Day: February 18, 2012

Like Never Before


The thing that excites me most about technology happens when it enables you to do something, to see something, to experience something that just isn’t possible any other way without huge expense or effort.  The fact that I can do it from the couch in my living room makes the experience so much more impressive.

In fact, it just reinforces in my mind that if all that technology does in the classroom is take something that’s traditionally done and just moved to being done on computer.

I spent way too much time today watching and, indeed studying this video.

The video is entitled “What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth?”  The descriptor for this video that’s been viewed close to 7,000,000 reads

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.

I had a discussion today with a technology nay-sayer who just couldn’t agree that technology has a place in the classroom.  I wish that I had my computer to pull out and play this video for her.  Where else, and how else could this be done without the technologies that we use and enjoy so much?

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OTR Links 02/18/2012


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.