Monday, September 24, 2007

Google Earth Personal Learning Journey

I posted on Learning and Laptops about my students creating their own personal learning journeys from their travels and places they have lived. I was trying to get them to realize before we read the Odyssey, that the places you have spent time have influenced you similarly to the effect it had on Odysseus in his travels.

We spent about 4-5 days in class learning about Google Earth from Mike Porter (he is a saint no matter what Karl says about him). The kids completed the project in stages working first with the writing portion answering the questions of where did they go? what did they do there? what did you learn? what mattered from your visit? how does it still affect you today?

Once the writing portion was complete, Mike assisted the kids with creating the place marks of their journey. We even challenged the kids to add pictures from their online photo albums as well as encouraged the use of video and audio. We didn't have any takers there, but it gives us room to grow! I was really excited about this project and glad I took the time to do it with the kids.

I am so thankful that Mike came over to help with the technical side of things; also, it was really fun to see him as the teacher. I can only imagine how interesting, creative, and funny it would have been to sat in his classroom as a student. I will make sure to have the kids comment on the process, but even though not everyone completed the assignment, I really am thankful for those who ventured out to try something new. Check out their examples:

Adam A.
Angelica O.
Anna K.
Averee L.
Alena V.

Carter W.

Dennis K.
Ethan L.
Jackie N.
Joey W.
Josh TS.
Kelly S.
Lauren E.
Lauren P.
Mandi G.
Sam H.
Sean B.
Sean D.
Xavia H.

16 comments:

samh said...

I greatly enjoyed doing this project! It was a great way to relate what we have been reading in the Odyssey to our daily lives. I love looking back and remembering trips and vactations I have taken and this was a great way to do it and to learn from it. I give Miss. Smith props for coming up with such a clever way to connect our readings to our lives!

Averee said...

I really enjoyed the Google Earth Project. It was really fun to get to share some of the places I have visited with my classmates. I thought it was interesting to look back on all those vacations I took and all the houses I lived in and to remember what happened there. I am really excited to look at everyone's projects. It is a great way to learn more about my fellow classmates and I think it is really cool that everyone was willig to share their memories with the class.

laurene said...

I really liked the Google Earth project because I think it was a good way to open yourself up to the class. Working on this project was a little confusing at the beginning but once I got further into it, it became more easy to understand and work. I also think it's really cool that you can type in a location and it goes directly on top of the place you wanted to go to. I found my old house and my new house and the hotel i stayed at in Mexico. This project was really fun and simple and I would like to do more simular projects like this in the future.

angelicao said...

I thought that google earth was a great project. This class always has the coolest projects. It puzzels me when people dont even try to do this kind of project because most of the kids i know are on the computer alot already so they might as well do the project while they are on the computer. I liked having Mr. Porter come and help our class. But it did bother me that my computer would sign into google Earth and I had to use Mr.Porters account. Also the internet on my home computer wasnt working so I couldnt upload any images onto the internet so my projecy isnt as good as it could have been. But I still thought it was a really cool project.

joeyw said...

I really liked the google earth project and thought it was fun to write about something/someplace that we've been to and had an experiance with and to see the place on the map as well

Josh TS said...

I thought it was a creative anf fun activity but i personally did not enjoy it too much because the google earth itself was such a hassle and hard to get working.

Jackie N said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
alexe said...

I did enjoy doing this project. At first it seemed like it would be a really easy project and i could do it all with ease. But i was sadly mistakin, even though it was fun to use google earth, it was an extreamly hard project.

Jackie N said...

I very much enjoyed this Google Earth project! It was something different from any other project on paper and I never thought Google Earth could turn into a project. I loved looking back on all the places and memories, I thought this project seemed creative and fun!

kellyS said...

I enjoyed the Google Earth Project because it was something different. I like that we have been doing projects that talk about ourselves and not just about some character in a boring book. Not that I like to talk about myself non-stop but it is also cool to learn about other people too. The only thing that I didn't like about this project was that google earth could be very tricky and confusing.

laurenp said...

I thought the google earth project was fun. It was a chance share with everyone the places you have been and your experiances. It was fun to think about where you have been and what you have learned even if it was a silly lesson, but I think you should take every learning experaince and use it. Also that we not only got to read and do our personal journeys that you could explore someone elses and see where they have been. All in all I though it was a cool and fun project.

seand said...

I enjoyed this project a lot. I think it is much easier to work on a project that relates to your own life than something that doesn't. It is easy to talk about yourself and that's pretty much all this project was. It was fun using Google Earth because you could see everywhere that you have been in your life. I am excited to see where some of my other classmates have been in their lives. I hope we do more projects like this one by the end of the semester.

Xavia H2011 said...

I agree with everyone, it was fun, but also challenging. I am not very good with computers so it was a little hard for me. But it did help that we had Mr. Porter helping. I enjoyed this project because it was very interactive, though some people did not do the requirements.

seanb said...

This was a wonderful experience for me. I enjoyed discussing my past with my family. Though some parts of the project were tearful in the end result it had brought great pleasure to me. For all the kids that did not do the project not only had you missed out on a great project but also on a great grade. thank you very much for letting me do a creative project like this one.

Anna K said...

This project was very creative and enjoyable for me. I enjoyed looking back and remembering the great times I had on my trips. I am very interested to know where people have been and I think it is fun to hear other about people's journeys. Google earth is a very exciting tool to use and I love the fact that you are able to zoom into precise area that you are describing. I enjoyed this project a lot!

DennisRocks said...

Overall, this project was seen by me as a blast. I really enjoyed how the project incorporated Google Earth into the picture. This made the assignment more thrilling and not just another “boring” essay. I also take pleasure in the fact that the students were given freedom to choose their destinations. This to me awakened memories of good times, and also explored my creativity. The only dislike that I could muster directed towards this assignment was the working environment. I think that if students were not given time in class to work on their projects, productivity would have increased. The problem with working in class is the issue of distractions. Students are surrounded by friends in their classes; they may get distracted from their work and not perform as well as they could have potentially. All and all, this was a very cool assignment that I really enjoyed; I look forward to the next!