Teacher Spotlight – Scott Hook
Scott Hook, a new fifth grade teacher at Holladay Elementary shared a great idea with me via email: “I wanted to just send a note mentioning that I found success with Google Earth in the classroom. We are covering Metric Measurement in Math and Google Earth has a great RULER feature that measures to the nearest NANOmeter. I have a Promethean Board in the class and we projected a great view of our school (Holladay ES). We made estimates about the length of the parking lot (“Would we use centimeters, meters, or kilometers?”). Then we used the Ruler tool to measure very accurately. We did this for several objects around the school (cafeteria, bus loop, dumpster), a few kids live close by and we measured their houses. Then we discussed where some of our students’ families were from. We “visited” them on Google Earth (Morocco, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iceland, Baltimore) , then made estimates as to how far the places were from Holladay. We would measure in kilometers, then I asked the kids to convert to meters, and then centimeters. It gave good practice in reading numbers up in the billions as some of the distances in centimeters were quite far. It was a chance to make ESL students feel unique, covered a slew of objectives, and incorporated technology.” Thanks a lot for sharing Scott, and if any other teachers have successful technology lessons, please share them with me!