Fall family fun: Geocaching and podcasting together

My family and I enjoy the "Geek" sport of Geocaching.  Ok, it's not that geeky when you consider that it is great excuse to go outside and explore.  Plus there are a number of great classroom applications.   Of course there are a lot of math applications (calculating distances and geometry) or using the answers to math problems to complete missing coordinates.  And geocaching is well suited to teaching geography concepts and local history.  But you can also use caches for team building, campus orientations, or tie into the geocaching online community to build communication skill.  Regardless, it is a lot of fun.

My two children Bella and Tennyson helped me to make a quick podcast while we were out geocaching today at the Pine River Nature Center.  I had a little difficulty with our recordings and ended up using a couple different iPod touch apps (Voice and ipadio) to get the job done, but it was fun to record on the go.  Take a listen to get a better sense of what geocaching is all about.

Can't see the podcast player? Click here

John Sowash - #Macul10 Wiimote smartb...

John Sowash - #Macul10 Wiimote smartboards for $100.00

Smartboards allow students to get up and interact with their environment

• Physically engaging
• Encourages higher order thinking skills
• Improve motor skills
• Interacts with Web 2.0
• Reduces sage on the stage instruction

Johnny Chung Lee - The originator of the wiiboard

Josh made his own ir pen 2 years ago.

• could be good electronic class project but otherwise ... 

Now there are commercial made ir pens available.

IR lights don't light up light an incandescent bulbs.  Use a digital camera or video camera to see the light.

Penteractive.us is the least expensive option

Irpensonline for elementary - no clicking needed

Requires the .NET framework

Software

• Smoothboard.net - 30 dollars now but most full featured (does have free trial)
• Pentabulous is free
• Java whiteboard - only one for the mac

Installation

• Integrated blue tooth
• Connect the wiimote hold the player 1 and 2 buttons simultaneously
• Run the whiteboard software (when it's connected the player 1 button should light)
• Calibrate
• 70% or better Tracking utilization gives best accuracy
• Permanent mounting of wiimote is important
• You can to a doupble wiimote cross
• John used a camera tripod to mount the wiimote at the presentation and got a 52% accuracy
• Penteractive ceiling mount clips into drop ceiling rails ($30)
• Training the students is key (Whoa! there's a wiimote strapped the ceiling!)
• Threaded wiimote cover ($3)

Uses

• Google Earth was made for the this system
• Google SketchUp
• Review Games
• Protein Modeling
• Virtual Cell - Pearson
• Assessment and review
• Virtual Knee surgery
• Timeline Creation
• Concept Maps

Station activities make this system effective for encouraging student use

Assessment and Review

• Google Web quizzes and have students come up and answer collaboratively

Battery life varies on use

• The software monitors the wiimote battery life
• rechargables
• usb chargers

Mimeo works well with the wiiboard software

• several support networks for this

Resources

• wiimoteproject.com

A tale of homework help - Searching for images in Google Earth using Panoramio

My daughter is learning about continents and cultures in her Grade 2 French Immersion program.  Her homework this week is to gather images that represent these regions and the people who live there.  She could have started by cutting out images from old National Geographics, but we decided to explore the Panoramio layer in Google Earth first.

After showing her how to navigate the controls for zooming in and out and panning across the continents we toured the globe and identified each of the continents.  She chose to look at images from Asia first and started zooming in until Panaramio's blue square icons came into view.  Clicking on the icon opened a photograph of people or landmarks.  She then had to decide if the image met the criteria for the assignment.  Clicking on the image a second time opened the image in a web browser.  We created a notebook for her photos in Zoho Notebook and then dragged the image into the notebook using the Zoho Notebook browser extension.  (Side note: I prefer Google Notebook, but they have discontinued support for the browser extension). Update: a Google Notebook extension for FireFox v. 3.5 can be found here.

Soon she was exploring on her own, finding interesting photos and adding them to her notebook.  She noticed that many areas didn't have photos available which led to a discussion about the natural features like deserts and mountains and why people live closer to water and coastlines.  Afterwards, we looked at her notebook and picked out the photos that best fit the criteria before printing.

I was impressed by how quickly she adapted to the use of the mouse for navigating in Google Earth, her ability to work in multiple applications at once, and her critical thinking skills for selecting appropriate photographs.