Google Sky

Vicki A. Davis beats me to the punch again in her blog post entitled "Take your class sky high... Oh well, I don’t really have time to blog right now anyway so I will direct you to a really great blog and blogger (CoolCatTeacher Blog)

“Ok, teachers of science. Go to Google and download the latest version of Google Earth and you will have a super cool new feature called Google Sky! View Google's mini tour to the left (which they handily posted to youtube.)This lets you turn heavenward to look at constellations and all sorts of things! You can explore: planets, constellations, the moon, galaxies, the life of a star, and the atmosphere.I'm also fascinated by the Google Earth Community which allows you to make and share these files.”

I use Google Earth to highlight the 21 Spanish speaking countries with my Spanish classes. I also show them our school and my house for fun. I’m not sure how I will use Google Sky with my classes, but I will introduce them to it for fun.

Vickie suggests using Google Sky in the following ways…

Ideas for use:

• Use it in junior high for earth science to interactively explore the sky.
• Discuss the life of a star.
• Use it on your smartboard to explore, zoom in, and discuss things.
• The Hubble Telescope images are available to you and your students!
  

Too bad I’m not a Science teacher. Well, maybe in the next life!

Thanks for the great post Vicki!

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Correction about Durff

Mrs. Durff isn’t an English teacher per se. She was nice enough to drop back by the blog and leave another comment and correct my first assumption. Mrs. Durff is like many of the wonderful teachers out there she is busy wearing a variety of hats. In actuality, she is a library media specialist with emphasis on the word specialist due to all of the roles she has to fill within her local school setting.

Mrs. Durff referred to herself as a “gopher,” but based on her blog as well as other entities it was easy for me to ascertain that she was just being modest. She was also nice enough to leave the URL to her professional blog in her comment. It is http://durffsblog.blogspot.com/. She has great quote there by Mr. Lewis. "The next best thing to be wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are" CS Lewis. Based on her blog role she not only believes in this creed, but she lives by it.

The more than impressive video that I plugged from teachertube about student blogging into my last post is from a teacher in New Zealand according to Mrs. Durff. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken the time to research the video, but I love it nonetheless. It presents student blogging in a positive light. What a great video!

Warm regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

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Digital Directions, Education Week, & Michelle Davis

I am very excited because I got an email today from Michelle Davis from Education Week asking me for an interview for an upcoming article on wikis in the classroom. The article will be featured in Education Week’s new technology magazine Digital Directions.

I called her this afternoon after school and had a very meaningful conversation with her about my classes and our Spanish wiki. I also spoke with her about other ways that we are implementing technology in our schools and student safety. It was an honor having the opportunity to interview with Michelle Davis and I look forward to reading her article in what I believe will be the second issue of Digital Directions. According to her, the next issue should be out sometime in September.

If you love educational technology, then I suggest checking out the first copy of Digital Directions. There is a lot of useful information for educational tech enthusiasts in the new publication. One of my favorite articles is the article entitled "Digital Tools Push Math and Science to New Levels." Ironically, the article was written by non other than Michelle Davis. Not only does this lady write well and cover all of the bases, but she does it with style. These are the type of articles that I enjoy reading. Looks like I will have to keep a closer eye on Education Week, their new publication, and articles by Michelle Davis. By the way, if you are interested in other articles by Michelle Davis at Education Week, they can be found HERE.

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: interview, education_week, technology, wikis, digital_directions, new_magazine, Michelle_Davis, William_Bishop, educational_technology