Monday, March 23, 2015

Using Google Earth for Setting in a Text

I thought I would try using Google Earth in my English class. I have a capable Year 10 English class and we have been studying the Karate Kid (remake) for our film study. Instead of doing the usual setting activities I asked students to do the following:

Using Google Earth plot the important settings in the film and explain why they are important.

Students then worked in groups of no more than 3. They found different ways to record the voice-over for the Google Earth tour of the settings. Students used the 'Collaboration' space in OneNote to do the group work. Some students going as far to password protect their collaboration space. 

Students had 1.5 periods and 1 home work evening to do this task. I was lucky enough to have support from Tom Adams (StAC Elearning Integrator) in getting this set up. It seem to work best with students creating the tour in Google Earth then using a tool like Officemix to create the audio on top of the video. Students then could upload into Youtube for ease of viewing.

Take a look:


Here is a link to a blog post written by Sam McNeill for the StAC blog on this activity which is a more in-depth read.