The Technology tool that I followed a discussion of was Google Earth and education. First of all, GoogleEarth is an interactive / real time GPS type system. You can download this technology, and through a satellite, you can type in a specific address or area and that satellite will zoom in and show you a real time picture of the place you typed in.
The discussion(s) I followed began with a man talking about how he integrated this technology into his classroom to interest the students more. Google Earth is a web tool used for 3D images from satellites to assist in people’s travels and explorations, and now in classrooms. Google Earth is a fun tool to use just to get to places you’ve never been, but this discussion was about the use in and out of a classroom for educational purposes. Teachers are using Google Earth to teach about latitude and longitude, about how to figure numbers with miles or other measurements, geography and even geometry.
For example, if you ask your students to do an assignment on where they would love to visit, they could take themselves to Hawaii or to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden without ever leaving the comfort of their home. Another example would be for the mission projects in fourth grade, or the state projects in fifth grade. If the students have never visited the mission they are building and writing a report about, they can jump onto Google Earth and zoom into the surrounding area of the mission and the mission itself. If the student has never visited Alaska, but is writing a report about it, Google Earth would be a great way to find some little known places in Alaska to talk about, and they can even print off pictures to show. These are just a few examples of the millions of places Google Earth will take you for educational or personal purposes.
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