Part 3: "What Can You See?" and Google Earth!

The "What Can You See?" project has reached new and exciting heights in our classroom! With the project extending beyond our class and Mrs. Harrison's, other educators and their Kindergarten and Grade 1 classes have jumped on board and produced their own "What Can You See?" digital books! From Keswick and Newmarket to Richmond Hill, Markham and even Surrey, British Columbia, our class continues to enjoy such an authentic audience for learning about the world around them and making those meaningful connections!

After such an overwhelming response and interest from our students after our Skype session with Mrs. Harrison's class, we have embraced every moment to talk about, make connections and share ideas throughout our class meetings and daily discussions. Our Comparison Charts have made for engaging conversations with our whole class as well as during small group instruction and also act as a visual reminder of our learning.

Our introduction to Google Earth and this project actually came from students' connections to the fact that our Earth is a sphere! Having been inquiring about 2D shapes and 3D figures in the recent weeks, we wanted to make this notion even more visible to our students so we decided to show them the Earth with this program! This even led to our class extending our connections to one of our students who happens to be away in Egypt and Google Earth gave us the opportunity to see just how far away Egypt really was from Woodbridge! This initial exploration with such a dynamic teaching and learning tool led to robust thinking and authentic conversations throughout our classroom!

After dialoguing with our Administrator, Mr. Collins, we left with a "spark" on how we could use Google Earth to support our "What Can You See?" project! With this idea, we used our students connections to shed light on how close and how far the schools in our project really are from us and each other. "3...2...1...Blast off!" filled our room and the "flying in" to each destination truly captivated our learners and we were able to not only connect the project to the world, but we were also able to use this opportunity to discuss perspective, "birds-eye view" and the shapes we see! Talk about cross-curricular integration!

Not only has Google Earth given us the chance to see each school from a different perspective, but it has more importantly captured the thinking of our students whereby they feel inspired to explore where they live, the community, and the world around them! We have had students excitement lead them to finding their house, a friend's house, a park, the grocery store, Canada's Wonderland, and other destinations outside of our community like the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls! With each day that passes, our students grow more and more excited to embrace technology to enhance their learning and this project is authentic learning at its finest!

We noticed that Bond Lake Public School wasn't built yet - this image provoked lots of interesting questions and theories! 

We encourage you to check out the other amazing videos that have been shared with our class throughout our exploration and involvement with this project. As you watch, talk with your child about any connections they have and by asking prompting questions like "What do you see?," "Tell me more" and "What are you thinking?" will help elicit some wonderful dialogue at home! If possible, we kindly ask that you take a minute to share your families comments here on our blog for our class to read!

- Mrs. Jelley and her Kindergarten team  from Keswick, Ontario created an inspiring video found on their class blog: http://teamjellybean.posterous.com

- Mrs. Harrison's Kindergarten class is also from Keswick, Ontario and you can watch their video on their blog: http://techieang.edublogs.org  Scroll down to the "What Can You See" post.

- Ms. Babalis' Kindergarten class from Richmond Hill, Ontario created a different kind of "What Can You See?" book and used a program called "Comic Life" to tell their story! Check it out on their blog: http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.ca

- Ms. Lirenman's Grade 1 class from Surrey, British Columbia was a great surprise! Check out their book on their class blog: http://mslirenmansroom.blogspot.ca

Thank you again to Angie Harrison for the time and effort it has taken you to organize this incredible project! We hope to have more schools from around our community, region and even the world join in on this incredible journey!