Google Maps - A Lesson Idea

Webpals - e-change of learning and understanding

Back in the 60’s I use to subscribe to a pen-pal newsletter. You could pick pen pals from within the country and/or around the world. I remember one pen pal who I started writing to in sixth grade, from California, that I still remained in correspondence with on into college. This lesson plan, using Google Maps, brings innovation and a number of wonderful things a class can do in communicating with other students around the world. A twist on Google Maps for Educator's suggestion for use of Google Maps would be Webpals, instead of an exchange, and e-change of learning and understanding, on the web, using email, Skype, a blog, or other mediums of correspondence. The lesson plan would have students develop topics (i.e., environment, culture, life). Students discuss these questions with their Webpals. As a class, students review questions and responses posted by their pen pals and then post them within the description boxes on Google Maps. Google Maps would also be used to pinpoint the locations of students involved in Webpals.

This activity is a class project and would incorporate the use of a map that would be edited and monitored by the students. The teacher would act as facilitator for the project.



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Podcasts

I am just waking up from a podcasting nightmare; it took me several days to figure out how to use it, much less post it. I attempted to create my own. I thought it would be interesting to video myself reading out of an African American Literature book. I used Books on Tape for some of my students with learning disabilities. I see podcast as a way to provide access to literature for a broader audience.

Although I was unable to produce my own podcast, I did pick one at www.podbean.com which is on GRE/SAT vocabulary. I will be taking the GRE in November, and I can use all the help I can get!

Human Performance Improvement

HPI, is as a professional field of enterprise, centered on the efforts and results of people operating in work settings. However, according to Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey, in Chapter 14 of Trends and Issues In Instructional Design and Technology, principles of HPI, have been applied to educational situations (p.135). HPI is about “lowering the behavioral (activity) cost and markedly increasing the valued result or benefit.” (p.136)

I was thinking about a problem that our community college has of students dropping from courses prior to the semester ending. The behavior being, dropping out of class, the cost is loss revenue by the college because of the dropout rates. So if I understand the HPI concept correctly, the college needs to work on solutions to decrease the behavior of dropping classes and work on retention of students, the valued result being, (i.e., retained or increased revenues), as well as other benefits, such as increased student enrollments, and higher graduation rates. Concentration on retaining students would result in an increase in value for all stakeholders, with all benefiting from this achievement.

Another thought I had was about a card I received, as a teacher, of a group of children holding hands together in front of the world, and it said, “children, our most precious natural resource.” HPI adopts as its heart the idea of maximizing “human capital achievements.” This saying on the card I received, years ago, parallels this idea, which I believe has been a core value of education, from conception. To any educator, these words sound familiar, “performance outcomes”, “clear expectations,” “timely and specific feedback, “access to required information, “adequate resources,” etc. (p. 136) Isn’t this what making AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) is all about? I certainly would be interested to see whether the “PC toolkit,” which HPI has is useful in tackling the problem with failing schools. The public schools' systems could use an injection of HPI Botox, “human performance improvement”, using “human performance technology.”

According to the chapter, HPI is applicable in use to any population or subject matter, and is commonly applied to “social improvement settings. (p. 137) of which schools are a natural fit. The idea of closing the gaps in student performance and designing “cost-effective,” and “efficient interventions,” in areas, such as special education, would be phenomenal.

Instructional Technology - "The Borg" of the Future

In Trends and Issues In Instructional Design and Technology, by Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey, we are posed a question, to whether the Internet and Web have had a major influence in Educational programs at grades K-12; Higher education (community colleges, colleges, and universities) and/or Adult education (in businesses, government and/or the military)(p. 29)? The answer appears to be obvious, of course. One need not look further than their daily habits to realize how the evolution of technology has changed our lives. As a professor in a community college, teaching reading and writing, the bulk of my classroom instruction and testing is not out of a book, but presented through the use of technology. I use hardware (i.e., computers, digital cameras, overheads, document projectors) and software applications (i.e., Blackboard, MyCompLab, email, websites, Ebrarys, plagiarism scanners, PowerPoint). I personally have replaced my newspaper, magazines and books with a Nook. I rarely feel the need to read anything in paper print form, anymore. I felt my age, when my daughter started texting, and tweeting and announced that email had gone out of style 3-4 years ago. Until this class, I did not read blogs or create them for that matter. However, all these technologies are out there and advancing and developing at an ever increasing rate. All of them, as quickly as they arrive, are being incorporated into all the above-referenced educational settings. The appetite for technology, within the field of education, appears to never be satisfied, and there is an ever increasing menu of choices (i.e., blogs, Flickr, feeds, Delicious) to feast upon. The better question is, when do you say, enough? Perhaps one day brick and mortar schools will become obsolete and schools of the future will be driven by technology and a technologist’s type of culture. Is this good or bad, you choose? Look at social networks that have evolved such as MySpace and Facebook to get a feel for how education might look like, in the future, with these technologies. All schools will be connected in one big educational network.

Flickr: A Lesson In Values – Dare to Allow Your Class to Share?

A few years ago, I worked with elementary age students on a project that required them to take cameras (disposable) home with them, and take pictures. The lesson was about Values. Students were to spend a week, taking pictures of what was important to them. After bringing the cameras back, at the end of the week, the pictures once developed, were given to the students, who in turn created collages on poster board of their pictures, which they titled themselves. Flickr, could be used to create the same lesson on values. Students can still use disposable cameras. However, technology now allows those pictures to be put on CD or even transferred directly to your media sharing accounts. Students can view other student's pictures and add comments. The activity involves students in their learning. Sharing pictures is an activity that produces non-linguistic representations (imagery), by generating mental pictures. By using non linguistic representations, students have the opportunity to elaborate on his/her knowledge of what they see in the pictures. Students posting the pictures can respond back, and the power of elaboration, students explaining and communicating back and forth, is a good model of how a lesson on values can appear in a concrete form through the use of pictures, in an application like Flickr.

A concern I would have with this type of sharing, is protection against comments that would hurt or harm anyone, based on what they saw. Rules would have to be put in place, to guide responsible, ethical behavior. One of the benefits of an application like Flickr, would be the ability to open up participation of lessons, by connecting with classes around the world.