4th and 5th grade teachers and students at my school, Lewis Elementary, are working to raise funds to take part in an environmental education science camp next spring. The camp (sponsored by OMSI) provides our 4th and 5th grade students with a high quality off site overnight experience on the Oregon coast. They are working to raise funds in a number of ways, and with the help of a parent have created a page on myhometownhelper.com to highlight their project. Interested individuals are encouraged to visit the site, learn about the project, and leave comments regarding their request. If you have some time and would like to help, please visit the page and leave a comment.
I have started to contribute a few times a month to the TechLearning blog. My first post deals with using WordPress as the tool that drives our Classroom Notes page… To learn more please follow the link above…
Jon Pederson has started to document his use of del.icio.us and how, with Firefox 2.0 he has completely replaced his static bookmarks with his del.icio.us bookmarks. The first part of his Del.icio.us Guide for Educators explains how to do this and why you would want to.
I’ve been looking for a way to generate circles in Google Earth. For example I’ve been looking for a way to easily share with students some common distances and represent them on the map. Today I found the KML Circle Generator. It is a web tool that allows you to enter latitude and longitude coordinates and designate a radius distance and create a KML file that you can download and display in Google Earth. In my example the two circles are centered on the school the yellow line represents a distance a half mile from the school and the orange circle represents a distance of a mile from the school. The yellow place-marks represent where students live. Displaying information in this way could lead to some interesting discussions and problem solving. For example, if all the students who lived within a half mile of the school walked or rode their bikes to school a certain number of days a week how much gas could be saved…
Tony Jamesbarry, the music and technology teacher at Lewis Elementary, has been working with his 4th and 5th grade students learning Google Sketch-Up. They are currently creating houses, learning how to wrap textures, place objects and manipulate the environment within in Sketch-Up. This is leading up to a planned community building activity, both figuratively and literally. Sketch-Up can grab a specific location from Google Earth and using that as a guide, students will be able to build their houses on a specific lot. Tony has been searching Google Earth looking for housing developments that are partially completed.
For example he recently found a location in Google Earth that had streets and cul-de-sacs laid, but construction had not yet started. He used the path tools within Google Earth to create lots. After the students become a bit more familiar with Sketch-Up, Tony will assign them specific lots in the housing development (see example images below…) with the idea that each student will build a home on a lot. Part of the process will involve discussion of zoning and building codes. The students will decide on rules and regulations for their community. I’m looking forward to watching the process develop.
We have recently installed Wordpress Multi-User and plan to give each of the students a blog to write daily reflections on their work. More about this later…
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