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iPads in Education

Some of you may know that I am working on an iPad 1-to-1 pilot program for first and fifth grade students at the school where I teach.  The program will study the effects of the mobile device on learning and achievement in the math and reading/language arts classroom.  One of my PLN members, Jason Schmidt will be working with us as a part of his masters program.  Additionally, Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering from the Marzano Research Institute, have agreed to partner with us in research if we can get the funding all settled.  Which brings me to the point of this post.  I still have to fund the thing!  I am waiting to hear back on several leads but never the one to only have one marshmallow in the fire, I am looking at every method conceivable to find the money for this. This morning my mom sent me a Kohls Cares for Schools contest email that is offering $500,000 to the 20 schools with the most votes by September 3.  Of course I promptly signed up for it and am counting on all of you to help me out.  You are given a total of 20 votes that you can use, but you can only use 5 votes per school.  So I am asking for 5 of your votes to help fund the iPads in education study.  It is simple and just takes a one time click to connect and then 5 clicks of the votes button.  Easy right?  So, would you give us a hand and help us put some research to the iPads in the classroom debate? One of the fun outcomes of this little idea is the comments that students have started leaving about how they think that the iPad could be used in the classroom.  Pretty fun to see from the students point of view Two side notes: 1.  I have an iLearn Technology fan page on Facebook, if you haven’t already become a fan and clicked “like” you can do that here. 2. If you have a contact that could help with funding, I would take that too Thank you all for your help and support!  If you are so inclined, you can also tweet about this post and ask others in your PLN to help vote.

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Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth

Posted by admin | Posted in Fun & Games, Geography, Interactive Whiteboard, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Social Studies, Teacher Resources, Virtual Field Trips, Websites, inspiration, web tools | Posted on 14-10-2009

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What it is: Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth with the combination of Discovery channel “Planet Earth” and Google Earth.  Witness animal behaviors, dive into the deepest cave on the planet, and come eye to eye with a 30-ton humpback whale in this interactive tour.  Explore the earth through Discovery channel’s Planet Earth series embedded in Google Earth.  Just zoom into a location in the Planet Earth tour and view video clips from the popular 11 part series.  The tour is free to download and plays directly in Google Earth.

How to integrate Video Tour of Planet Earth into the classroom: Geography lessons come to life in Google Earth.  The Video Tour of Planet Earth infuses even more life into your classroom with an up-close look at the incredible animals and vegetation around the world. This tour is an excellent resource for teaching students about habitats, ecosystems, geography, animals, animal kingdoms, and more.  Your students will be able to virtually ‘fly’ to locations all over the world and get a real life look at each stop.  This is an outstanding resource to view on the big screen with a projector or an interactive whiteboard.  Allow your students to take turns acting as tour guide at each stop.  Students can preview the video, do some additional research and present their findings as the class visits their stop along the tour.  Set up the tour on classroom computers for a fun geography or science center.  Use a stop on the video tour as a writing prompt for journaling.

Tips: Google Earth is a free download, if you don’t already have it, this is a MUST have for every classroom.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Take a Video Tour of Planet Earth in your classroom.

Comments (1)

Amy said on 28-10-2009

How did you get this site to work. I clicked on the button for having Google Earth and it took me to a “coded” page. I can’t figure out how to use the code in Google Earth. Any suggestions? Thanks:-)

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