Google World Wonders

As a former Geography teacher, Google World Wonders sounded wonderful to me.  In the World Geography SOLs there are World Monuments which the students have to be able to identify--Taj Mahal, Big Ben, the Gateway Arch, etc. I knew that Google World Wonders utilized Google Earth street level imagery and I figured that this would be a terrific way to teach these monuments.  Well,  it is, but, I was disappointed to learn that the monuments which can be visited on a World Wonders virtual field trips are limited to a mere 173. This means that of the cultural monuments in the United States, for example,  the Golden Gate Bridge and Independence Hall are among the wonders included, but, the U.S. Capital building and the Gateway Arch are not. Neither is the Eiffel Tower.

With both the capital building and the Eiffel Tower, I found that if I clicked on the Maps icon in my Google Apps box, searched for these locations, and then switched to the street level view, they have some terrific views of those landmarks.  That being the case, why would a geography teacher, or any other teacher, use the World Wonders site rather than just using Google Maps?  I, for one, would certainly use both were I still in the classroom.

 What Google World Wonders has that a street level view elsewhere may not have would be "details"--that is some script giving a bit of  background information about the site. They also have "collections", put together by Google.  These collections might include historic photographs as well as current ones.  For example, you can compare Louis XIV's bedroom as it appeared in the 19th century with how it looks today. In addition you can look  through "user galleries" which is just what the name implies--pictures put together in an album, which some user has created for others to view. Quite often these galleries will include comments from the user as well as details about where the photograph came from, etc. Finally, you can create your own collections--that is, you can gather various items available at Google World Wonders into an album of your own--organize them, add comments, and then show them, or make them available to your students. However, you cannot add photos or other items from outside the project (except for YouTube videos--which you can add--so I guess you could put photos into a YouTube video and add that--once you take care of the filtering issues.)

Here is what someone else had to say about the educational use of World Wonders:

"The World Wonders Project offers an Education page dedicated to assisting educators in history and geography topics. Teacher guides are available for primary school and secondary school. These guides include activity sheets, lesson plans, and presentations. Beyond the obvious use of the free guides, the resources, pictures, historical content and 360 degree view are easy to use and are organized for quick accessibility in the classroom.... The most developed program is secondary school history and geography topics. History topics include: Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annuziata, Liverpool, Palace of Versailles, Florence, and Independence Hall. Geography topics include: Ogasawara Islands, Dorset and East Devon Coast, and Paris. Each topic includes teaching activity sheets, lesson plans, and presentations."

Etec602.wikispaces.com,. 'Etec602 - Google World Wonders Project'. N. p., 2015. Web. 6 Feb. 2015.

Again, if I were in the classroom, I'd certainly ALSO use Google Maps or Google Earth to bring a street level view of World Monuments to my Geography students.  In addition to Social Studies applications, Google World Wonders might be useful for literature, science (World Wonders includes some nice underwater shots), and even math (angles on the Eiffel Towers, math problems involving the Leaning Tower of  Pisa, etc.) What can you come up with?

SoundBible.com

When I taught history, my typical lesson was in the form of a PowerPoint or SMART Notebook lesson (that is following 15 years in which  my typical lesson was in the form of transparency notes from an overhead projector.)  Assuming that many of you still use such lessons to some extent, I'm sure you want to include more than just text in these presentations*.   You might add video clips, links to websites, animations,  and....sound effects.  The point of this post is to walk you through the use of  SoundBible.com to add sound effects to your presentations.  I'll speak specifically to using PowerPoint and Notebook, but, much of what I say could be applied to presentations made in sites such as  Prezi or Slideshare.com, or sites which host online classroom webpages ( I link to nine of them in my Binder of Teacher Tools.

So, here is a step by step guide.
First, go to a site such as SoundBible.com

By clicking here, you can go to a review of fifty-five sites from which you can download free sound effects--with more listed in the comments at the end of the review.

Second - find the sound you want to use.
For example, let's say you want the sound of a creaking door hinge.  I went to the search box in the upper right and typed in creaking door hinge--no luck, After several attempts--door, hinge, creak, etc. I finally found: "large metal rusty door",  "squeaking door 2", "Creaking Door Spooky", and "Door Squeak".  You can click on the "listen" icon preview (prelisten?) and select the one you want.

Third - Download the sound.
Click on the title of your selection in the "sound effect" column.  A page will come up which has icons for downloading the sound either as a .wav file or as an .mp3  Either of these works well in PowerPoint. In SMART Notebook I found that the mp3 worked better than the wav.  Click on one of those icons and make sure you know where the downloaded file is placed.  The location of the file may vary depending on which browser you use, and what you've done in the past (changing the default download location, etc.)

Last - put the sound in your presentation.
Go to the PowerPoint slide where you want to use this sound.  Once there, click  on "insert".  Then, mouse over to the right and click on "audio",  From the drop down menu, select "audio from file" and navigate to the file you just downloaded.  Select it, and a little speaker will appear on the slide.  During the presentation just click on that speaker and the sound will play.

Alternately,  if you want it to play as part of the transition to that slide, click "transition" on the ribbon bar and then click on the pull down list (down arrow) next to the word "sound" (on the right).  I was surprised to see a selection of about fifteen sounds appear.  By clicking on "other sound" a directory structure appears from which you can navigate to your downloaded file.  You'll note that PowerPoint presents you with the option to adjust the duration of the sound and the option of applying it to all the slides.

If you want to use the sound on a SMART Notebook page, select the graphic or textbox you want to associate the sound with and then pull down the menu from the upper right hand corner.  Alternately, after selecting the object you could click on "insert" on the tool bar at the top of the page.  On either list you'll find "sound",  Click there  and browse to your file, Next you are given a choice "play by pressing: corner icon, [or] object" - I prefer the sound playing when I click on the object itself, but that's up to you.  Finally, click on "attach sound" and you are done.

This may sound complicated,but it's not....just follow the steps one at a time and you can literally add some "bells and whistles" to your lesson.   I'll insert a two minute video tutorial below which walks through these steps.  I note that in the video the sound of the bell is quiet enough that it is difficult to hear--trust me, it is there.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.  I hope you find it useful.

*Although I'd like to believe that as a division ACPS is moving away from PowerPoints and toward GoogleSlides, I have to admit that I have not found a way to add a sound effect to a GoogleSlides presentation from a .wav or .mp3 file.

Testimonial Time

As a former classroom teacher, I know how rewarding it is when one of your ex-students tells me how they benefited from having been in my class.  With my job as an ITRT I have somewhat the same feelings when a teacher tells me how their students have become more engaged because of the new ways in which technology is being used in their classroom.  I recently had two such experiences and I am going to use this post to pass them on to you in the hope that they will inspire you to consider taking your technology usage to a  new level and engage your students in a similar manner.

I happened to be in Mr. Hennessey's (science--NHS) class making updates on some laptops.  As I finished Mr. Hennessey related that his students used their cell phones to do lab reports and as a result of being able to use their technology gadgets, they were much more interested in writing up the reports and were handing in much better quality work.  It seems they are able to use their cell phones to take pictures of microscope slides--which they previously had to draw using paper and pencil. Now this news might have been a bit more rewarding to me personally, if I had had some degree of involvement in making this happen.  Nevertheless, it is exciting to see the students figuring out how to take these pictures, transfer them to some device, include them in a lab report, and use their GoogleDrive to hand those reports in to their teacher.

DON'T just skip over these links,  click on them and look at the quality of these reports.  I asked Mr. Hennessey if he could give me a couple of samples to pass on, and he had these to me the following day--so they are not something some student spent extra time on because it  was going to appear here--it's a genuine sample of the quality of the lab reports which his students are creating.
Sample One
Sample Two

Here is a statement from the students involved:

...Taking pictures of each step with our cell phones helped us organize our process and allowed us to remember exactly what was done weeks after. Not only is using technology beneficial to our future endeavors where everything will be processed digitally, we were excited to use our new virtual tools. Putting our new skills to work, using google docs, made the lab exciting and through searching for information on the internet we were able to learn much more about the topic. We look forward to the next lab as we are getting better and better with our understanding of technology.

The second experience I can claim to have a hand in, in that I have worked with Judy Fieth (English CHS/CMS) spending some time in her classroom and helping her walk her students as they initially logged on to their school Google accounts.  Some months have passed since that time and I really hadn't heard a lot from Ms. Fieth as to the effect this might have had on her classes.  However, she had a series of email exchanges with my colleague  Melissa Rollosson, and somehow or another the discussion got around to the impact the use of these the Google applications has had.  Below I'm going to paste two statements, by Ms. Fieth, copied from one of those emails:

Having DOCS this year is wonderful!  It makes my English teacher life much better.  Students write more and better and I'm able to give detailed feedback quickly.  It's such an improvement over notes scrawled in the margins!

I can't believe that English teachers aren't flocking to Docs. The kids take their assignments much more seriously now.  They sense that they're in a "real world" environment, which they are.  I get a lot less of - "When would we ever use this?"   Last semester I had amazing results - students actually ASKING for writing projects.  I've noticed that a few of them have kept working on their projects even though they're not in English class!   Very cool.

Now I realize that some of you have experienced a lot of frustration in the past due to such problems as limited band-width, limited computer availability,  students forgetting their passwords, etc.  If that is you, please realize that strides are being taken to overcome these difficulties--new and faster access points, more devices available (and still more coming this fall), permanent passwords for all  new student accounts, etc.  and consider how you might use technology to more fully engage your students.

Online Time Lines

I began a review of Tiki Toki, and soon realized that it was a site where one must pay in order to make more than one timeline.  I figure most ACPS teachers probably share my aversion to paying for such things, so I decided to review a number of timeline creators instead.  That quickly turned into a rather overwhelming job, which I simplified by creating the table below.

I can think of three basic uses for these sites:

1. You may want to find a timeline, relevant to a subject you are teaching, to show to the class or have your students refer to for review, etc.
2. You may want to create a timeline to show to your class or to have students refer to.
3. You may want to have students use them to do research and create timelines

In regards to use number one, the heading Bank, below lets you know if there is a bank of timelines which you can draw from. In regards to use two, I thought it was important to know if the timelines may include links to other sites with more information, that is what the Links column refers to.  I'd think the ability to include Photos is critical to making an attractive and engaging timeline, and I see, by glancing at column five, that all but one of the sites includes this.  I also note that you can only upload Videos with a few of them, and with a few more you can embed YouTube videos, but, of course there you run into the filtering problem.  Meograph stands out in the Audio column in that a user can record an audio online while making the timeline.  Comments lets you know if the timeline makes allowance for viewers to leave comments--which I consider a major factor if you are having students produce these timelines--even though it is very seldom that anyone comments on any of the Technology Treasure Chest's postings.  With a few you can not only include a map of where the event took place, but those Maps can be automatically inserted merely by entering the location in a box while creating the event.  The Distinction column serves as a place where I made notes on things which set that site apart from the rest.

Online Timeline Generators

SITE	Free	Bank	Links	Photos	Video	Audio	Comments	Maps	Distinction
Tiki Toki	No	No		Yes	Yes	Yes
Dipity	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (Youtubes)	Yes	Yes	No	1st 3 free
Time Toast	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Timeline JS	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Maybe	No	Yes	No	difficult to work with
Teach-nology	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No		Max 6 ervents, no account needed
SoftSchools	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Vertical or Horz.
ReadWriteThink	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	download & save
TimeGlider	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	free student accounts--3 free timelines
OurStory	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	YouTubes	No	Yes	Yes
Capzles				Yes	Yes	Yes (music)	(blogs)		I can't get this site to come up.
Xtimeline	Like capzles,I can't get it to come up in my browser.
Meograph	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes(Youtubes)-which somehow or another do work at school.	Record a narration online	No	Yes	Have not been able to get embed feature to work.
MyHistro	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
TimeRime	$0.99/timeline	Yes	No	Yes	Yes(Youtubes)	Yes	No	No	viewer may print out text of individual events
Hstry	Yes	*1 Y/N	No	Yes	Yes (YouTubes)	Yes	Yes	No	classroom management , quiz questions
*1 There is a bank of Timelines, but it is not a searchable bank.

Collaboration was a feature I did not include in the table above.  That is, some of the sites include the ability to set things up so that students can collaborate in the creation of a timeline.  Neither did I mention whether or not you can download or print the final production--if that is important to you, don't forget to check that out before selecting a site  to use.  In addition, how social media friendly a  site is may be of importance to you, and these sites vary widely there as well.

Some of these sites were created with education in mind, even offering to sell you lesson plans, etc. which accompany some of the timelines in their searchable banks.  Others are aimed at people who want to share "where I went on my summer vacation" type of stories with friends and relatives.

Hstry is the site that really stands out as far as being aimed at educators.  Some  of the others are subpages within educational sites.  However, Hstry is both aimed at educators, and specializes in just timelines--so they are really in a league by themselves.  Not only do they include classroom management features, but you can include quiz questions right on the timelines.  I do consider the fact that you have to browse, rather than search, through their existing timelines a big drawback.  The other major drawback I see is that you can't link to sources such as Wikipedia.  So, depending on your goals, you still may wish to chose some other site.

Oh, I might note that with some of the sites you create events which you may or may not string together into a "story".  In other words, some are designed with timeline use primarily in mind, and with others, there is a different primary purpose, but they can be used to create "timelines" if you chose to use them that way.  A final notes, some display the sequence of events in the classic horizontal style while others display them vertically (like a Facebook wall)--and with a few you can choose between those formats.

My introduction to some of these sites came from  the following sources:

Bibliography

Educatorstechnology.com

8 Excellent Free Timeline Creation Tools for Teachers

Educatorstechnology.com,. ' 8 Excellent Free Timeline Creation Tools For Teachers '. N. p., 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Teachers, T. and Pappas, C.

TOP 10 FREE Timeline Creation Tools for Teachers - eLearning Industry

Teachers, TOP, and Christopher Pappas. 'TOP 10 FREE Timeline Creation Tools For Teachers - Elearning Industry'. eLearning Industry. N. p., 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.