Students as Global Communicators

After playing around with Google Earth in class, I instantly thought about how great this would work in my classroom. There were so many amazing ways and features I could incorporate this into my classroom. When using this website, my mind went to a few of my 5th graders who are currently studying about different countries around the world. How cool would it be for them to see actual landmarks and sites they are studying?

First, to get my students familiar with the website, I had them look up their addresses and local places they know on the website. This got them to understand how the website worked and what they could do with it. Then I had them think about how this could be used to help them with their country projects. One of my students was studying Italy. I found a tour of Rome on Google Earth and we used that to explore the city and sites.

When doing a tour of a famous place, Google Earth splits the landmarks into multiple days. For my students this was perfect because we got to explore new landmarks over a course of a few days. After starting the tour, it brings you through all of the different landmarks while giving you facts about that place. We also were able to get a 360 degree view of the location. It was really cool to be able to move around and see the landmarks from every single view. Not only could you get a close up view but you could also get an aerial view of the place. My student loved the aerial view of the Coliseum.

playing around with the tour a little bit more, we also were able to figure out that by zooming out onto the city further, it gave you more choices to explore. My student ended up clicking on a few of the landmarks shown and learning about new places he didn't know about. He loved how easy it was to use and it was interactive, he spent more time looking around and learning than I think he would have by reading articles. 

The only thing I didn't completely love about this website was that some of the countries we were trying to look at didn't have a tour already set up so it was harder to research and look for facts. I also think it was a little hard to find a good tour, there was no search bar in order for someone to look for a specific tour of a place. We had to continue scrolling until we found what we were looking for. 

I also looked into Epals for this WAP. If I wanted to take this a step further, I could use Epals to find a classroom in Italy (or which ever country the student was researching) for them to correspond with. I think this might take things a little further and get the students to think about students in another country and learn from them about their home country, culture, language, etc. All you have to do it create an account and you can very easily connect with another classroom. You can search for classes based on skills, grade, age, etc. You can also choose if you'd like to set up a Skype call or just correspond via mail. 

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