I’m on my way. See my trip progress and arrival time on Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aA7PotrpAnzLd7EA7
Starting to rain. Pete is on a Zoom meeting with his school. They are trying to figure out where to go from here as far as school is concerned.
The rain is making it really hard to hear. Not sure why they aren’t using Google Meet at this time. Google Meet can caption in real time! Meet.google.com. Oh well, I’m sure they have their reasons.
Grandma, 96 young, is stuck in Texas. Day 4 since schools have been shuttered. Originally my sister and I were going to drive down during Spring Break but as the virus spread widened I felt our window of opportunity narrowing. With Pete’s school closing we decided we needed to leave sooner. Today is the day, we are underway and I want to talk about it.
I’ve always wanted to have a journal. Trouble is you have to keep up with it. My bedside table is littered with a few false starts. So I don’t know how successful this digital attempt will be but these are strange times.
How does one pack for the plague? I know I overpacked. My sister has let us use her van and I’m grateful for the room.
Want to know the plan? Drive to Texas, pack up grandma and drive back. That’s it.
Check out my friend’s podcasts.
Please be patient as we work the bugs out.
I enjoy maps, always have. Maps tell us where to go and where we’ve been. I also enjoy history, it’s kind of hard to teach 20 years of social studies without developing an affinity. Now comes the good part, Google Earth Voyager is now showcasing a new interactive tour with over 100 historical maps and overlays hand-selected by David Rumsey from his private collection of over 150,000 maps. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Maps are organized by time, place and scale. When selected, the maps appear as an overlay on Google’s 3D globe.
Like a growing number of Google Voyager offerings, this one has embedded information and multimedia. Be sure not to miss the excellent embedded video on the origins of David Rumsey’s map collection and the importance of maps. This entire tour has something for nearly every grade level which makes it a reference worth bookmarking.
Let me know what you think of this collection.
While putting together a information for a chemistry research project I rediscovered the magic of ThingLink. ThingLink brings your graphics to life quickly and allows for a media rich digital resource. If you haven’t used it or have forgotten about it, now might be a good time to take a look.
While sharing our newest literacy collaboration tool, Biblionasium, with students the issue of internet trolls came up and I wondered how many of us know what is an internet troll. An internet troll is a person who says things on internet discussion sites with the intention of making people upset. They seem to exist to only bring attention to themselves and get others to follow their lead. Taken seriously, they can really cause hard feelings and cause quite a stir in what otherwise might be productive discussions. Common Sense Media has a good, less than a minute, explanation video among their parent resources dedicated to combatting Cyberbullying.
Interested in knowing more? Common Sense media has some really great resources for parents, students and teachers trying to navigate the internet in a safe way.
kathyhanke 