Scenario

     Technology in the classroom is something fairly new to me. Growing up, I had overhead projectors and tvs in the classroom, whereas today students are accustomed to clickers, laptops, and advanced projectors. As a result, one thing that I will be challenged with is capturing and maintaining student learning through the use of technology. That being said, one way that I know I will have success is by utilizing the many tools that Google has created. These allow students to be interactive with homework, tests, or even videos, while allowing teachers to control things like attendance and test styles. More than that, though, I am glad that I have been taught how to properly use Mac and accessories that come with Mac. It is extremely student friendly and contrary to popular belief, working on a Mac is very fun and easy.  

     With the thought that I do not know a lot about how much students know about how to use tech stuff, I have to say that I am comfortable with finding ways of how to learn how to use and integrate new software. The teaching community is very friendly; it is all about helping each other out. As a result of new software, I would simply go to some certified teacher's blogs who discuss the latest and greatest in educational technology. Cyndi Danner-Kuhn has a great website that links to many different blogs, so I know that there is a wealth of information that will help me learn how to use something. In addition, I realized that one of the best resources for learning how to use a new program is simply by going to YouTube and looking up "how-to" videos or podcasts.

     The technology that I have learned and utilized this semester has tremendously helped my school work. Tools like Google Docs and Prezi have allowed me to communicate with peers in a new way while also utilizing the latest technology and making presentations a lot more fun (and easier to collaborate on). These tools have not only effected my learning here at K-State, but these are now things that I am anxious to implement into my classroom in the near future.
      In my opinion, the best way to get teachers up to date on what is good for their classroom is to simply encourage them to take professional development classes that focus specificically on technology in the classroom. It is at these meetings or whatnot that teachers listen to experts as well as other teachers who have used the class. In addition, teachers need to experiment. Learning is an educational process and so teachers will not learn how to use these things if they do not play around with them first and get the hang of them before they implement them into the classroom. At the same time, it is up to the teacher to decide how much stuff they implement; for example, if a teacher is not comfortable with having his or her students utilize iPhones in the classroom, then he or she needs to make sure that they come up with some other way to reach out to the tech savvy students.

My Wow Moment

      My "wow" moment in this class came when I saw the front of my website. It was a moment where I was thinking, "Okay, I'm kind of officially moving into the 21st century of teaching". It was a crazy moment where I realized that future potential employers AND students will look at my website. It was a moment where I felt very grown up and responsible. At the same time, I knew that there was a lot of work to be done to make it how I wanted it. 

     Putting together my website actually turned out to be less stressful than I thought it originally might be. I think that my website turned out well for using the free Google Sites creator. Of course, as a teacher, I am constantly looking at how I can tweak it and change it to make sure that I am reaching my audience in the most effective way possible.

    If I were to do this project over again, I would organize my pages better so that I don't just have clumps of things in one page and have other ones empty. It is hard to know exactly what to do and who will want to see what and where each thing actually fits.      

Podcast Favorites

    Just as with the websites, I was very unfamiliar with podcasts. I had only listened to a few previously, and those were just ones for entertainment! Little did I know that the thing I would learn most from podcasts is that there are so many people out there who can help and there is so much out there that I need advice on!

     Seriously, there are podcasts for everything. I was surprised, but at the same time really glad that now I know of so many different resources. I believe the one that I went to the most was Tony Vincent's Learning in Hand.

    He discusses not only different resources for things students can do on computers, but he goes as far as to demostrate different things for iPods, iPads, and iPhones. I won't lie, the thought of students having these things in my classroom is really weird because we did not have any of these. I like his podcasts the best because he has video for a lot of them and he really understands things that would be good for elementary, even secondary, teachers.

Semester Favorites

     The amount of sites that we have discussed/visited/looked at/played around with is truly staggering. To be honest, I had never even heard of some of these sites or seen them used in action. As a result, I was pretty overwhelmed when I first heard how much we would be doing. However, there are a few sites that I have to say that I am excited to use in the future.

     The first website that I decided was one of the most important resources is EduKan. This is one of the coolest sites because it is like a gigantic briefcase of teacher essentials. My favorite thing is that it can be used as a student resource center. Teachers can post announcements, homework, tests, photographs, pretty much anything and the students can go on and access it all right in that area. This would definitely cut down on the amount of lost papers. I think that this tool is also smart for the students because, let's be honest, they grew up in a time when they were constantly surrounded by computers and they are probably more familiar with them than many teachers and may feel comfortable doing more stuff like tests and work online. Along with the student center, I also loved ThinkFinity. At this website, I found the alignment search tool most useful because it is hard to create lesson plans that align with the standards, but this site gives you tools to do it. I will definitely use this in my future teaching.

     The other website that I found really cool was Prezi. We all grew up when PowerPoints were the best way to present anything; science reports, history or even literature reviews. Well I will definitely use Prezi for a few reasons. First, it allows much more movement to allow students to remain engaged. Second, you can actually have videos in your presentation rather than simply providing a link to a video. Third, it allows for a lot more customization so students can feel like they have more buy in and ownership. Finally, students can group the information into segments that simple slide shows cannot. This is my example of a Prezi!

Water Conservation on Prezi

   

Podcast Reflection #12: iPad; Smoke and Mirrors?

       In this podcast, "The Ipad; Real Potential or Smoke and Mirrors?" Kevin Honeycutt is “carpooling” Tim Holt. The two of them are discussing administrators and collaboration in the workplace. Tim brings up the good point of how every single career has to deal with collaboration. Even computer programers he states. I enjoyed the topic of how when someone gets hired, even educators, people stick with that career and never network outside of it. Today, through technology twitter, delicious, etc. all can be great resources for teachers.

Podcast Reflection #11: Learning Networks

       EdTechWeekly is a great resource because it always has multiple perspectives and people. This podcast, "Learning Networks: PLEs, Free vs Owned, Google Apps", has a couple different people discussing different resources used in the classrooms and used in education. In this specific podcast they talk about their new layout for their talk show, which includes more specific links about what they are talking about and how they are having guest speakers now. They talk about delicious tags, and how resourceful educational technology tags are. I believe a teacher could use delicious as a great resource by checking for tags. In this podcast, they all talk about different resources on the internet that can be helpful for a teacher or in educational technology. The one link I thought was interesting was PLENK. PLENK stands for personal learning environments network and knowledge. It is basically an online course that could be a great resource for a teacher. In the course the “student” does not have to remember a whole bunch of things for the course, but rather do many activities that are based on the web. It would be a great resource for a teacher because it teaches them things that are out there and it is a flexible course that could be very useful.

Podcast Reflection #10: The DIY Episode

        This is my first time listening to "The Tech Chicks"! In this podcast, the tech chicks first talk about their tech club. Tech club is at one of their schools which is bases off an application process. Students apply to be a part of the club to get a learning experience with technology. The two women give tips and tricks for teaching 21st century students using 21st century skills. This is called the DIY episode because it's the Do it Yourself episode. One of the interesting resources they talk about is the microscope for the iphone. If you buy a microscope and attach it to the case it gets a x45 magnification. Its a quick way to take a picture and magnify things.

Podcast Reflection #9: Online Conference Keynote Address

 In this online conference, the keynote speaker Dean Shareski discusses the ideas of sharing in education. He uses a quote that sharing is our job. He talks about programs like delicious, and says sharing is one of the best tools teachers can use. It’s free for everyone to see.  Sharing beyond our classroom is moving to “nice to do” to “necessary to do”. I completely agree with this statement. I understand why some people don’t want to teachers to steal their ideas but if it can help students why wouldn’t you share with other teachers? This class already has taught me so many things about teaching and using resources on the internet. Teachers are going to be continually adding information on the internet and the resources are soon going to be endless. Shareski is not only discussing things to put on the website; he has a math teacher in California discusses sharing tools he uses. He uses a blog, and he receives advice from other teachers through that. I really enjoyed this online conference. Shareski made several valid points about sharing on the internet and how important it is for educators.

Reflection: eduTecher

            First off, I have to say that I really enjoy the look and layout of eduTecher. Clean, modern, oriented for teachers, I like it.

            While going through, I decided I would click on foreign language for elementary school students. It greatly narrowed down the findings for me and I found a site that it gave that looked interesting and appropriate for young students called “Conjugation.” Turns out, this website could be helpful for ALL students, not just ones who speak another language. What this website does is allows the person to insert any verb into the search bar and it will bring up all of the forms of that verb. Young students, because of their cognitive development, are not able to always conjugate verbs correctly and so having this resource will allow them to see how each tense is formed and said.

            I went back to the homepage of eduTecher and decided to look up Social Studies sites. Then I clicked on Altapedia, which contains full color physical and political maps and facts and stats about different countries throughout the world. It is also broken up alphabetically so students can go search by specific countries or use the actual map. This resource is useful in showing a whole class certain things about the world, but also allows them to go and do individual research.

            The last resource I found was under teacher tools. One of the first things that came up was “280 Slides”, which allows teachers (or students) to create great slideshows and rather than have them saved to a flash drive, they can be accessed from anywhere. It is video and picture capable and has numerous themes. This would definitely be useful in student projects, lessons, and would eliminate the problem of carrying flash drives around or not having the correct program installed on the computer to run the Powerpoint or whatnot.

            I think I enjoy this eduTecher site. Easy and chock full of resources.    

Reflection: Classroom 2.0

            After digging around “Classroom 2.0”, the first thing I discovered is that social networking really does have a huge impact on our society. As a society of teachers, we can now communicate much more easily and teach in different ways as a result of this communication.

            This website is incredible just in terms of the number of people that belong to it. When I was digging around, there were almost 54,000 people following this website. That means that so many people want to share their ideas and learn from others. I clicked on Steve Hargadon’s blog and just enjoyed looking at his posts, but I also liked how he gave dates and links to actual real life events so that teachers can expand their professional development in that way.

            This website also has many interactive tools that use Elluminate. This is a webconferencing tool where teachers can get on and watch someone talk about whatever subject “Classroom 2.0 Live” is talking about. Teachers can also access the archive of these videos and watch them whenever.

            On top of all these, there are 33 pages of groups (over 660). I clicked on “International Primary School Educators” just for fun and this took me to a forum where there are links to great schools abroad and discussions about education in other countries. Yep, 660 resources just like this that vary greatly.

Kan-ed Reflection

            Never have I ever seen so many resources in one location. And by resources, I mean things that seriously lessen the intimidation of the profession they call teaching. Kan-ed, thank you for being ridiculously cool.            

            Before I begin discussing my findings on the site, I just have to say that the thing that I perhaps do not enjoy in this site is the homepage. It is very cluttered with so many links and images. Now, I believe that the teacher can change this once they have their own classroom. When I have my own class, I will make sure that I organize it so that I am not so overwhelmed by all of the business going on in the homepage.

            The first link I explored was “Thinkfinity”, a resource powered by Verizon. It turns out that this website is designed to allow teachers access to innumerable lesson plans. The site is designed easily so that all the teacher needs to do is enter a keyword into the search bar and Thinkfinity goes and collects all of the lesson plans that has to do with that keyword. I entered “space shuttle”, and 9 lessons came up, each pertaining to various grade levels. If a search comes back with thousands of results, then the toolbar on the right allows teachers to narrow their search to specific things, a tool that I really like and will use often. What’s more is that this website tells which lessons are aligned with the state standards, something that all teachers today need to be aware of. It will even go as far to produce the indicator of the standard so that the teacher knows exactly which standard he or she is teaching for. What a brilliant idea. The unfortunate thing is that it does not have the standards for all states, for example Colorado, but it does have the majority of the states. After you do a search and look at the standards, it provides a link directly to the lesson plan from which you can plan your teaching.

            After I went back to the Kan-ed homepage, I decided to explore “Heritage Quest”, a database of census forms and other historical items relating to real people (kind of like an advanced geneology.com). I decided to look up people from both sides of my family, just for fun. You can look through census forms, newspaper documents, Revolutionary War data and other things to try and find information on a certain person. While I did not find any information on my family (I mean I’m not sure, I do not know my relatives from the 1880’s, sorry), it was very interesting to go in and do searches and look at documents. It is hard because the earliest forms they have are from the 1930’s.

            The other resource I checked out was the “Kansas Education Resource Center (KERC)”. What is nice about this website is that all of its links and resources are read over and approved by actual educators who know what teachers are looking for. Kind of like Thinkfinity, KERC allows you to go in and choose what subject, like math, writing, geography, etc., you want and then it gives you the standards and if there are lesson plans for that particular standard and subject, it will give you a link to it. Seriously, these sites are so useful and convenient.

            I cannot wait until I am a teacher and can customize my Kan-ed to the things I want, but all of these resources will definitely be on it because they are beyond useful.  

My Avatar

 

created at www.buildyourwildself.com

It is a striking resemblance, really.

Podcast Reflection #8: Response Systems in Netbooks

            I had been finding a lot of resources for things dealing with iPods and iPads, and finally Tony Vincent, in “Four Students Response Systems”, gives educators great resources to promote interactive learning in the classroom through computers!

            The first resource I will discuss is “QuestionPress”. This is an assessment and response tool that can be used on any device that is connected to the Internet. It allows teachers to enter pre-created questions or create on-the-fly questions that will be instantly uploaded into the server. It also has more than just multiple choice questions; QuestionPress allows teachers to utilize true/false, fill in the blank, check all that apply, and even short answer. On top of that, this resource can make the job of a teacher easier because it can grade the students responses based on what the teacher told it. This is also beneficial for the student because the score can be seen immediately, which is something other programs do not do. This resource would be great in a formal assessment setting as well as an informal setting.

            Another resource Vincent recommends is “Google Docs”. Having used Docs before, I know how cool of a resource it really is. He talks about how Docs has a way to collect responses, for a quiz or test or attendance, called Forms. Like QuestionPress, Forms allows teachers to ask questions of the students and then have the students answer them in multiple choice, short answer, essay, and more. Once the student submits his or her responses, the information is compiled into a spreadsheet that is easily readable by the teacher. Now, I think that Forms may require more post-test work because the teacher has to go in and access the results, but I think that Google really made it teacher friendly, and people friendly as well, because all of these resources are free whereas QuestionPress required a subscription.

            With these new resources that can be used on computers and used anywhere with an internet connection, I have more ways to get students really involved in technology!

Podcast Reflection #7: Video in the Classroom

We all remember times, say during sex education, when teachers show films that were created back in the 1970’s. Not only are these movies outdated, but also they do not capture students’ attention or engage them in learning. “Video in the Classroom” discusses ways for teachers to catch up with society and use videos effectively in the classroom.

            Matthew Needleman, an elementary teacher, describes many useful ways to incorporate film/video into the classroom. The first thing he says is to use updated videos or films. Children today have grown up with really advanced technology, and that includes advances in films. Therefore, he says they will be turned off and disinterested in the old videos and not learn as much from them.

            The next part was what I found most interesting. Mr. Needleman says that students may learn better by actually creating their own film. He has been doing film making in his classroom for years now. When incorporated correctly in a lesson, filmmaking allows students to begin thinking critically about subjects, a higher-level form of thought. In addition, they have the opportunity to work on their writing skills (writing a script), and understanding how media can influence peoples’ knowledge of something.

            In terms of resources, Mr. Needleman said that Skype was an okay resource, but he said that if students have access to computers with a camera in them, preferably Macs, then iMovie is a great way for students to go in and create movies easily. Another resource is VLC, or Windows Movie Maker on PCs.  

Podcast Reflection #6: Classroom iPod Touches and iPads: Do's and Don'ts

 It is always difficult to know what is right and wrong when beginning something new. For example, I would have no clue what to do with a whole set of new iPads in my classroom; what do I do with them? How do I sync them? What should I not let the students do? Luckily, the podcast Classroom iPod Touches & iPads Dos and Don’ts, goes through a whole list of items to help teachers manage these devices.

            We will start off with some of the “Dos” that Tony Vincent recommends. First off, Vincent recommends creating a usage contract. By doing this, the teacher sets limits for the students and requires that they follow the rules. In addition, this contract makes the parents follow these rules so that everyone uses these resources in the best possible way. Next, Vincent says that naming iPods or iPads is important so that students (and teachers) can keep track of their device, but more importantly that they can save work and have specific applications to help them with their schoolwork. One of the pieces of advice Vincent gives is to consistently clean and maintain each device. If there are playlists or folders that are not being used, then there is no need for them and they take up space. It also helps the students stay organized with their devices.

            To counteract the “Dos”, Vincent also gives some “Don’ts” for these devices. The first is that the teacher should not give the students the password to the iTunes. This way, the students cannot download things that they should not or things that are not necessary for the device. Second, don’t use liquid cleaners of the iPods or iPads. With students, it is natural for fingerprints to accumulate on the screen, but it is better for the devices to use clothes or other cleaners so that the items last longer. Finally, Vincent says that we (teachers) should not stop learning about all of the new things that are developing in iPods and iPads. If we do, then we might miss some cool, useful, and important updates for each of these tools.  

Podcast Reflection #5: Making New Connections with VoiceThread

            Educating students is becoming much more of a student driven profession, where students help make their own learning. This can be done through reports, slideshows, or videos. This podcast, Making New Connections with VoiceThread, introduces a new resource that I have not heard of before; VoiceThread.

According to the podcast, VoiceThread is a new system that allows people to post media artifacts for anybody to access. These artifacts range from photos, videos, or even documents. What the system does is it allows users to go in and make Flash-animations with the documents that students can look at as an alternative means of learning. On top of this, though, the creator has the ability to go in and create a commentary by using the microphone in the computer, webcam, or even type it in with words for the students to read while watching the animation.

This application is so versatile and appropriate for all ages that one of the teachers in the podcast discusses a project she coordinated between many schools and grades. She had second graders in one school create pictures and post them onto VoiceThread. Then, ninth grade English students in a whole different state wrote a story based on the picture and uploaded them with the picture. The final step was fifth and sixth grade music students created songs based on the picture and the writing that was completed. What I gain from this is that VoiceThread is much more than a resource; it is a place for students to work together to accomplish something and get real world experience.

Podcast Reflection #4: Skype in the Classroom

In the past few years, the ways that humans communicate have changed; we can find millions of people on Facebook, give instant updates from Twitter, and talk face to face with anybody in the world through the video-chat system Skype (and it’s free!). This podcast, Skype in the Classroom, through edtechtalk, detailed new ways that teachers are utilizing Skype in their classroom.

            The inspiration for this podcast came from the Skype educators website where they are currently testing a system for teachers to connect and interact with each other and with resources on the web. Teachers have the ability to add other teachers as contacts so that there can be constant and easy communication and exchanging of ideas. This new version of Skype also has a feature that allows educators to add their favorite resources to a database that is organized into different categories, such as arts, culture, and language. On top of that, there is a tab for guest speakers where teachers can go and recommend one or look for one on a specific topic. Like Delicious, Skype also has a feature where you can save some of your favorite things that you discover. That way, you won’t have to forget them or save the links in some other account.

            The speakers say that using Skype has been very unique, fun, and enlightening in their classrooms. One teacher says that he used Skype in order to help his students better understand certain concepts while using real world examples; he asked many different experts to record a short discussion about certain topics so that his students could learn exactly what was going on in the real world and why these things are important. I imagine using Skype as a way to connect with students in other countries, almost like a pen-pal relationship. We could share what we are working on in class with them, they could do the same, and it would be all about exchanging ideas while also experiencing a new culture.  

Podcast Reflection #3: Learning in Hand-Educational Apps

        The amount of stuff that Apple comes out with every single day is truly staggering. In this podcast, Tony Vincent, an expert on using handheld devices such as the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch in the classroom and podcaster of Learning in Hand, says that the Apple “App” store grows by about 700 new apps EACH DAY! Luckily, Tony gave some good tips on which apps are particularly useful in the classroom. While there is no set way of finding good apps, I never knew that a person could simply type in a keyword into iTunes and it would pull up a list of findings that might match what you are looking for.

       On his “Delicious” page, Tony has bookmarked over 30 apps that educators may find useful. “IEAR” is a site that allows teachers to look up resources by grade level OR by subject. Plus, each app is reviewed by actual educators who know what other teachers want. How useful! “AppGuide” sounds useful because it separates thousands of apps into individual categories as well. “IDevBooks” allows students to create their own math problems on an iPod and then it goes on to show you how it is solved and why it is solved that way. This resource sounds like it would be very effective because today’s students have grown up with these hand held devices and know how to work them and read them properly. It is truly hard not to spend hours surfing the web looking through these websites and apps because once you find one page you find interesting, there is a link to something else even more interesting!

       The amount of apps is honestly very intimidating. This podcast was very helpful because it gave great resources that broke down the ways to obtain useful education apps so that I don’t have to go out and browse hundreds of thousands of apps. I appreciate Tony Vincent for realizing the power of Apple and giving useful hints and tips to make it much more manageable.

Animoto in my Classroom

While "Powerpoint" presentations may still be the norm in many classrooms and businesses around the world, "Animoto" is definitely the thing that is shaking up "Powerpoint-like" programs. Animoto is a service that turns pictures and text into an entertaining slideshow. I enjoy that their are various levels of Animoto, from extra-pay features all the way down to free 30 second slideshows. I mean, it is so easy for students to go right into the free program and create a short informational video for any subject and share it with their peers. What's even better, in my opinion, is that Animoto does the creation of the video all for you! It times images with music and transitions and can even include text to make it more informational. I think that this service would be successful in the classroom because it is entertaining for the kids and they can truly make it how they want. The extended features would be useful to buy in the future just so that the slideshows can be longer and be used in a way that really teaches a lot of information rather than just 30 seconds. Here is a preview of an Animoto I made about my summers working as a Daycamp Counselor with First Graders!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Fun with Text

www.tagxedo.com

www.wordle.net

I have never even heard of a “wordle”. I mean, is that even a real word? Turns out it can actually be a really useful tool in the classroom, along with it’s mate, “tagxedo”. What makes these tools so cool is that you can add as many words as you want to this form and these programs take those words and make cool shapes and patterns out of them. On top of that, if a word is inserted more than once in the document then it will be larger in the image that is created. Therefore, these tools are useful when examining main ideas, phrases, people, or words of a subject. In fact, a student can insert a passage from a textbook or book and the programs remove common words so that all that is left are the important ones, and extra important words will be bigger than others so students can recognize that those words or phrases have some significance. After the image has been created, students then have the opportunity to personalize it with colors and different arrangements so they really feel like they can make it their own and be able to work with it and understand it.

Reflection #2: "CDK's Education Technology Place"

Without a doubt, the very first thing that I notice about “CDK’s Education Technology Place” is that amount of YouTube videos on the homepage. I guess the only reason I was slightly surprised by this is because I mostly use YouTube to look up entertaining videos, whether it is music videos or some viral clip. I rarely hear the word “YouTube” and think of an educational website. But with millions and millions of videos, YouTube is definitely a new educational tool. Historical videos, famous speeches, news clips, all of these contribute to a new resource. After this, I was just looking around the site and found another interesting link called “Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day”. His blog is specifically dedicated for teachers of ELL, ESL, and EFL. Although it is specified, I enjoyed looking around it because I think that all teachers will eventually teach a student who may not understand a certain language very well. This blog isn’t just your average, random-person writing, but this guy is an actual scholar who has written books about working with ELL students! Not only that, but he has so many blog post that is seems impossible to not find the thing that you are looking for. On top of that, I really like how his blog includes political posts, personal posts, and helpful posts. In one, I found a link to his best sites for learning about the Holocaust and genocide. Again, just having a place already established to go to for resources really does save time for teachers and helps them add substance to their lessons. I went back to “CDK” homepage and was exploring some more when I found another interesting looking link called “Top 100 Technology Blogs for Teachers”. The education community is always looking out and helping each other and this is just one more example of this. I think this blog looks like the most helpful because I do not even know where I would start if I needed to go look up something about technology and education on my own. On top of that, there are such a variety of sites that it is extremely convenient to have them all in one location.  

Reflection #1: "Technology Bits, Bytes, & Nibbles"

While scrolling through the vast amount of posts on “Technology Bits Bytes & Nibbles”, I had to stop when I saw a post talking about Google Earth. Why this specific one? Well, whenever I am on Google Earth, I end up spending way too much time simply flying around the world looking at different cities, landmarks, or even my house. It is such a cool program and has evolved ten-fold since it first came out. The post “History Tools that Have Google Maps/Earth…Really Amazing” lists three other websites that allow interactivity with the Google Earth that I have not heard of but will surely hold on to for a few reasons. First, anytime a student can see something they might know in the present (i.e. a building) can then more easily relate it back to what that building looked like in the past and discuss the change that has come about. Next, interactivity is so much better for the student (and let’s be honest here, the teacher as well) than simply reading a textbook. Being able to scroll through photographs from around the globe rather than look at one or two photos that editors can put in books provides a richer, more satisfying learning experience. Finally, if someone puts so much time into making these great programs, why not use them?! I just try to imagine myself trying to put together a Google Earth lesson by myself and cannot imagine how much time would go into putting just one together. Having a large, comprehensive source already put together is so much easier for teachers. Plus, one of the sites, HistoryPin, allows users to upload their own pictures, which could easily create a fun way for students to get involved in their own family or personal history. Resources like these websites are created for us to use so that learning can be fun while also informative and modern.