Google Earth

Google Earth is an amazing program that allows users to view any location anywhere in the world. When applied in the learning context, Google Earth has the ability to change abstract concepts to real-life, concrete concepts. It’s has the ability to transform learning into an engaging, interactive, and collaborative experience for everyone involved. The advantages of using this program in an educational context are abundant.

Google Earth is a free to download program, that has so many exciting and useful features. You can view any location in the world, look at maps, streets, find your house, school, or local shop.

To implement this program in the learning context you could have students complete a treasure hunt using compass directions, distances, and lattitude and longitude marks. You could have students measure distances between locations, or look up geographically famous landmarks. The list is endless and the outcomes associated with using such a tool are outstanding. By creating real-life representations, the knowledge to be learnt becomes so much more meanginful to students, increasing engagement levels, and heightening learning outcomes. An example of implementing Google Earth into the learning context can be viewed at my Weebly Website at the following address; http://leahfriend.weebly.com/google-earth-lesson-plan.html

You Tube (Digital Video)

A Great way to view and share digital videos is through an on-line program called YouTube. As this program is open to the public, allowing students to browse through this site would be highly risky as the content can be explicit. However, there are a number of free programs available that allow you to download and save digital videos from YouTube. Another great aspect of YouTube is that there is a teacher’s version called TeacherTube. This site has a wealth of educational sound videos that match up to core curriculum content. The following digital video is one that I have found on YouTube. This particular video is a perfect example of an educationally sound video as it links to core curriculum strands and KLA's.


This video would be used as a teaching tool to introduce the topic of sustainability. To be effective it would be used in conjunction with other learning materials. For example The video may be used as a hook to engage students into the topic and get them thinking about associated concepts. After the video is played a class brainstorm may be conducted as a follow up activity to have students recall important ideas, facts, and opinions. From here individual KWL charts may be constructed by students, and used by the teacher to inform future learning experiences.

Movie Maker (Digital Video)

Digital Videos can play a number of important roles in the classroom learning context. Some of these uses are outlined by Kearney & Shuck (2006). “Digital video has a range of common usages in schools, in particular for communication, observation and analysis, and reflection”. The digital video making program that I used is Windows Movie Maker. This program is fairly straight forward and has a number of help tutorials available to new users. Basically, you start by importing images and music into your movie maker bin. From here it’s simply a matter of dragging and dropping the images into order, adding sound, and text. The following is an example of a movie I made using Windows Movie Maker.

When using digital movies in the classroom context it is imperial that the movie matches up to the core curriculum content you are teaching. Videos should be used as a tool to enhance learning, not as a stand alone teaching method. This is outlined by Hedberg (2006)"Instead of using ICTs just for presenting and representing information in a variety of modalities, it is important to explore their capacity for generativity, for enabling learners to construct their understanding of phenomena". When presenting a video to your class you can use it to create interest, present information in an engaging and exciting way, communicate a variety of views, summarise previously learnt information, or to evaluate learning.

When instructing students to create a video, the authenticity of their work is increased. This makes their work more meaningful, engaging and interesting to them. Furthermore, by creating digital videos students have the opportunity to display their work to a wider audience. This allows for greater feedback as well as a greater sense of accomplishment for the students.

Reference:

-Shuck, S. and Kearney, M. 2004. Student's in the Directors Seat: Teaching and Learning across the School Curriculum With Student Generated Videos. [on-line]. Retrieved 20, July, 2010. From, Central Queensland University, http://www.eddev.uts.edu.au/teachered/research/dvproject/pdfs/ReportWeb.pdf

-Hedberg, J. (2006). Searching for Distruptive Pedagogies: Matching Pedagogies to The Technologies. [on-line]. Retrieved 10 July, 2010, From: Curriculum Leadership Website; http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/default.asp?id=18898