Jeff Utecht – Educator, Consultant, Author
Posts tagged google-earth
ISB Round Up: Google Earth, YouTube, and Blogs
Oct 28th
There are so many great things happening at our school right now that I find I don’t have time to blog about one before I’m deep into another project with another teacher. All that I know is we’re having some fun!
Let’s start in Mr. Jessee’s room where I wanted to share a great Google Earth project that the third grade team has been working on for the past month or so. I talked about this in an earlier post so won’t go into all the back ground here. But you can visit Mr. Jessee’s class blog and download Google Earth tours. This time the More >World Landform Tour via Google Earth
Sep 26th
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working closely with a couple of our 3rd grade teacher looking at their mapping unit and using Google Earth. I talked about the lessons I was helping with a couple blog posts ago.
What has been really great about this project is how I’ve been able to support and differentiate the project at a teacher level based on their comfort zone and knowledge of technology and still meet the learning outcomes.
Ms. Tulli’s students just posted their KMZ file that you can download and learn about landforms from the kids. If you have time More >
What can a map tell us?
Sep 2nd
Over the past two weeks I’ve been working with our 3rd grade teachers on a social studies project to introduce the students to some mapping skills. Of course the USSR no longer exists, yet many atlases in schools and even school encyclopedia talk about the USSR as though you should be able to find it on a map. The left overs of social studies curriculum reviews that seem to always get pushed to be the last curriculum to be updated at schools. Funny how we want our students to be “global citizens”, “globally aware”, and communicate globally, yet our curriculum More >
A Great Day in St. Louis
Jul 28th
A big thank you to Elizabeth Helfant for inviting me into St. Louis for a chance to spend a day with the staff of Mary Institute Country Day School. I was the last in a string of one day workshops that Elizabeth put together for her staff. Being the last of the summer was nice as it allowed us to talk about how tools such as Google Earth, Blogs, and Wikis can be used in the classroom. We spent the first part of our time not talking about the tools but looking at examples of how they are being used in More >
Google Earth and Audio Books
Dec 4th
Two recent lessons I have been involved in are using Google Earth with 2nd Graders and having 5th graders create audio books for Pre-K students.
Google Earth Lesson (2nd Grade):
Have students pair up. (I always have kids number 1 and 2, it makes it easy to say “OK, #1 your turn to ……)
Students start Google Earth and each person is allowed 5 minutes to explore the program. Click here, click there, spin the Earth this way and that. I find I have way less interruptions if you just give kids time to explore the program “their way”. Giving just 5 minutes gets More >
What’s your focus teaching or learning?
Aug 27th
So many times we use the phrase “Teaching & Learning” but really we need to be asking ourselves:
Are we focusing on teaching or learning?This came up in a discussion with Kim earlier today, (BTW….the two of us in a room for longer than 10 minutes is enough deep conversation to keep me going the rest of the day) that what we are focusing on is not necessary student learning, but instead teachers teaching. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and take our eye off of what we’re really here for.
As we continue to support teachers using technology tools More >
From Manila to Florida: Making Global Connections
Aug 13th
Monday night while in Manila I had the privileged to Skype into the first day or school for elementary teachers at Chets Creek Elementary. By far this was the highlight of my trip to Manila and really I just happened to be in Manila it could have been from anywhere.
Melanie Holtsman contacted me about a week ago and asked if I’d be willing to Skype into the first day of school for the teachers to talk about technology. It seems the principal had bought ever teacher the book Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools as a book study and according to Melanie More >
I’m still amazed
Feb 8th
I mean I know you can do it…I’m doing it..but is this amazing or what.
My Mother-in-Law is on her way to China. Using a flight tracker and Google Earth I can watch in real time as she makes her way across the Pacific. Seeing that we are about 10 miles from the airport and it’s pretty foggy and because Google Earth is so cool, I did a quick search for ‘airport weather google earth’ and came up wit this link.So now I have the weather for over 3000 airports around the world at my finger tips. So I’m done for the rest More >
