I’m sure that those of you who have been to a CUE conference, or even attended this year’s Fall CUE at American Canyon High School, are not surprised by this statement. Each year, I am amazed by all the awesomeness that congregates in one place.
I kicked off my weekend by attending a session with Danielle Forst, Juli Kimbley, and Danny Silva. They demonstrated how a simple search, Google Forms, and Google Maps can be used to create a digital version of The Amazing Race. Basically, a question is asked, students have to search for the answer, answer it on a Google Form. The Form, after submitting, will have a link to a map with another question. So simple, yet soooo much fun!
The amazing part of this project wasn’t the simple map that was created, it was the learning that took place. Fortunately, YouTube is currently open, so the students were able to view the videos. However, the cool part of this lesson was that so many of the students were inspired, they began researching about Marco Polo and his life…On their own! I had students coming up to me, and each other, stating random facts that they discovered. One student found a video from the History Channel and began watching it (it was 40 min. long).
Now I could have done the old fashioned thing and read it out of the uber interesting Social Studies book – cuz who doesn’t love those things? But instead, I used the inspiration of Fall CUE and experienced one of the best Social Studies lessons of my career! I can’t wait to have the students creating maps of their own!
The simple map I created for my students.