We use Google Earth for a variety of social studies units at Avoca West and recently, the first grade team approached me with the idea to use it for their unit on "Celebrations Around the World." I decided that this would be a great unit to couple with my final project for EDIM 508. The assignment - To create a media infused that gives students an opportunity to develop respectful and ethical minds. I put the .kmz file together for the team and today during my tech meeting with the first grade teachers, showed them how I created the custom placemarks and had them interact with the .kmz file so they knew how to use it with the students.

This Google Earth tour will compliment the "Respecting Differences" Unit that actually started this week, so this project could not have come at a more perfect time. This Google Earth tour aligns with the unit goals: How are groups of people alike and different? What are similarities and differences among individuals and groups? Students will explore the differences between schools around the world, traditions around the world, different customs, and will culminate with them learning about different traditions via the "Celebrations Around the World Lessons." They will also complete activities related to each cultural celebration, view Promethean flipcharts that correspond to the lessons and now teachers will be able to make the geographical connections with the Google Earth tour. Feel free to download, modify or use this tour to teach your students about Celebrations Around the World!

Click here to access the .kmz file

5 Minds

Gardner, H. (2007). Five minds for the future. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.

Our teachers use blogging for specific units of study as well as for digital portfolios. Here (scroll to the bottom to see comments) is an example of a respectful exchange between some 4th grade students and a concluding comment from a teacher. This exchange not only shows the author that the commenters actually read her story but gives the author motivation and encouragement. On our student newspaper, we have a letter to the editor form for people to fill out so people can leave comments. Here is the winter archive of comments from our Avoca West student newspaper.

For more information about student blogging, check out the presentation below. Arrow through it to see more examples of commenting!

If the students are anything like me, there would have to be some parameters set. I found myself getting easily distracted and then becoming obsessive about the look and feel of my Glog as opposed to being obsessed about the content. With so many options available for customizing the Glog, content would have to be the first project requirement since you have so many choices on how to display the content. Decorations and customizing colors would need to come after all of the required content is in place. I would also want to talk to my students about using similar looking features to make the Glog presentable as opposed to just junking up the page. I spoke with a fellow teacher friend of mine who used Glogster with her middle school students in Science. She agreed with me in saying that she did not set many parameters and instead just assumed the students would be creative and make the wall look good. Many of her students used so many of the stickers and stamps that the Glog just became a cluttered mess and difficult to navigate or figure out what is was actually about. I think that in the case of this type of content creation, a rubric would be needed to guide students with one category being "aesthetics" or "design" of the Glog.

Depending on which subject you are using Glogster for, there are many standards that can be addressed with this type of technology. I help teachers incorporate the ISTE NETS for students into everyday learning and Glogster lends itself to the following NETS:

1. Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

3. Research and Information Fluency: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.

Click here to see my first attempt at a Glog!

I discussed the questions with students ahead of time to clarify that they understood what was being asked and tried to convince them to give me more than just one word answers.  Side note: The students I interviewed had just finished a two month video production project in which they were making commercial advertisements about a product that they invented. They all really liked the project (click here for an example of student work) so some of the answers are a bit biased towards that experience. For more info on this project, click here. I surveyed 5 boys and 5 girls with the questions below. I decided to use an anonymous Google Forms survey because I felt that if students were talking to me face to face, they might feel pressured to answer a certain way. Reading these answers definitely made me feel like I am engaging students and using media in ways that make students feel creative and independent! I also really appreciate the feedback they gave me, especially the one to one advice which I recently started doing with my 4th graders.

Do you think that the projects we do in Encore Tech allow you to be creative? Yes or No? This question received a resounding YES from all of the students.

What are some of your favorite ways to be creative with the computer?

I love all the ways we get creative with our computers, but my favorite is when we create songs on Garageband. I like it because it allows us to feel like music producers and cut and edit things together to make amazing music! "

"Making commercials or movies!"

"I movie was one of my favorite ways to be creative."

Would you change anything about your learning environment when it comes to the digital media we use?

"Not really"

"How to take good pictures."

"I dont think so...we have a lot of freedom computer-wise."

"No because it's really fun right now."

"No. I like everything we use!"

"No, I like using computers."

"I would like to have maybe more programs that allow us to express our creativity. More programs like painting or video editing programs."

"No it is my favorite class, it is fun to unleash your creativity."

"I like all of the applications on our laptop and I wouldn't change anything."

"I get really confused sometimes when the teacher explains how to use these digital medias then when I get private lessons at the apple store I really learn a lot. So I think the kids need more one on one learning experiences."

"No, I love how freely we are aloud to use our computers. Our teachers allow us to kind of keep ourselves on track and really have a lot of trust in us."

"No"

Thanks to the 5th grade students who participated in this survey. It provided me with a lot of insight into our technology program and how students view our creative technology use at Avoca West!

Over the past two months my 5th grade students have been designing innovations and inventions. They have already planned and executed ideas in Google Docs, have drafted a diagram of their idea using Google Draw, and created an advertisement for their idea using Comic Life. Originally I thought this would be the end of the project until one of my students had the idea to do commercials. I figured that making commercials would not only allow my students to get a video camera in their hands but also provide more opportunities for them to express their creativity. Many of these commercials have gone beyond my expectations and I'm so glad that I decided to move forward with this part of the project. Students are just wrapping these up but here is an example that was turned in on Wednesday.

As you walk the halls of Avoca West elementary, it is not uncommon to see the 4th and 5th grade students in the hallways with their laptops and a microphone recording a podcast, a Blabberize project, working together to edit a video or on a Google presentation. The younger students spend an hour a week in the computer lab creating digital media projects and in their classrooms, use digital media tools like QR codes that they can scan and connect to Tumblebooks with, or iPads to play apps that reinforce learning concepts. As a technology facilitator, I am given one hour each week to work with teachers and support digital media in our classrooms. Couple that with the desire and enthusiasm on the part of our teachers to incorporate digital media tools, and it is obvious this type of learning is alive and well at Avoca West Elementary!

Our fifth graders just finished a social studies unit on the Dust Bowl. During this unit we combined 1930s history with modern technology to bring the unit to life for our students. We created custom .kmz files in Google Earth to highlight important geographical locations during the time of the Dust Bowl. We used Google Earth overlays to show students the distance that the dust traveled as well as photos, videos and text embedded into Google Earth placemarks to help illustrate the concepts that were being taught and help students synthesize and connect with the information from a time that they may otherwise not be able to relate to at all. We felt that Google Earth helped students synthesize the historical information they were learning about.

In addition to using Google Earth as a geographical guide, we listened to mp3 files of Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads which helped them connect with the music and emotion of the "dirty thirties". For their final project, students were required to synthesize the information they learned about the Dust Bowl and how environmental degradation contributed to the Dust Bowl with current environmental issues by creating a public service announcement. For this assignment, students were asked to use GarageBand or iMovie and combine facts, visuals and music to raise awareness about an environmental issue that could create a similar catastrophe as the Dust Bowl.  We suggested GarageBand and iMovie because this software allows students to combine scripting, visuals with recorded narration to explain a particular concept. We find that both GarageBand and iMovie are two of the best tools for synthesizing. Here is a stellar example of one 5th graders use of animation software and iMovie to create a PSA about acid rain.

http://avoca37.org/15marionm/files/2012/03/gkf1.m4v

In two weeks, I will be doing a presentation to the entire third grade and sixth grade about Ghana, West Africa so that students have an awareness of the location in which their stories are being sent. Since I have been to Ghana twice, once in 2002 and again in 2010, the teams asked me to share my experiences with students and shed some light on the culture of Ghana. At the end of my presentation, students should realize that there are many similarities between our lives and the lives of students in Ghana.  Kids spend time with their families, go to school, do chores and play.

Presenting to around 160 students means that I will have a variety of learning styles to cater to and presentations that involve storytelling, sound or audio, photography, text, videos and audience participation have the ability to address the wide span of learning styles that I will encounter during my presentation.  To show students instead of simply telling them, I created a multi-media presentation that includes photos and videos from my trip  as well as this documentary style video from Discovery Streaming. This week I used Prezi to pull everything together. Prezi is a great tool for presenting a variety of media to students. Prezi allows the presenter to literally jump around to different topics instead of just flipping the forward button to a new slide. I have found that using multi-media and presentation tools like Prezi, keeps students of all learning styles engaged.

1. Who are you and what do you do? Music fanatic, world traveler, loving life in Chicago. I'm a tech teacher & tech integration specialist at Avoca West Elementary.

2. What is your primary goal for taking this course? To finish graduate school and reflect on best practices for using digital media in the classroom.

3. What is your philosophy of education? Empower teachers to feel confident using technology in their classrooms and engage students in learning through the use of digital media.

4. What do you see as the greatest benefit of using technology and/or digital media in the classroom? Technology allows teachers to differentiate and enables students to go beyond expectations.

5. What is your biggest concern or challenge with using technology and/or digital media in the classroom? Tough question. The only real challenge I face is managing so many different students & projects at once.

6. Provide an example of how you currently use technology and/or digital media in the classroom.
My 5th grade students are currently creating 15 or 30 second commercials to advertise their innovations using video cameras and iMovie!

7. How does your classroom today differ from when you were the same age as your students? Students are much more connected to the world around them and easily distracted.