Course 2 Final Project Reflection Blog Post

I've recently completed my final project for course 2. It can be found here.

The final project turned out to involve a couple different aspects of the course. I created a "how to" .pdf file an introduction to making Google Earth Tours. This was a natural extension of what came out of the first course, the 7th Grade Humanities Connected World Project. We decided to split the 7th grade into four groups, and each group would learn about one specific tech topic (Google Earth, Wikis, Flickr and sound files.)

A great feature of the course two project is it's also a bit of a mass-collaboration project as well. Several of use are contributing to a "how to" wiki that other teachers would hopefully find useful. This "how to" wiki actually also models in a very small way the overall Connected World project in that it captures the main idea of a wiki and mass collaboration--many working together to create one thing.

I addressed the issue of Fair Use and Copyrights in my Google Earth Tour instruction set as well. I don't think teachers and students would run into much of a conflict making Google Earth tours, but there is so much available on Google Earth that I did find myself wondering what sorts of things are copyrighted on Google Earth and by whom. There are certainly lots of YouTube posts and also wonderful 360 degree panorama files that are amazing to look at and seem to reflect a big effort on the part of the creator.

I think the key issue of Fair Use and Google Earth Tours would be to of course not take credit for files of any type that are already there and you're pegging as part of your tour.

I quite happy with how the "how to" wiki is shaping up and hopefully it will be used. I think the fair use and copyrights issues will be ones teachers continue to think about and deal with, as we always have, but of course just now in a different way.