Google Earth Virtual Tour

I watched Hollie Bieri's and Aleisha Boehm's virtual tours. I thought doing time zones for this project was a creative and fun idea! This would really help kids visualize the difference in the time zones. Aleisha's tour was quite informative and I learned a lot. I especially enjoyed one of the videos she had linked. It was quite dramatic, but it really gave me a feel for just how bad WWII was. This is what I learned!

Google Earth

Well, before today I actually knew nothing about Google Earth, so I was pretty excited! My Mom is a Geography teacher, so I actually called her up and told her about this hoping she might be able to use it in her classroom (she tries to use technology as much as possible because it seems to keep her kids engaged better than other methods she's tried). One thing I was thinking of to use this for though, was teaching habitats to children and where in the world they might find them. I am very interested in habitats and think they are quite fun to learn about, but I think it's difficult for children to get a grasp on them since some habitats are foreign to them and they aren't anything they've had experience with before. So Google Earth could provide a fun, interactive and hands-on approach to finding out more about habitats!

Viewing of 3 other projects

I think what I learned most from watching is that you can really make these videos as good as you want. Just a little creativity goes a long ways! I thought one of the videos went a little long and I didn't think it was quite as creative as some of the others (still enjoyable though!) But some of the videos I really enjoyed watching and it seemed like the people who made them had a lot of fun with them and took the time to make their videos nice! I can definitely see how this could be a great learning tool in the classroom! I plan on teaching younger grades, and I was thinking this might be a fun thing for the younger grades to do as a class and we could possibly make up our own play and take pictures then make a video. Then for third grade, this would make a great book report! Book reports can really be a drag sometimes, but this would definitely be a fun alternative to the regular old book report. (I watched Esther Stewart's, Michelle Carlston's, and Hollie Bieri's).

Alphabet rap!

Here's our video!

Week 5 Reflection

I'm really excited about the digital storytelling assignment. This is definitely something I could see myself using in my classroom, and I think it's a great alternative to the regular old book reports.

Digital Story Telling