Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Place Spotting

Call me crazy and I'll have to agree, especially after taking on the monumental task of introducing all of my primary classes to our new Apple MacBooks using the website: Place Spotting. The objective of the lesson was to find the seven continents of the world using the quizes I made earlier. Once you are logged in it and working with a quiz it is a bit like Google Earth. Kids seem to love it and most take to it well. However, it does require that students have had some exposure to computers, using the mouse, arrows, and listening to directions. The help of classroom teachers is so appreciated especially when working with the youngest group since they range from the very timid or the over anxious "key pusher" who quickly put up their hands while yelling, "Mrs. R..." in what seems like a chorus.
Well, back to Place Spotting. I really enjoyed using it with the students and like I said most take to it well. It seems to be a good tool to use in teaching map skills, longitude, latitude, and general shapes of the continents and where they are located. Also, it would make a good pre-cursor to Google Earth and the many additional educational applications available with the use of that program. Here's the link: http://www.placespotting.com/myplaces.php and to see my page just login using the login of: tcelibrary and password: sbisd

2 comments:

thmeh said...

Macy had said she might get to use the laptops...if her class behaves:(
I will check it out. I feel so behind the times...

arkreynolds said...

The website was having problems this morning...Also, I have found that it works best to do a preview with the little ones before taking them to the computers since the skill levels vary so much. Her class is scheduled to "tour the world" on Wednesday.