Easy Collaborative Project Teaches Geography

“Greetings from…” is an online postcard exchange project that started just this fall. This Google Map project is open to classrooms of all ages. The goal is “to share famous landmarks, locations, or unique aspects of your home state or region.”

You can submit one class postcard, or each student can submit one.  The directions for embedding the postcards on the map are easy. A suggestion for how to publish your postcard is also provided.

Missouri doesn’t have any postcards yet. This project corresponds with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade curriculum standards. This is a simple but great project, which does, by the way, qualify for the October Tech Challenge.

Recently Tagged 092708

Sites I have recently tagged in my delicious account

• Start your 2008-2009 Classroom digital scrapbook *RIGHT NOW* on Voicethread.com! Great idea here from Kevin Jarrett. Start a VoiceThread now, add to it each month, and you have a classroom scrapbook of this school year.  You can register for a free account and then request a free upgrade to a pro account so as to make as many VoiceThreads as you want. See my handout for directions.
• Secret Files: vocabulary, put the words in the correct drawers; can set difficulty level
• World War II Remembered: from Scholastic, projects and activities.
• SMARTBoards and the Shrink and Grow Reveal Challenge: from James Hollis. Watch the video on creating a Shrink and Grow Template in Smart Notebook 10. We have several teachers in our district with new smartboards who will find the Teachers Love SMART Boards blog a great source of screencasts and instructional ideas.
• Webspiration: concept mapping Web-based Inspiration, beta, share concept map with others and assign permissions (all access, edit, or just view), revision history, can import from Inspiration 8, concept map view or notes view; currently free but suspect it won’t always be

Electing a US President in Plain English

Watch this new video from Common Craft: Electing a US President in Plain English.