Google Earth Adds 3-D Tour of Ancient Rome

Published April 08, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT

A 21st Century tool to increase core knowledge of the Roman Empire, brought to you by Google Earth and the University of Virginia. What I wouldn't give to have audio-visual "texts" like this to "read" when I was a kid.
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In my Shanghai days heading the ESL department of a two-campus international school with over one in four students of limited English proficiency, rich multi-modal material like this was precisely what we wanted to make the reading input more comprehensible. (What are your thoughts on this as a supplement to reading, Robert? And did Prof. Hirsch have a hand in the Google Earth project?)

(h/t to Tom Daccord at the National Council for the Social Studies Community Network Ning. He found me on Twitter, I followed him to that Ning and joined it straightaway, and urge any history and social studies types to do the same. Many more great resources and conversations in that young community already.)

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I think this is #$%@! amazing. That's what I think. I know you think I'm axiomatically anti-21st Century Skills, but I'm not. (If I fall -- or get pushed -- under a bus today, my one claim to fame would be that I wrote what may have been the first book about the Internet for kids back in the early 1990s). My objection is that the promoters of 21CS tend to see "content" as the handmaiden of technology, instead of the other way around. My rule of thumb is that the technology has to deepen student understanding; there's too much gee-whizardry at loose that merely sees academic content as fungible. In other words, the real object of the project is a blog, a powerpoint, etc. and the history or literature merely provides "stuff."

This is different. It really *does* deepen understanding. It's a true and meaningful value-add that enables students to visualize Ancient Rome in a way that even walking the ruins might not. It's easy to conjure in the minds eyes a vision of Rome in black and white. This immediately and vividly lets you see the city as a lively and vibrant place. Really impressive.

I'm looking forward to sharing this with CK teachers. Thanks for pointing it out.

Posted by Robert Pondiscio on 04/09/2009 @ 05:02AM PT
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Robert, I don't think you're axiomatically anything. Your comments on your own blog recently (and perhaps earlier - I've only been reading you for a few months) show a subtlety about it all that I actually find hard to dismiss.

And your comment above: "My rule of thumb is that the technology has to deepen student understanding; there's too much gee-whizardry at loose that merely sees academic content as fungible. In other words, the real object of the project is a blog, a powerpoint, etc. and the history or literature merely provides "stuff." " - that I totally agree with. But I think a lot of 21st Century Skills types would too....

There's no doubt the tech fetishists can take their enthusiasm too far. But in many cases, I think the teachers among them experience a Thermidorean pendulum-swing back to a more moderate position. I did, anyway.

More to come.

Posted by Clay Burell on 04/09/2009 @ 07:46PM PT
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Clay is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he's married to his wife. According to his wife, he's married to his Mac.