Casey’s Edublog.

Google Earth=No screen shot. Sorry.

Here’s what Andrea had to say:

Hey beautiful,

I loved this project of yours. I really liked being able to see everywhere that he has lived and he has lived in a lot of places. (Or had lived whatever, I am going to continue talking about him in the present tense) I don’t really have much to say about it or things that you can change. Partly because I have no background knowledge about George Orwell. But this is really good background information and a great tie in with history/social sciences because you can discuss WWI, WWII, and even a little about the British Empire. A great jumping off point.
Andrea

And here’s what Asher had to say:

Hi Casey,

I really like the idea of following around an artist or author to give context to that person’s works. Especially for someone like Orwell, who traveled so much, and whose work was so influenced by the context. Again, putting quotes from the relevant works in the place marks is a good way to connect the author to locations. The only suggestion I might have would be a couple of pics, though I’m not sure whether that would enhance the content all that much. Perhaps links to the books free text versions of the books if they’re in the open domain. Anyway,good job!

Asher

And as always… Here’s the benchmark:

EL.08.RE.14 Read textbooks; biographical sketches; letters; diaries; directions; procedures; magazines; essays; primary source historical documents; editorials; news stories; periodicals; bus routes; catalogs; technical directions; consumer, workplace, and public documents.

What it is: As I explained to my spectacular reviewers, I intended the whole thing to be an introduction to Orwell’s life before he wrote Animal Farm. After the class has gone through the bio, we’d have a discussion on how things from his life influenced the story. (Or something like that).

How this project has impacted my little world: This was the toughest project I’ve had to do so far. It isn’t that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy or get into GoogleEarth–it was trying to tie it into Animal Farm that proved troublesome. I think other novels lend themselves more easily to being great Google Earth topics… Animal Farm, not so much. But George Orwell’s life is pretty interesting and I knew that his history had a lot to do with his ideals (which in turn have a lot to do with the novel), so that was the best connection I could come up with. (I actually think it might lead to a really interesting discussion, and I DO think that without GoogleEarth to highlight the distance he traveled throughout his life to that point, the impact of the bio would be diminished).
The other problem I encountered was the need for pictures. Generally I intended to us the Panoramio pictures of the places (I wanted kids to focus more on the places than on photos of Orwell at specific times), but then I found this picture of Orwell in the Spanish Civil War to throw in. I also couldn’t think of a good use for the hyperlinks until Asher’s brilliant idea (I really owe him one there).
Overall, I think I’d be more inclined to use Google Earth with different novels (either ones that have a specific geographic location like Grapes of Wrath or –my favorite– post-colonial novels in which geography is a key component and the distance between worlds is extraordinarily important).

Final words: I wish I was a science teacher so I could use Google Sky (I was thinking that I could possibly make an excuse if I ever covered mythology… but that’s a bit of a stretch p)

Thus endeth another blog.