A New Twist on Google Maps

While at our state technology conference last week I sat in on a session discussing new ways that you can use/apply Google maps across the curriculum.  I thought it was interesting and was not sure what to expect but I wanted to see if there was something new going on that I did not already know.


I already knew that I could go into Google Maps and get directions and could both get a web link and embed a map into another website using the code.  But I had not gone through the process of creating my very own personalized map.  I thought it was very interesting and fun to be able to create my own map with the places I wanted to see in it.  I worked along with the presenter and created a map of vacation locations that I have been in the past number of years.  As I was doing this I started thinking of the many different ways that this could be applied to the classroom at all levels.  Now there is a catch in this and that is you have to have a Google Account setup ahead of time so that you can log into and create your map.  I setup a generic account and was able to follow along with the presenter and was caught up in a manner of minutes.

When you log into Google, click on the Maps button in the browser toolbar.  This takes you to the familiar maps screen where you can zoom in to a location and all the way down to the Street View, which I talked about in a previous blog.  First click on My Places then Click the Red Create Map button and enter in a Title for this map and a brief description of what the map will be showing.  In the map pane you can zoom into the area of the map you will be using and then utilize the Add Placemark and Draw Line option buttons to create the points on the map that are of interest.  

Select the Placemark button and choose a spot on the map and click, you will now have a box that allows you to enter in a title and description of the selected location.  You can add in as much information as you want including links and images if needed.  Once you have added in your points of interest you can then use the Line Tool and draw lines from a starting location to the final destination.  After you have placed all of your markers and created a pathway between all the points, just save the the map you have created.  

You can also choose the Collaborate button to grant others the ability to add to and take away the location points on your map.  When you have completed all of the edits of your map, click the done button and you have your very own self-created map.

Now that your personalized map is created you have the choice to make it either Public, for anyone to see, or Unlisted, in which you will share the map with only those you want to see it. You can then click the Link button and either copy the URL address to send out or you can Embed the map code into a website, wiki, or blog to share.  Another point to know is that when you are in the customize area there is an Interactive Tutorial that takes you through the whole process of setting up a map from start to finish.

So now that you have learned how to create a customized map in Google Maps what do you do with it now?  How can it help you in the classroom?  Here are a few suggestions on how to use them in your classrooms. (adapted from presentation)


Science:

• Natural disasters: earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes
• Famous scientists
• Museums
• Endangered species
• Habitats/biomes
• Plotting field trips (virtual/in person)

Social Studies:

• Civilizations
• Tribes
• Military battles/movements
• Explorers
• Exploration maps
• Exploring my city/hometown
• States and Capitals
• Civil Rights
• Innovators
• Underground Railroad
• Alaskan Iditarod 

English:

• Famous Writers
• Literature Trips
• Ghost Stories
• Haunted locations
• Flat Stanley Novels

This is just a sampling of what you can use the Customizable Google Maps in your classroom.  You may have other thoughts of ways to use it and that is great, please share additional information in the comments area of this blog. 

images from Google Maps using Promethean Image Capture Tool

Tweeting to Disaster

I, to make a bad joke, ran across this article this morning about the upcoming 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  The History Press has launched a new Twitter account to chronicle the days leading up to and including the faithful night that the UN-Sinkable ship sank in the waters of the North Atlantic.

You can follow the timeline through the hashtag #TitanicVoyage (@titanicrealtime), and even from some of the people that were a part of the launch like #crew, #engineering, #captain to hear their thought and accounts of the events that led up to that now infamous night of April 15, 1912. Currently the timeline was setup on March 10, 2012 to begin the chronicling of the events.  There are just a few tweets out there now from the captain, crew, engineering and officer but as the time gets closer to the launch date we should start seeing the timeline fill up.  Currently there are almost 13k followers of the site.

This could be a great lesson starter for you Social Studies classes where the students can follow along with the feed as things are happening to see what it would have been like if Twitter was around during that time for people to be able to send out updates as they were happening.  We find it so often now with other natural disasters that we are getting updates from Tweets faster than we can get news crews into areas.  It will be very interesting to see how things unfold through tweets over the next month.  Maybe to see if there will be tweets coming from what would be passengers as well as the crew for their thoughts on what will, or rather has happened.

** Update **
I just got some new information that I needed to add to this post.  The information that is being Tweeted out is, and will be coming directly from the ships log books.

How to Find Longitude and Latitude in Google Maps

A conversation started earlier today where one of my co-workers asked about resources to help students find and figure out how to determine Latitude and Longitude.  It made me think back about some conversations that I had with some Kindergarten teachers regarding Google Earth and it dawned on me.  You can set Google Maps to show your Latitude and Longitude with just a few simple clicks on the screen.

I had forgotten all about the ability for Google Maps to display this information and it is very simple to do.  Once you have opened up a Map and moved into the location that you would like to find the Latitude and Longitude for you will Right Mouse click to see the menu.  In the Menu Click on What's Here?  When you do this you will see a Green Arrow pop up on the Map.  When you hover over the green arrow the Latitude and Longitude will display for the location.  You then can perform any of the normal options that Google Maps offers you users.

Here is a quick video that shows you how to determine the Latitude and Longitude on the Map.

video created using Google Maps and

ActivInspire Recorder tool

You Have Their Attention When This Happens...

The other day I was having a training session with middle school teachers who are moving into their new building in a couple of days on the equipment they now have access to in their classrooms.  We were talking about all of the new interactive tools they have in their classrooms that they can use with their students when I had a teacher speak up and say what is that?  I was not sure what they were referring to so I asked them to show me what they were talking about by using the Interactive Tablet to click on the Icon in question.

We were looking at ActivOffice, which is an add-on productivity pack for MS PowerPoint 2007, when the teacher noticed in the floating toolbox an Icon that said READ.  I said for them to go ahead and click on it to see what it would do.  The Icon opened up the Ticker Tape Tool which started the scrolling text across the top of the page.  I looked back at the teachers in the room and more than half of them were looking up intently at the tool they had discovered and were all asking questions about how it worked.  So in the midst of one training we went turned in a completely different direction to what a co-worker calls a "Teachable Moment."

I went into a quick discussion on how the Ticker Tape can be used in conjunction with ActivOffice and a PowerPoint to share even more information with the students.  The teachers can setup the ticker tape with any type of information from Science terms, Social Studies dates and places to Math and English terms.  The Art teacher spoke up with a "What about me?"  I responded with enthusiasm that all kind of information can be shared from the names of different artists, sculptors and painters to go along with the images of their works displayed on the PowerPoint.  Music teachers can also benefit from the use of the ticker tape with Lyrics to songs, famous musicians and terminology.  All which can be shared with the students right over the current displayed information.

We even got into a discussion on how they could put their Subject area Essential Questions, morning work, homework assignments, upcoming school information, project information and a myriad of other general announcements.  All which could then be used over and over again because they have the ability to save those ticker tapes to their local drives, staff share, media or even personal thumb or external hard drives for future use.

All of the teachers were talking and whispering of different ways they could use the Ticker Tape and even though we had gone in a different direction from the planned training I felt that they had gotten more out of that 5 minutes and would be able to use that information immediately to share information with their students on the first day in their new classrooms.

As a final thought don't forget that if you have ActivInspire and an ActivBoard you can also use the Ticker Tape tool to share information with your students as well.

A New Way to Study Geography

I was looking through Promethean Planet recently and discovered that they have now joined forces with a new Partner resource called The Royal Geographical Society(RGS).  "This group was established in the early 1800's to help support education, research and fieldwork in the study of world geography." 

The Royal Geographical Society offers a wide range of resources to help students in the classroom to learn about the different aspects of world geography through online resources and fieldwork studies for Elementary through Post-Secondary education.  A recent fieldwork study was their work on the production of resources for the study the Continent of Antarctica.  As you read more about the Partner Resources on Promethean Planet from the RGS  you will have access to their documents and resource packs on the geography of Antarctica.Plus they have a really nice flipchart that you can download and use in your classroom.


You can also visit their parent site rgs.org to see even more research and resources available for the classroom.  They have separated their site into resources for Teachers, Students and even Parents so that the information is available to all participants who are using their site.  There are many more resources available on their website to mention here.  Take a look for yourself to see how RGS can help your students gain a better understanding of World Geography.

Embedding HTML into ActivInspire

Recently Promethean's ActivInspire program has had a fairly significant update to the software to provide a lot more versatility to its users.  The latest version of the software is 1.6.46087 and if you aren't sure what one you have you can click on Help in the Main Toolbar and then Click About to see which you are running.  If you are not running the latest version you are missing out on a lot of new improvements to the software.  So how do you update the software you might be asking?  Well it is really simple.  First you just go right back to the same Help button and then click Check for updates.  A window will pop up and say that there is a new update available and will ask you to Run, Save or Cancel.  The best thing to do is to Save it to your computer and then Run it after it downloads.

Now that is out of the way let me talk about one of the, at least I think so, Best New features of the latest update.  It's the ability to Embed HTML code directly into a flipchart page.  What a great concept to be able to embed content directly into the flipchart page so that you do not have to open up web browsers or office documents or even additional pdfs.  So how do you do this?  It's really easy as long as you have the update.  Click on Insert then Link and then Embed HTML.

After you do this you will see an panel box open and all you have to do is paste in the embed code and click OK.

So... you might be thinking, what would be the benefit of having this feature.  Well think of working on Fractions in Math with your 5th graders and need to show them a short video explaining the process that is on Schooltube or Teachertube.  Normally you would have to minimize ActivInspire and then open up your favorite browser and go to the video to see it.  All the while your students are getting restless due to the down time.  If in your prep work you go to the site and grab the embed code and Insert it into the flipchart page there is no down time because when you go to the page the video is there and all you have to do is click the Play button. 

Now the embedding is not just limited to video sources you can also embed documents and pdf's directly into your flipchart as well.  You can use an outside webstie called Embedit.in to store the files and then just copy and paste the embed code into the flipchart.  Then you will have a nice clean viewer for the document on the page and have the ability to both download and print from the presentation if needed. 

What else can you do, why not embed a map into your flipchart.  Yes I know there are maps already in the Resource Browser of ActivInspire but sometimes the map is not as detailed as you want it to be.  So just open up Google Maps and click on the Chain Link button to see the embed code to copy and paste into your flipchart.

Do you create Animoto videos or use Voicethread with your students in class?  You can take the student created work and embed it into your flipchart pages as well with the embed codes that are generated directly on the respective sites.

Wow there are so many choices of how you can use the Embed HTML feature in the new ActivInspire it can almost seem overwhelming.  My philosophy is to just start slow and do something easy like just adding a Google Map to your flipchart page.  Watch this following video to see how easy it really is.

Now that you see how easy it is I hope that you have fun embedding everything directly into your flipchart pages so that you can keep your students on task and focused with no downtime in the classroom.  If you are having any difficulties or need some additional assistance or maybe even some ideas there's a lot of resources and feedback in the Community Forum Section of Promethean Planet website where you can ask and gets answers to your questions.

Lumens DC 190 Part II

In looking at the software for the new Lumens DC 190 document camera (doc cam), you do not see any changes to the 3 by 3 or 4 by 4 grid.  The software itself has been updated to v.1.0.9 for Ladibug and there have been a few updates and improvements to it for use with your computer.  Again the software is available on both PC and Mac, however I did not see on the website the availability for Linux for this new version as of yet.  All of the buttons here work just like they have in the past with one new item.  If you click the Lightbulb Icon you are able to toggle back and forth between the regular lamp and the LED light on the head unit.  If both lamps are off the sequence is as follows as you click the icon; lamp, lamp and LED, LED, off.  Again the addition of the LED lamp is a nice feature because it gives you just enough light and is not as overpowering at the lamp. 

Before I go in any further I have to add in that one of the best new features that I have seen is that if you press the Menu button on the Remote Control you are able to see it in the viewing area after you have clicked the Display live images button.  And it is fully functional so there is no need to have the doc cam hooked up as a pass-through device were you are forced to toggle the source back and forth so you can make Menu changes for the doc cam hardware.

Nothing has changed in the button options when you click the Advance button.  The Capture still images, Record video and Time Lapse capture have not changed.  The Camera Settings button has changed slightly in the way that it looks for users.

I mentioned it in my first post but there are a new feature button changes, one is the PIP button which allows you to see the static images that are stored in the doc cam base along with the live image in the bottom left hand corner of the view screen.  Now a bonus is that you can use the arrow keys on the remote to move the live image around on the screen if it is needed.  Press one time to get in and select the static image and to get out you have to press it again and then the Menu button to get back to the full screen live image.  Another new button is Pan which is just a name change from the old Book button.  Nice thing is that it is a one click in and a one click out.  The Capture and Record buttons here will store the media in the built in hard drive in the base of the doc cam and not on the computer like the buttons do on the 4 by 4 grid. 

Now for what I think is the best new upgrade is that the Arrow and Menu buttons on the right side of the panel are now fully functional.  This is a big leap over previous versions where they seemed to be just ornamental and were waiting for technology and coding to catch up with them so they would work properly.

Now to go along with all of the good I have to give you my opinions on what I think are some of the bad things I have seen with the new DC 190 and software.

• The Rotate button is no longer on the remote control, a staple that has been there for a while.  Now you have to go into the software Advanced tools or use the hardware Menu key on the remote.
• You can no longer see the Doc Cam internal storage as a drive on the computer when the unit is turned off.  You will have to change the default menu options to save to a USB drive then take that to the computer to read the information that has been saved to the DC 190 base.
• The built in microphone will only record to the doc cam.  It cannot be used as a USB microphone through the computer.  May just need to have a USB Audio driver upgrade.
• The Microscope attachment has gone from a threaded design to a post attachment design.  To me this is a real design flaw that needs to be addressed.  Within the first month of installation many of our teachers have already broken the adapter because they have twisted it to far and the posts break off which are no more than a millimeter or two thick. 
• No clear instruction for switching the light sources on the Doc Cam. 

Now I am not trying to be negative, I have spent a long time working with Document Cameras over the past three plus years and have figured out many ways to get around and make things work.  I welcome any input from people out there if you are using the new DC 190, share your comments below.