I introduced some students and teachers at Greenville School today in south-central Oklahoma to the classroom blogosphere using a customized Google Earth KML file I named, the “Classroom Blog World Tour.” (This requires Google Earth.) I let students take turns “driving the mouse” on my laptop, connected to a LCD projector, while they literally “flew” us around the earth to the cities of different classroom bloggers. After “flying” to the city, students clicked the embedded link in Google Earth and viewed the classroom blog, first in a smaller Google Earth window and then full-screen in a web browser. This “world tour” currently includes 11 classrooms in North America and Australia. Yes, I know I need to include Scottish bloggers, Ewan! Which others need to be included?
I hope to eventually make this a dynamic KML file which is updated from a mySQL database of classroom blogs. For now a static file will suffice, and the kids REALLY loved this today. If you’re looking for a very engaging, “sexy” way to share a tour of classroom blogging voices spanning the globe– check this out.
I have the KML file and other KML / Google Earth related links on a new KML resources page.
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Comments
2 responses to “Classroom Blog World Tour”
This is excellent – a super idea. Kids always love looking at their Clustrmaps, so taking a look at it dynamically is a step up. All Scottish edubloggers that can tend to sign up over at http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com
There are others who don’t, but that’s a pretty good indication. They are split up by geography (Scottish Local Authorities). A google image search brings up an explanation where all the obscure ones are.
Thanks!
[…] After reading Wesley Fryer’s post on ‘Classroom Blog World Tour‘ and reading through the Google Earth Tutorial, I decided to have a go. You can download my ‘Shropshire Secondary Schools‘ file and let me know what you think. […]