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Mr Youssef 's Brazilian Social Studies 9 class is learning about the first urban society that was developed in the Portuguese America. For this purpose, students have to analyze the urban characteristics of the main 17th Century cities of Minas Gerais, in order to identify whether the Portuguese colonists forced a urban pattern. The students have been on a school trip to those cities earlier in the year, so this activity is a follow up of the trip. Google Earth was chosen as a means to support such urban analysis, looking at different types of buildings and urban characteristics, including street design. In class, students learned the rationale behind their Google Earth activity looking through the SAMR model lens, as shown below. The class activity was at the Modification level. Substitution At this level, students could use a Google Map to individually draw/highlight street patterns and buildings. Substitution happens through a transfer from a paper map to an online map. Augmenta...

In BSS 10, Kaue asked students to create a city design considering the 4 necessities of human beings: habitat, work, body-spirit leisure and circulation. The design was based on parameters from the French-Swiss urbanist Le Corbusier.  Initially, the groups created a draft on paper then they were able to choose among different options to generate a 3D city maquette. Google SketchUp was offered as a particularly powerful option as it allows moving around a 3D city and looking at it at different angles. Other options chosen by groups were a physical maquette and Photoshop, for example. The image above shows a city model on Google SketuchUp. The different colors indicate specific types of buildings as seen at a copy of a SketchUp legend at the end of this post. Below, you can see an animation of a 3D city created with Google SketchUP. In the animation you can better appreciate the city design. The project covered the following ICT Standard: Creativity and Innov...

 We kicked off the year with a technology integration partnership for using Diigo Social Bookmarking as a tool for collaboration in reading and in the development of a research databank. Caitlin decided to explore this tool that we have been talking about for some time last year right at the beginning of her new International Relations class, setting the tone for how students will manage reading. A Diigo group was created for the class and the students were invited to the group. The first activity involved using the powerful Diigo toolbar to collectively highlight an articled shared/bookmarked by the teacher. Therefore, all students in the class were able to read and highlight the same article, keeping a record of their activity for later access. The screenshot below shows the web article with highlights. The students then started their own research, adding individual bookmarks to be shared with the class. Together with the highlights, it is also possible to add "sticky notes...