Google Earth

Google Earth, and the applications within the classroom is linked inextricably with Learning Engagement Theory (Kearsley and Schneiderman, 1999).

I love the idea of using Google Earth to engage learners in current events. Actually seeing what the streets and houses look like in Kabul will make them empathise with people in war-torn countries far more than imagining some distant wind-swept village that may be how they perceive places in the Middle East. Showing them cities that look so similar to our own from a birds eye view, complete with schools, ovals, hospitals and shopping districts will make them realise that these people are not so different from us after all.

There are also wonderful tools that will help in SOSE. You can click in for information about the area you are visiting online. You can find out geographical features. For maths we have access to the latitudes and longitudes and from Google Earth students will be able better to grasp these concepts from a whole-planet perspective.

We can click on the 'History' button to be shown what the geography of the land looked like either a hundred, or a thousand or a million years ago! Every student will study dinosaurs at some stage of their schooling - they will actually be able to see images of what the earth looked like in the time of the dinosaurs.

If you want to teach learners about China, we could do a 'chalk and talk' lecture, asking them to write notes, then regurgitate the information back to us for assessment, or we could group learners in teams to construct virtual tours of the region, including information, photos (perhaps uploaded from Flickr) and take the class on a journey through China with close-ups of landmarks and other places of interest. How much more meaningful a task! And one that can be saved and stored on a site like Scribd', so that they can receive feedback from the world about their tour. Thus an authentic task, with assessment not based on the number of ticks they get in a test, but on a highly interactive task, that has involved collaboration, experimentation and analysis and evaluation of the information they go through.

Students can create a tour of their own neighbourhood. They can include their own photos of the street and people and places that live near them.

They can wander around the country and choose an area that looks like a good place to live and then research what the infrastructure is like and whether they still think it would be a good place to live (is there a public swimming pool, how many schools etc).

Google Earth will engage the learners on many levels; the use of ICTs, student-centred learning, authentic projects and an outside focus. These exemplify all the attributes so valued in Learning Engagement Theory and will be sure to keep learners engaged, focused and excited about their learning journey.


REFERENCES

Kearsley, G. & Schneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved from CQ University e-course, EDED20491 ICTs for learning design, http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au