Thing #13 Google Earth and Quizlet

This one was fun!  I enjoyed learning about Google Earth and look forward to spending some more leisurely time playing with this tool and seeing how I might use it in my classroom.  Exploring setting immediately comes to mind.  I like the idea of creating tours and telling a story with it--might be fun to do our own adventure stories using this tool.  I also like the idea of being able to see changes over time, as in social studies this might be particularly helpful.  The ability to explore the ocean depths or the moon is pretty exciting and I know I'll find a way to use this to motivate some of my reluctant readers and writers.  It also seems to lend itself to assist those students who have difficulty reading to be able to see graphic representations of places we are studying.

Part one of the assignment was to  "fly to someplace" and take a screenshot.  So here's mine:

The next part of the assignment was to make a placemark and record a screenshot of that.  So, here goes:

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't zoom in so very closely--but it isn't like our library is the Eiffel Tower or anything, so maybe it's the best I could do?  Anyway, it's a fun tool!

The next part of the assignment asked us to make a set of flashcards for kids and reflect on how we might use them in our classroom.  I made a small set of long and short A words for one of my reading groups.  This saved me a lot of time and created a professional looking product.  I am on my school's Instructional Consulation Team, and one of the strategies we routinely use with kids who struggle in reading is by the use of "pocket words"--three to four words the child keeps in their pocket to review several times during the day.  This would work GREAT for that!  We also use the same technique with math facts and I can see the same thing being used for vowel sounds, spelling patterns, etc.  I loved the ability to play games on the Quizlet site also.  I will get a lot of usage out of this "thing" for sure!

Here's a screenshot of a couple of my cards:

Loved this "Thing"!