In the first 20 (0f 90) minutes I let them try out things, so that they get to know some of the functions on their own and get interested and motivated. Afterwards they get a worksheet with questions concerning population growth and its influences on economy and society. These questions can be answered by analysing the graphs in Gapminder. Every pair (it’s most likely that there are pairs working together, as most schools don’t have enough computers for a whole class. Anyway, partnerwork is good for their social competences…) has to choose one country to concentrate on. They get 10 minutes to prepare a little presentation, only using Gapminder, so they have to think about which parameters are most significant for that country. The presentation should not be longer than 3 minutes. The aim is just to make them aware that they CAN use it, that it creates a vivid picture of their topic. This is important for their Abitur, where they have to hold a presentation as one part of their examination. The next 20 minutes are reserved for the presentations. Of course, not everyone will be able to present, but even seeing what the others did will help them. The last 10 minutes are reserved for evaluation. What was difficult about working with Gapminder? Could they imagine using Gapminder in a future presentation, e.g. in the Abitur?

As a homework, the pupils could watch “What stops population growth?“, a video of a presentation by Hans Rosling, the founder of Gapminder. This video gives them more information about population growth, on the other hand it demonstrates a way how to use Gapminder.

What do you think about this lesson? Where are its weaknesses?

, depicting U.S. living standards.

It’s obvious that this mashup helps students to understand that there are great differences in American living standards. This map is easier to understand than simple diagrams and could be a nice illustration for such data.

The second mashup I like is posted on geology.com. This map illustrates hot-spots of tectonic activity and gives the students a quick overview to recognize endangered regions.

I’ll present a couple of more interesting mashups in the future. As for now, I only see their usability in illustrating other data to make it more obvious and easier to understand. But this already makes them extremely helpful for the classroom.
There is even the possibility to create a mashup with google and wordpress, which I will try out soon.

More Mashups can be found here.

The following to pictures display internet users (per 100 people) in relation to the literacy rate of all adults, something that may be interesting for new media in teaching as well.

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One example for the use of GIS can be found here. The following picture (taken from the example above) shows the construction of a GIS:

A second example is this, showing a visual realisation of a GIS:

I also found a nice GISWiki

My idea of GIS is not yet very elaborate and so there will be an interesting development in the following weeks to spot here in this blog.

Have fun while reading and feel free to comment on anything!

This semester I attend a course dealing with geographical information systems (GIS) in Geography. I’m not yet sure whether to write about this in English or German, but for now I’ll stick to English. In this course we are also asked to write a blog about the things we learn, thus this was a good possibility to go on with this blog.
I’ll try to make it easy to distinguish between English and Geography topics (most likely by different colours), but in my opinion lots of these things are interchangeable.

So let’s see where this new course will lead us…

The school has a second media lab. This room is mainly used as a library, but there are 4 pcs as well. These can be used independently, pupils only have to ask one teacher for permission to enter the room (to get the key). This room is also used to show videos and it was always a reason to cheer when the teacher said “let’s go to the mediothek”.

I looked at the school’s programme and their media concept. It all sounds very nice, every pupil shall get to know new media and how to work with them properly, new media shall be included in all subjects and interdisciplinary. They say that they can suppose their pupils to already have made experiences with new media, but that still every pupil shall get the basic knowledge needed for studying and working in year 5 and 6.
Well, this all sounds very nice. In my opinion, their goals are not reached. As I remember my school time, we had to learn most things on our own or at least learned them a lot later than year 5 or 6. We did learn how to use Word and PowerPoint (here we really had good teachers), but we didn’t use it consequently. Most of the time we used the computers to search the internet for information on special topics.
To sum it up, I think my old school’s conditions are not too bad, there is only one teacher (or other person) needed who is extremely motivated to set up a well working media concept, update the media labs and teach the other teachers how to include new media in their lessons.
Hopefully I will be able to visit this school again soon. There are many new teachers who are quite young and perhaps the change is already happening. I’m really curious about this…

Above you can see one example of the tips given in the newsletters. The topics change every day and so it always stays interesting.

The only annoying thing is the vast amount of advertisement, especially for the other Quick and Dirty Tips products and sometimes you feel a little spammed by the daily mails. Thus I would never recommend Grammar Girl or any other Quick and Dirty Tips to my students. But for us as teachers it is a helpful thing to think a bit about grammar every day and have good answers ready for our students. The explanations are always clearly understandable and usually stay in mind as they are mostly written in a funny way.

Do you know any other helpful sites like this? Do you know one that is more suitable for pupils?

Lab 1

The first lab was what I call a “classic” pc lab; 24 pcs in a room with an administratory pc. Well, although this is the classic version, it was good. 24 pcs are enough even for classes with lots of pupils so that never more than 2 have to share one computer. Some were aligned at the walls, the rest was assembled in 2 rows facing each other in the middle. Thus no teacher concentration is forced and the pupils can interact. One wall can be used for projecting. (They use this to project all screens on the wall so that the pupils can control each other, a nice idea to avoid misuse…)
This room is mainly used by the younger pupils and is only accessible in company of a teacher.

Lab 2

Another lab is reserved for students of Year 11-13. The room is situated in the middle of a building with classrooms arranged around it. The room’s walls are covered with bookshelfs. Then there are 3 groups of desks with ca. 6-8 computers and one group of tables for group meetings. There is a projector screen that can be hidden to save it and a portable white board. The students are allowed to use this on their own if one of them accepts to take on responsibility. In my opinion this lab is ideal for high-grade students as it offers a mixture of media and quick access to lots of important information. Furthermore it offers the older students some kind of “shelter” from younger pupils if they need to concentrate on their final exams or something like that.

A real media lab

The third lab is the most innovative one. This is a real media laboratory. It follows the same concept as the second lab, combining a library with a computer lab. But this one is open to all students. Librarians care for the books, the computers are arranged on a platform. Thus they do not interfere. Additionally there are some group rooms were small groups can meet and discuss what they found on the internet or in the books without disturbing other pupils. The media lab is really big and there are no walls except for the seperated group rooms, but our guide assured us that it is always quiet in there. This lab was built in the last years and thus everything is very modern, there is lots of natural light in there and it just looks inviting to learn.
Unfortunately our group was so big that we couldn’t walk around and have a closer look on the details, but even so this room was impressive and makes me hope that many schools get the chance to build such a media lab.

Dreams and Problems

The problem with this is that such rooms cost a lot of money. There always has to be one teacher that is extremely motivated to initiate such a project, ask for money, make plans etc. I could say now, well, I’ll be this motivated teacher later, but I already had so many plans what I would like to realize at a school, that perhaps I should wait until I really am in this situation. I will try to keep my idealism and motivation AND my ideas and hope to be able to initiate any such project in school later. There is always something that can be improved at a school, but what is most important is that the pupils remain the main persons. I really like the possibilities new media offer both, teachers as well as pupils, but we should never forget that we need to concentrate on our pupils, their needs and problems. Not every problem can be solved with a (new) computer…

Which projects did you already/would you like to realize?