BTerres 's List: mapas interactivos

Breathing Earth is a good resource for students to explore to learn about which countries are the world's largest producers of CO2 emissions. Breathing Earth would also be a good website to keep running for an entire class period to show students how quickly the world's population changes. (In the time it took me to write this 7500 people were born).

GeoCommons Maker is as easy, if not easier, to use as Google Maps. The benefit of using GeoCommons Maker is that students can find datasets without having to search the Internet for them. This should save time when you're trying to complete a lesson plan in one sitting. GeoCommons has datasets that are relevant for use in Social Studies, Math, and Science.

The only drawback to GeoCommons Maker is that the maps students create aren't easily embedded into blogs or wikis.

On this site, students can see a variety of time lines that partially describe people's memories. Memories show up through the timeline, through a keyword, or through an individual url address. The archive of memories begins with 1900. For example, a page on the year 1968 yields information about a radio program popular that day. You can add your own memories to further describe the year 1968. Adding your own memories does require registration. Registration requires a member name and password, no private information is required. If you elect to have students use the site to share memories, we recommend that you follow guidelines on the TeachersFirst Edge Tips about memberships, schools policies, and safety.

The general site describes itself as a "gathering" of viewers' memories. Therefore, many of the events in Memory Share are personal, not global events. To begin, you click on the left side to select a particular year. Then scroll around a circular spiral which contains the memories others have submitted. To read a specific memory, you click on the “blob” on the spiral which represents the memory. The site also allows for storage of video memories. Both the written and the video memories are filed by keyword so they can be compared to other memories containing similar terms.

Since this site has content generated by the public, always preview information before you share it with your students! \ 10512
In the Classroom:
Explore others’ memories to gain a sense of a time period such as the 1920s, asking students what the memory tells then about life during that time. Have students interview an older family member or neighbor and add one of their own significant memories to the Memory Share site. This is also a great site to have students record holiday memories and favorite family holiday rituals. Use the site to explain what a primary source is, as well. Use memory writing as a way to practice sequencing skills and general narrative writing, publishing the final products on a timeline (protect identity, of cou

The GeoNames geographical database covers all countries and contains over eight million placenames that are available for download free of charge.

Atlas geográfico interactivo

Google Spreadsheets and all of the neat things that can be done with spreadsheets. In the conversation I was reminded of Map a List which turn Google Spreadsheet information into Google Maps placemarks.

To create a map from your spreadsheets you need to register for a Map a List account and give it access to your Google Docs account. Map a List then walks you through each step of selecting a spreadsheet, defining the parameters for your map, and choosing placemarks. I created a map using Map a List this afternoon and it was a very straight-forward process. The map I created, which you can see below, was created from Shelly Blake Plock's Paperless Earth Day Pledge Sheet. (Read more about the Paperless Earth Day challenge here). There are nearly 1100 cells in the spreadsheet and Map a List was still able to relatively quickly create the map.

Applications for Education
Map a List could be a neat tool to use for a classroom geneaology project. Create a spreadsheet form in which students input information about where their ancestors came from. Students could enter the information themselves or they could share the link to the form and ask their parents or grandparents to fill in some information Then use Map a List to show the distribution of ancestories of the students in your classroom.