techonology+and+education...my+thoughts

google sketch up - interesting medium to have students document their community through google earth the video was pretty facinating my initial reaction is to assign students a neighborhood relevant to decade and create a sketch up for it...adding in a different medium the historical context...could very easily be part of service learning when partnering with the county commissioners or city council...putting Medina on a map - how much can i put on students to learn on their own and teach me later...grading, planning and pacing are always my time management issues...add learning new things and it's a train wreck....how fair is it to assign a neighborhood at the beginning of the year, collaborate with a city council person on assigned dates throughout the year and have a finished product by years end - thoughts on neighborhoods how would this kind of project be broadcast to the public? also seems like it would be a one year project...may need to think deeper...year one the product is not a sketch up .... perhaps sketch up doesn't happen until year 3 or 4 as previous years leave a product that successive years pick up and take to the next level...
 * the obvious square/downtown area
 * union street and beyond
 * the west side/ beginning with where gorfido/letterly families lived (smith, bronson, hunington)
 * could use a thematic approach - rental property vs. owned homes.
 * could divide by elementary school neighborhood....then place sections of that neighborhood in appropriate historical context...would serve lots of purposes...complaint that policy makers ignore the roots of our town as an ex-urb, history as a piece of our present, provide cultural relevance for those who live here today