On the Global Forest Change Explorer you can view patterns in deforestation and explore causes of deforestation. The map has three basic sections that you can explore. Those sections are countries, ecosystems, and hotspots. The hotspots section includes questions for students to investigate to discover the cause of deforestation in that location.
Applications for Education
The Global Forest Change Explorer offers a set of basic research questions for students to investigate. That question sheet can be downloaded as a PDF.
The Global Forest Change Explorer is a good example of the type of data that can be visualized in Google Maps. Students can use Google's My Maps in Google Drive to create their own visualizations of other data sets for things like erosion patterns, drought patterns, or changes in availability animal habitat. My playlist of Google Maps tutorials is embedded below.
It's the end of the month and as I do every month I have compiled a list of the most frequently read posts of the last 31 days. May seemed to zip along quickly. This list offers an easy way to quickly see interesting and useful posts that you might have missed.
Every month I take a look at the most popular posts of the month. At the same time I look at the search terms that visitors enter most often on Free Technology for Teachers. This month the three most frequently searched terms were "random name selector," "kahoot," and "photos for class." Below I have assembled some resources about each of those terms.
Random name selector:
On Russel Tarr's Classtools.net you can find lots of great tools for your classroom. The Random Name Picker and the Fruit Machine are two of those tools that can be used in almost every classroom setting. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use both of those tools.
Flippity has a template for creating a random name picker in Google Sheets. You can learn how to use that template in the video that you see embedded below.
Kahoot:
In April Kahootreleased a new team mode.
The team mode is designed to be used with students who are sharing
computers, tablets, or phones. In team mode students arrange themselves
in teams around a shared computer or tablet. When you start a Kahoot
game you'll now choose "team mode." With team mode selected your
students will be prompted to enter a team name and a list of the team
members. After the teams have entered their names you
will be ready to start the game. One of the nice features of team mode
is that students have time to discuss their answer choices before they
are allowed to submit a response. From there the game is played and
scored as any other Kahoot game is scored.
Kahoot's ghost mode essentially gives students the opportunity to
play a Kahoot review game against themselves. In ghost mode students
measure their progress against themselves.First,
run a Kahoot game as you normally would. At the end of the game select
"ghost mode" to run the game again. In ghost mode students play against
their own scores from the previous game. Then when you run the game
students will be competing against the "ghost" version of themselves
from the previous running of the game. For example, I play a game as a
student in the first running of a game then in the second running of the
game I'll be competing against my previous score as well as those of my
classmates.
One of the features of Kahoot that I frequently demonstrate in my workshops is the option to duplicate and edit quizzes that teachers have contributed to the public Kahoot quiz gallery. Duplicating and editing existing quizzes can save you a lot of time when you need to find a quick review activity for your students. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to find, duplicate, and edit quizzes in Kahoot's public quiz gallery.
Photos for Class:
Photos for Class is a free site that helps students find Creative Commons licensed images. The images that they download from Photos for Class come with attribution information embedded into the footer of the image. In the short video below I demonstrate how easy it is to find pictures through Photos for Class.
You can put the the Photos for Class search engine in your own blog or website. The video embedded below offers a demonstration of that process.
Disclosure: Photos for Class is owned by the same company that runs Storyboard That, an advertiser on this blog.
