curriculum for Excellence in particular the outcomes for Science and Social Subjects. A You Tube video about Google Sky is below:
Idea 14 - Have a look at these other great resources
Try
and follow these websites for some up-to-date Google Earth information and
ideas on how it can be used in Teaching and Learning.
Teachmeet at the SLF
was a fantastic event and for me still remains the best form of CPD for
teachers. I learnt so much during the 2 hour workshop sessions and had some amazing
conversations with colleagues from around the UK and further afield.
I presented a 15 minute
roundtable session on titled: Maps,
Mashups and Milkfloats. The slides that I used during the presentation are embedded
below and the Google Earth Screen Casts are embedded further down the page.
Part One: Wordle – Great Fantastic, free resource!
The use of http://wordle.net/ to create beautiful word
clouds. Again great for lesson starters, assemblies and don’t forget to use it
to find out the prominent words in your school development plan. Remember if
the word ATTIANMENT is bigger than the word
LEARNING or CHILDREN then you
should re-write your plan!
Here is the word cloud from
the Teachmeet Wiki:
I wish I was called John!
Part Two: Games for Homework
I sometimes ask students to
play games for homework. One of the sites I use is the OS Map
Zone web site. I know that they have played them because I ask them to take
a screen shot of their best score and to email it to me, or to print it out and
bring it in for the next lesson. This way I can set up a leader board in my
classroom (A bit like Top Gear – the fastest around the race track).
I think teachers that struggle to collect homework in
should ask themselves, ‘why don’t they
set their pupils more innovative homework?’ Homework that they actually
want to do? And save the more ‘traditional’
work for the classroom, where students need the motivation of the classroom
teacher?
This
video shows Google Earth working inside the web browser. As this becomes more developed
it will be great news for schools, as you won’t have to get Google Earth
Downloaded onto you school / home computer.
Monster
Milk Truck allows you to drive a virtual milk cart around the globe to
explore things. The video shows me driving around and then teleporting to Edinburgh – can you work
out which famous building I deliver the milk to?
When you get into some of the cities with 3D
buildings, it kind of reminds me of some of the early versions of Doom.
Which is interesting as one of the ideas that I have been talking about
recently is could Google Earth become in itself a rich gaming environment?
The plug in driving simulator is fantastic particularly for some
of the big US Cities that have 3D Buildings in them.
Basically, you type in where you want to start and
where you want to go to. Google Map directions appear on the left hand side of
the screen and calculates your route. A Google Map shows your intended route on
the right hand side of the screen and in the middle Google Earth fly’s you
though what your route will look like in 3D.
The Final Teachmeet Challenge
Teachmeet is an
un-conference and this means that unusual things can happen. Before I started
my 15 minute ‘roundtable’ presentation Ewan
dared me to do the presentation on the escalator. I managed to present a couple
of slides from here – but as the escalator was moving, it was a little harder
than I thought! Alan Parkinson captures the moment below.
On the Thursday of the
Scottish Learning Festival Seonaid McGillivray
(Headteacher at Stoneyhill
Primary School) and I presented on the topic of Enriched Assessment for an Enriched Curriculum.
We used the work that we have been
doing on Guitar Hero as a transition project as our example. The sides from the
presentation are embedded below.
During the presentation we shared with the audience some of the great work that we have been carrying out in East Lothian to try and embed Internet Safety and Responsible use into curriculum (at home and at school). We also shared some of the things that we had learnt from running our series of parent training events at the end of last session. In East Lothian it is our aim that we try and make digital literacy the responsibility of every teacher, parent and child.
The slides from the presentation are embedded below:
The
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is a UK police agency with a difference.
It has the teeth of any other police force and works to track offenders
wherever they may be. CEOP also delivers free education programmes into schools
to help children of all ages stay safe online and is active in sharing best
practice techniques with the wider child protection community through a number
of training initiatives.
The CEOP Corporate Film is embedded below (You Tube):
Hector’s WorldTM
is the 5 - 7 year old area of the Think U Know website. It comprises of five state-of-the-art, animated episodes.It takes children on a
journey with Hector and his friends as they explore issues such as personal
information, trustworthiness, making positive choices online and how to be open
with a trusted adult when they use the internet.
You can download five lesson plans on how you could use Hectors World in the Teacher / Trainer area of the think You Know web site. You can also order posers and stickers, and download colouring in books and song sheets from the teacher / trainer area.
Cyber
Café is the 8 - 10 year old area of the Think U Know website. Within Cyber Cafe you can discover the safest ways to use the Internet, chat rooms, e-mail and send
text messages. You can download nine lesson plans and ideas for useing Cyber Cafe with your class in the Teacher / Trainer area of the Think You Know website.
The Way Back
Machine is part of the Internet Archive. In essence it’s a back up of some
of the web. Try typing a website URL into the way back machine and if it has
been cashed you will be able to have a look at previous versions of the
website.
It's good fun but also could be quite scary stuff.
Below are the slides and on-line notes from my Education Briefing: Language, Learners and the Power of New Technology that I gave at the 2008 Scottish Learning Festival.
What do the Children think?
During the presentation they expressed their feelings in video (no shown here)
and as a tag wordle cloud.
The use of http://wordle.net/ to create beautiful word clouds.
Again great for lesson starters and don’t forget to use it to find out the
prominent words in your school development plan. Remember if the word ATTAINMENT is bigger than the word LEARNING or CHILDREN then you should
re-write your plan!
Promethean Planet
Check out Promethean Planet even if you don’t
use Promethean software in you school it will give you lost of lesson ideas. If
you do your Promethean software in your school I would really encourage you to
up-load flipcharts to the Planet
and download some of the excellent resources that teachers from around the
world have already posted.
In particular I would like
to draw your attention to two resources:
Manga Shakespeare
Flipcharts (as shown during the
presentation) – I really think that Graphic Novels are an excellent way you get
young people reading (particularly boys). For other great graphic novels have a
look at Classic Comics.
Brainpop – great animations to use in your classroom (now
with a UK
site).
Links to Promethean Active Expression Flip Charts
Used during the presentation (these
links will only open if you have active studio installed on your computer).
The Scottish Learning Festival is in Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th September 2008. It is the biggest education event in Scotland and one of the most unique education events in the world – it’s free!
.
I’ve presented at the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) for the last few years and this year I have a set myself a massive agenda. Before the SLF it’s become customary within the ScotEdu Blogosphere to up-load your itinerary.
.
I hope to see some of you in the keynotes, seminars and exhibition space. Drop me an email if you fancy meeting up for a coffee, beer or just a chat.
.
I’ll also be at Teachmeet on the Wednesday evening.
All my presentation note’s and hyperlinks will be up-loaded here at about the same time that I am presenting – well that’s the plan anyway! All of my Scottish Learning Festival posts will be tagged SLF2008.
If you have not been to a Scottish learning Festival before – you will definitely find Neil’s Tops Tips handy.
I’ll also be at Teachmeet on the
Wednesday night – where, if I am picked to speak, will be talking (I think)
about some of the work we have been doing on Games Based Learning at
Musselburgh and in the Musselburgh Cluster. I hope to also be involved in the Discovery Hour,
in association with Teachmeet, on the Thursday and the Consolarium Challenge on one of
the days.
I have pasted details
of my main seminars below for anyone who might be interested:
Time: 12.30 and
repeated at 13.30
(if I have any energy left!)
Seminar Description: Children love using interactive voting systems.
They motivate and inspire young people and when used effectively, can even help
teachers reduce their workload. They can be used to stimulate discussion,
encourage debate, gather ideas and share opinions. Most importantly they are
fun, rewarding to use and encourage the pupil’s voice.
Scotland’s
learners are to aspire to be effective contributors, but how can teachers find
new ways to ensure the participation and confidence of even the most reluctant
communicators? New technologies are simply not worth the investment if they
can’t deliver the aspirations embodied within Curriculum for Excellence.
Learner response technology has evolved rapidly in recent years and through the
use of Promethean’s new technology, you will see examples of practice
highlighting pupils’ response with text and numbers, as well as multiple-choice
answers. Developments of this kind have created a whole new learning
environment.
Participants will be included in a hands-on session, allowing them to
experience learner response technology in a real-class lesson. We will also
showcase a variety of case studies linking to different outcomes within the
Scottish curriculum; including literacy, numeracy, expressive arts and science.
There will be a particular emphasis on the use of technology to improve
formative assessment. Data can be saved allowing teachers to review past
lessons at any time and uploaded to a VLE for teachers, pupils and parents to
view.
We believe that good teachers use good resources and a learner response
system should be in every 21st century Teachers toolbox.
Seminar Description: In October
2007 Musselburgh Grammar
School became the first school in Scotland to run an Internet Safety
Evening for parents using the 'Purely
for Parents' resources produced by the Child Exploitation Online Protection
Agency (CEOP - www.ceop.gov.uk).
The event was a great success and staff from the school have been asked to
deliver the training in a number of other authorities in both the public and
private sector. The school also has comprehensive programme for delivering
Internet Safety and Responsible Use Training to staff and students.
This presentation will briefly talk about how the training was delivered
within the Musselburgh area for parents, school staff, secondary and primary
children. It will also offer advice on how you could set up your own learning
community for sustainable responsible use training.
The main focus of the presentation will be showing the audience the various
resources produced by CEOP so that they can get a real feel for the types of
issues surrounding internet safety and responsible use. During the presentation
the audience will be taken inside a number of websites including Bebo, MSN
Messenger, Chatrooms, Habbo Hotel and other popular sites where young people like
to hang out. These websites will be used to discuss various safety and
responsible use messages. This presentation will be eye opening for teachers
and educators who are unfamiliar with how some children behave on-line.
Description: Simple
ways and ideas to use Google Earth in the classroom, even if you have never
used it before! This session is aimed at both primary and secondary practitioners.
Recent Comments