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Five Features of Google Earth Teachers Should Know How to Use

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This video provides teachers with five ways to use Google Earth for education. Teachers will learn how to use the Voyager tool to access educational resources, use the Lucky Dip feature to explore new places, and add their own landmarks to class projects. The video also highlights how to use Map Style to view different layers on the map, measure areas, and find distances.

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A Culturally Responsive Approach to Teaching the Alphabet

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Students get excited about phonics when educators teach the alphabet alongside art, citizenship, and explorations of culture.

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7 Edtech tools to connect students to a global community - MindShift

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Educational technology can connect students around the world while building literacy and digital citizenship skills. Teachers Karalee Wong Nakatsuka and Laurel Aguilar-Kirchhoff recommend 7 tools in their book "Bring History and Civics to Life," published by ISTE.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

Personal storytelling is a hallmark of culturally responsive pedagogy, and having students tell their stories through movies makes it all the more dynamic.

Yee Ting Kuit / Ikon Images

The postpandemic classroom is a patchwork of needs. Helping students find a sense of belonging in a more equitable, inclusive environment has become a large part of teachers' shared mission.

One way to do so is to prioritize and center students' individual identities by weaving threads of culturally relevant instruction throughout the curriculum. Hallmarks of culturally relevant instruction include knowing and honoring students' cultures, backgrounds, and interests. This allows teachers and students to build the type of genuine relationships that must precede successful content instruction.

Storytelling is a worthwhile culturally relevant instructional strategy that, from a brain science perspective, is also a powerful learning tool. Stories ignite our emotions and stimulate the production of certain neurochemicals that are useful in generating "sticky" learning experiences. Since storytelling has deep cultural ties for everyone, everywhere, stories can help us connect with one another on a human level.

The prevalence of digital tools and more equitable access to technology now compared with the prepandemic landscape means that digital storytelling presents a mighty opportunity in schools. In particular, moviemaking provides a dynamic, engaging modality for students to share their stories-connecting with one another, their communities, and curricula.

Educators are not able to truly teach effectively until they know and understand students' cultures. In her book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework, Gholdy Muhummad says that teachers must seek to understand both the ways in which students see themselves now and how they see themselves in the future. To that end, student-created movies offer the perfect jumping-off point for insightful conversations and connections.

For example, when my student created a cultural "I Am" movie project at the beginning of the year, it provided a window into his life outside of school. From the sensory details of his neighborhood to his future-forward thoughts about returning to his home country, Mylo became more than just another student. His peers and I were able to develop a more holistic view of who Mylo was as a person.

As a teacher, focusing on who students want to become has been a much more powerful lens for relationship-building than focusing on who students have been according to their past grades and achievements.

fostering Empathy and Connections

We often hear that literature can provide a window into someone else's life, a mirror to reflect the self, or a sliding glass door to help the reader experience empathy for another person's journey. So, too, can movies. When combined with students' cultures, moviemaking can serve as a compelling vehicle for learning.

While teaching adjectives and word choice in my sixth-grade English language arts class, for example, I challenged students to put their skills to work by writing about their families and cultures. We used the poem " Where I'm From," by George Ella Lyon, as a mentor text. Students highlighted and annotated the author's word choice, then emulated the author's structure to create their own pieces of writing that they turned into movies.

Students discovered commonalities and asked questions about differences, and those who shared more serious subject matter inspired empathy in others. Learning about a peer's tumultuous family life or challenges faced outside of school forged strong connections between students who might not normally interact on such a deep level. Celebrating the many cultures and stories in the room had a remarkable effect, knitting our classroom community together in a new way.

Lifting Student Voices

Moviemaking can also provide perspective, understanding, and dialogue about students' lived experiences. For this type of depth, my favorite storytelling prompt is "Tell us something we don't know about you. Tell us a personal story."

Over the years, I have had many students share poignant stories about their lives. Because storytelling is a pillar of my instruction, the repeated opportunity to tell personal stories means that students are constantly growing trust with one another.

Connecting Movie-Based Storytelling to Curricula

Storytelling always begins with a script, because scripts are pathways to an efficient, effective creative process. The script also becomes the voice-over as students record themselves reading it.

Visually, the story comes together when students match images or video clips to each line of what they have written. Students can easily use browser-based editing tools or apps of their choice, which older students often already use for content creation on social media. The moviemaking process is speediest when students utilize existing media from copyright-free sources, as opposed to filming their own original footage.

In terms of planning, you, as teacher, can design an instructional arc that features movie-based storytelling as the capstone project or summative assessment. Students can use movies to showcase understanding, which means that there is room for moviemaking in any curriculum. For example, students can write an "I Am" poem from the perspective of a historical figure or personify a key concept or object.

Over the years, I have had students and teachers write about chemical elements, ratios, and ancient Chinese porcelain. The storytelling inherent in the structure of the "I Am" poem, in addition to other storytelling formats and techniques, has many potential classroom applications.

And when students are given the chance to share their backgrounds, cultures, and interests within a content-based task, engagement skyrockets and positive classroom climates follow.

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Supporting Student Identity Development Through Moviemaking

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Personal storytelling is a hallmark of culturally responsive pedagogy, and having students tell their stories through movies makes it all the more dynamic.

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Finding and Celebrating Student Voice - Bonus Episode with Book Creator

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This resource can be used to foster global and cultural awareness as students explore the world virtually on Google Earth. One lesson implementation idea is to have students compare and contrast architectural structures around the world and present their discoveries in a slideshow presentation. Students can explore how different cultures use innovative ideas to build their structures. The Voyager stories mentioned in the video have been adapted to Google Earth projects. A good place to start is to use the "Buildings Inspired by Nature" guided tour. Teachers can use this resource or create their own projects by adding architectural landmarks from different cultures for students to explore in their research.

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This podcast discusses ways to celebrate student voice and diversity through a digital tool called Book Creator. Book Creator allows students to share their stories and experiences through multiple modalities to meet the needs of diverse abilities. With Book Creator, students who are unable to write can share their stories through pictures, videos, or voice overs.

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To celebrate student diversity and foster supportive learning experiences, students can create an "All About Me" story using Book Creator. Students as young as Kindergarten can share their individual cultures through storytelling. They can write a first person narrative or share their culture as a made-up story character. In the book, students can highlight their unique cultures, such as food, celebrations, language, and music. Book Creator allows all students to express themselves and share their stories in creative ways.

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This article emphasizes the importance of prioritizing students' individual identities through culturally relevant instruction. The author suggests creative ways students can share their cultures through storytelling. Some key highlights from the article include creating a cultural "I Am" movie project and writing a "Where I'm From" poem.

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To build cultural awareness, celebrate diversity, and inspire productive civic engagement in the classroom, teachers can have students interview a family member about a personal story. Students can use the poem "Where I'm From" as inspiration for structuring their own stories about a family member. In the interview, students can ask a family member to share a struggle or challenge they had to overcome. Presenting the challenges people from different cultures face, such as immigration, fosters empathy among students. Furthermore, sharing the voices of underserved communities can spark productive conversations about how to be advocates for social change.

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This article shares seven digital tools teachers can use to help students connect to global communities. In the article, a brief description of each tool is provided with a connection to global communities. These resources help students become global collaborators, as mentioned in ISTE Standards for Students 1.7.

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To build global awareness, students can use GridPals, one of the tools mentioned in the article, to collaborate with a classroom in another country. One lesson idea is to study African culture through literature and informational text. Then, teachers can use GridPals to connect with an educator in Africa. Students and teachers can collaborate on projects with one another asynchronously through video posts. GridPals provides a safe environment for students to learn from diverse cultures.

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In this article, the author discusses a culturally relevant way to teach the alphabet. By creating alphabet cards to represent diverse cultures, students deepened their cross-cultural understanding. As a final project, students put their alphabet cards together to showcase their unique cultures and communities.

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To foster cultural awareness and celebrate diversity, students can research a culture other than their own when creating an alphabet card. For example, students can interview a friend or family member about their favorite food, music, or activity. Students will then choose one word that captures their response when creating an alphabet card. Finally, students will share their cards with the class and put them together to create a collaborative classroom quilt. This way, students will celebrate and remember something unique about a culture other than their own.

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Richard Byrne. (2021, September 27). Five features of Google Earth teachers should know how to use [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Za2RRok47PM?si=37-mlVHIqv6Q8Mu5

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MindShift. (2022). 7 edtech tools to connect students to a global community. Landmark College. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60090/7-edtech-tools-to-connect-students-to-a-global-community

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Siddique, L. F. (2023). A culturally responsive approach to teaching the alphabet. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-art-teach-alphabet

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Class Tech Tips. (2024, March 8). Finding and celebrating student voice - bonus episode with Book Creator [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/z6-VzcuKE4g?si=K6VrNtflLjKHVZ_r

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Pack, J. (2023). Supporting student identity development through moviemaking. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-student-identities-moviemaking