For young people blogging represents a new way to not only write, but to create as well. With all the great information and media available on the web today, a blog is the perfect way for young people, to research, vet, and create a living project instead of just a 3 page book report or social studies report.
Yesterday The Portland Project was covered in an article by Mashable entitled, The Case for Social Media in Schools. The conversation that is ensuing because of that article is really quite amazing.
Request your Twitter followers to tweet their locations. Students use atlases or world maps to find their location and measure and convert the distance mathematically. Students can then use Google Earth to find the actual distance.
In this lesson, students will research daily life, industries, and the political situation along the United States/Mexico border.
Oil spills have devastating consequences, both for the environment and for communities. In this lesson, students compare the Exxon Valdez spill with the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They look at similarities and differences in the way it happened, how it was contained, and how long it took (or will take) to repair the damage.
A great Geography lesson using Google Earth and Twitter! Overview: Source Edublogs The main idea for this activity is to teach students geography using your Twitter network and Google Earth. Hopefully, your network is worldwide so the students can find a wider range of places. Objective: 1) To increase student’s knowledge of world geography [...]
We’ve received some great ideas on using social media in the classroom from some of the great folks that took our workshops in June. One of the homework assignments (for credit!) from the workshop required attendees to create two lesson ideas using social media in their area of expertise.
Geometry: Photo Message Scavenger Hunt Objective: Students will identify and share geometric shapes using social media. Materials: Internet access, digital cameras or cell phones Procedure: Review with students basic geometric shapes including various quadrilaterals, triangles, regular and irregular polygons, etc. Review with students (if needed) how to take pictures with digital cameras and cell phones. [...]
Ok, I admit it. Ever since I was in grade school, I’ve been a science nut. I loved studying the stars, physics, erector sets, electronics…it was all good stuff. I even majored in mathematics in university. The web is full of some awesome sites for learning and teaching science. Check out the sites in this [...]
Unless you’ve been sleeping for the last few years, you’ve probably heard about Wikipedia. In fact, you’ve probably used it, and if you haven’t, your students have. Wikipedia is an online collaborative encyclopedia that is updated, managed and vetted by members, visitors, and contributors. It was launched in 2001 and in less than 10 years [...]