Google Lesson Plans for the Class: Wilderness Classroom

We all have unique curricula- which is why it's not easy to find online experiences that can bring a large group of people together.  Teachers often don't have a lot of wiggle room during the year, which is why it's sometimes hard for them to join online global experiences. There are the larger collaborative events, like Life 'Round Here and the Flat Classroom Project, which are fine projects that require plenty of classroom time.  Or there are simple, quick, collaborative items like the Guess the Wordle project, which can be used as a simple activation exercise for a lesson.

I prefer online experiences that don't tie you down, especially if you've never done them before. It's no fun to find out three weeks in that you don't like the experience. Global projects don't have to be time consuming, but they do have to have connections. 

Which is why I love the Wilderness Classroom. 

The crew on their last expedition to the Amazon River.

Have you heard of the Wilderness Classroom? A team of explorers go on an adventure, and they live-blog the entire experience. At their interactive website- they have a Daily Dilemma, Mystery Photos, daily podcasts, students can have interactive chats with the team, Cast Your Vote- where students can make decisions for the team, vodcasts, Cultural Connections, and a Wilderness Library- and it all happens live online. There are numerous ways for students to engage in the experience with the team. 

Take a look at their  Getting Started guide. 

They have a lesson plan database as part of their curriculum, but now if you are a Google Apps school, you can make great use of Google Apps, by using the Google Lesson Plans for the Wilderness Classroom. The first lesson plan is here:

https://sites.google.com/site/lessonplandatabase/google-apps-lesson-plans

It will be growing over the next few weeks, and, if you're a Google Apps school, you can even submit a Google Apps lesson plan to redferntwo@gmail.com  and I'll be happy to add it.  You don't need Google Apps at all to enjoy the Wilderness Classroom, but it could definitely heighten the interactive experience. Teachers- you don't need to create your own virtual global online experience from the ground up- this one is already created for you. Just join in, and add your touch of excellence. Help make the Wilderness Classroom the best global outdoor education experience for kids! 

Drop in for a bit, or stay a while

I like the Wilderness Classroom because it offers so many ideas for classroom creation. For science and language arts, cultural education- the content that the Explorers add give all sorts of ideas for project-based learning. Just check out the previous expedition, and you'll see what I mean. It's exciting because you don't know what they are going to see on the trail the next day, what wildlife they will discover, or who they meet. It's the quintessential virtual field trip.

I also like it because it's flexible. You can catch up with the WC every day, a few times per week, or once per week. It's really up to the teacher. As a Google Apps teacher, your tools are tenfold with creating Presentations, interactive Docs, a Google Site, or using the new Aviary tool to create podcasts that are inspired by the Explorers' discoveries.

The North American Odyssey begins on April 22nd, 2010- Earth Day. Go to wildernessclassroom.com to register and download the curriculum guide. You can use their lesson plans, create your own, or add your own as well!

It's the end of the year! Get away from that test grilling, and have some fun learning online!

and 

See you on Earth Day! 

Google Apps for the Class- Create a Podcast in Google Apps!

This week the Google Apps Marketplace opened up, and I was quick to discover that there is an audio editing tool in it. I wanted to see how quickly I could create an introduction for my Adventures in Ed Tech podcast.  Never having used the tool before, it took me all but 11 minutes. I think that's a pretty good forecast for an intuitive tool. I created a time-lapse video for that, so if you want to get a peek into the tool, go ahead and watch!

Google Apps for the Class: Exporting Google Earth to My Maps

Okay, so Google Maps is not part of Google Apps. However, it is still possible to use this tool to share students' work. This next part of my tutorial series, Google Apps for the Class shows you how to take students' Google Earth folders and files, and bulk upload them to a Google Map or My Map.

I have middle school kids and would not sign them up for regular Google accounts just so that they can use the My Maps feature, so what I am doing here is just using my own Google Maps account.  I know that there are other ways to do this, but I found this way just fine.  Hope it gives you some ideas. Enjoy!

Oh, and here is the link to my students' completed Olympic Venues Map. 

It's About Process! Streamline Teaching Strategies with Google Apps!

This is my presentation on using Google Apps with some of your favorite age-old teaching strategies!

Link: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMzgzNjk5c25tczY&hl=en

Google Apps for the Class- Fun With Images in Google Presentations

This very short version of Google Apps for the Class shows off a couple of neat things that you can do with adding images to Google Presentations.


Animated Gifs: Did you know that you can input animated gifs into a Google Presentation? Well, I personally didn't even know that websites used animated gifs anymore, but here's a whole bunch of holiday themed gifs!
http://www.webdeveloper.com/animations/Holiday.html 

Incremental Reveal: Presentations never had a lot of capabilities for animating your slides, but it does allow you to slowly reveal images in a presentation. Have fun!

Google Apps for the Class- Using Site Templates

This is the next installment of my series Google Apps for the Class. Site templates is a new feature in Google Sites, and here I show you how to create a functioning blog or online journal that you can then feed out to a group of people, or in my case, students. This one's a little longer, but I hope it will be helpful!

YouTube should not be blocked: here's why

Last week I presented at an Illinois Computing Educators mini conference, and I was surprised (aghast!) that the school I was presenting at- had YouTube blocked.

The videos that I had ready to show wouldn't play, and it just didn't occur to me that YouTube would be blocked. I'm spoiled by my own school, I know. The folks in my sessions said things like, "oh, our school has it blocked too. It's really frustrating!" And my first question is- why? (it's rhetorical)

First of all, there are many worse sites that a kid could go to and subvert the school's Sonicwall filter, if they are that persistent. Seems to me YouTube gets the bad rap because it is the most popular, and some school admins watch a lot of Dateline NBC. Some teachers were happy with the block; they say that they go to YouTube, use a tool to download the videos, and they play them from Quicktime. Seems like a lot of extra work to me, and the kids miss something in that process. 

My problem with that, is that YouTube channels are becoming more of an "experience," very much like a museum trip or an historical journey. 


If you're a school district administrator, and YouTube is blocked in your district, I know why you did it, but it's time to take it off. YouTube and video sharing are not the Dateline NBC headline anymore. It's not what it was. It's not what it used to be, and it's time to teach kids how to use the tool responsibly. That's called digital citizenship, and it's part of their technology standards. YouTube is now old hat.

Here's why YouTube shouldn't be blocked. (click on the image below).

Also, check out the NASA Channel. So much potential!

Google Apps in the Class: Text Coding in Google Docs

One of my favorite reading and comprehension strategies is the text coding approach from Doug Buehl's Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning. I love this strategy because it forces the student to pause and think about what they are reading about, therefore, helping them with meta-cognitive skills as well as their reading comprehension.

What occurred to me recently is that text coding can be done quite nicely in the Google Docs environment, and can even take on a new life when you share the document with 2 or 3 students and they code simultaneously. This way- students are also becoming cognitive of how other students are reading a document. Very nice.

In this, the second "episode" of Google Apps for the Class, I show how text coding can be done in Google Docs. Hope it's helpful!

Google Apps for Education and the Teacher's Process

Do these steps look familiar? 

As teachers, we all use Gagne's steps, for the most part, but what I've found is most teachers may not even remember where these steps came from, me included, until recently: American Educational Psychologist Robert Gagne.

Gagne's steps were based around the Information Processing theory, where the goal was to maximize retention of knowledge (most likely- rote knowledge).

While I don't believe treating the learner like a machine (computer) is a very helpful metaphor, project-based learning and Understanding by Design models of instructional design have fashioned the Nine Steps to their liking.

The Nine Steps still work- for good lesson plan organization, and can be used for higher-order learning as well.

I've found that the Google Apps for Ed environment allows the Nine Steps to really flourish and take on a new life of their own. This presentation was given on October 3rd, 2009 at the ICE-chip Mini-Conference and explores how Google Apps transforms the teacher's educational process into the digital world.



Links that were used in this presentation:

1. Gaining Attention: 
1. Google Presentation Sample, Simple Machines: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjYxY2Z6dHdnY3E&hl=en
2. Describe the Goal/ Objective
1. Google Presentation Sample: Researching the Land, 3rd Slide in: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUKY528tgMv_ZGR3MnZxeF82N2Y1Y2oyYmN6&hl=en
3. Stimulate Prior Knowledge:
1. Anticipation Quiz Form Sample: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDVBZ2trdUxVc0tMNWUwU1JvSjRyUlE6MA..
4. Present New Content: 
1.  Google Presentation Sample: Researching the Land, 6th Slide in: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUKY528tgMv_ZGR3MnZxeF82N2Y1Y2oyYmN6&hl=en
2. Text Coding with Doug Buehl, Google Books
5. Provide Guidance
1. Tutorials: Using Google Video and You Tube to embed tutorials in a Presentation: 
1. Citing Creative Commons image tutorial: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY0ZnRyOXJiZHE&hl=en
2. Using other teacher and student tutorials as guidance: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY1Zzc4aGc2NTY&hl=en
6. Elicit Performance
7. Provide Feedback
1. Love Letter Video embedded in Google Presentation:http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY2Z2t0d2g0amQ&hl=en
8. Assess Performance:
1. Digital Scantron Form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEpwNm40NmtQb3RKeVJiLUpXQ29nV2c6MA
9. Enhance Retention

Extra links:
Google Apps for Ed
My RTI data form example


Thanks to http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art3_3.htm  for the nine-steps image. 

Google Apps in the Class: Creating Online Seating Charts

This year is my first year using Google Apps, and I'm discovering new ways to do many things- like the age-old seating chart. When you pass around the old seating chart, students inevitably write their name awkwardly or draw funny pictures, forget to put their name in, and if you don't pay attention, the seating chart gets stuck half-way around the room, and doesn't get completed! No more- I say. Let's fix this with Google Spreadsheets.




The great thing about this is that the actual time it takes students to put in their names is merely minutes. While this may take you a little time to set up, it can last forever (or at least until you move your desks around). If you have a substitute teacher, simply print them out for the sub, or share the link to view the spreadsheet online.

My final seating chart is available to view here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tx8p65M_2w5zcKjM4Fp3S-g&output=html

Good luck in your teaching practice! I hope this was helpful.

DR