One time I found this awesome lesson practicing latitude and longitude that used Google Earth. It was perfectly played out in my head and practiced on my computer. The students would find locations on a map using latitude and longitude. They would follow it up by using Google Earth on their computers to find several U.S. state capitals. Sounds awesome right???
Insert reality...
We went through and made an anchor chart together on Latitude and Longitude. They copied it into their journals like they should have. Check!
They found some locations on a map using latitude and longitude...with some guidance because it was the first time they have ever done this. Check!
I pulled up Google Chrome on my Smart Board. I typed in the first location to model. Instead of the degree mark we used the word degree...FAIL! "Ok class. Let us try it without the word degree." I retype the coordinates and BAM it takes us to our location. We avidly search our Google Earth surroundings to figure out that we see The White House. We use our context clues to decide that we are in Washington D.C. (Insert cool teacher vibes here!!) They were hooked.
Continue modeling with the first location. Use clues to search surrounding area to discover we are in Harrisburg, PA. I ask for questions....none. Then set them free to get to Google Earth on their own devices. (My class is BYOD laptops)
>Insert excited students and hands in the air everywhere<
Did you know...Google Earth really only works in Chrome? Otherwise it will make you download it to your computer. (Palm to forehead) Some of the students were able to download Chrome on their own computers within minutes. I then told the students who didn't have that ability to partner with someone who already has chrome and take off. Many of them continued to try on their own computers. Some quickly gave up realizing they were wasting time. Others kept at it and wasted all of their work time.
>Inserts more hands flying in the air<
"This isn't working Mrs. Lewis." "Okay let me check it out. Do you remember what happened when we typed in the word degree as a class and it didn't work?" Blank stare. Remember we just tried a space instead. Try that out. BAM! It works! Yeah!
Summary of the class- half of them begin working on #1 (which we did together as a class). Many or most are raising their hand because they typed in the word degree. Many of them are writing down the things they see such as Harrisburg University. Some of them are ending up in the ocean because they are not typing the right coordinates. Many are writing only the state even though we discussed twice that these are all U.S. state capitals.
Let's get real- this lesson was AWESOME, but exhausting. As a teacher I learned (for the 9,00th time) to OVER model what you are doing. I also learned to have students try out the site or program before ever expecting them to open it and use it. This would have worked a lot better on a classroom set of computers and not each students having their own computer. HOWEVER, I am confident that we will be able to start a new day tomorrow and practice what we all learned from this lesson. We learned technology related things and we learned about places in the earth using latitude and longitude.
In my 8 years of teaching I have never stopped learning. Each day is an opportunity to learn something new. I feel like my students and I have grown as a family and individually in our first (almost) two weeks of school. Today was a reminder to NOT sweat the small stuff and look at what we can learn. I had students working together who I would have not pictured working together. This to me was a success. I feel like overcoming our failures is a lesson well learned. One last thing I have taken from this is to show your students how to react when things do not go right! I never once lost my cool or composure. I was able to laugh with them through it. I maybe a little more tired than usual, but it was a great day in 5th grade.
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