When considering how to use e-learning in your classroom, one method is to look at your planning and consider what ICT tools you could use to add to this learning experience.
We have been learning about reading scales and maps, and we also had an introduction to orienteering last week, so I decided to find and use an e-tool to entend their learning.
Using a free online tool called Scribblemaps I created the scavenger hunt above and embedded it into our class wiki. In pairs or triads they accessed the maps on laptops, working together to plot the placemarkers on their paper maps. When they were ready they came to me for their starting time. And they were gone. . .
My students have practiced and used the maths concepts in an authentic context using Scribblemaps as my e-tool. They had fitness (including those who usually find any excuse not to move), calculated time, and read maps. They were working participating cooperatively but still competitively, they used critical thinking to help choose the best route and method of completing the course in the fatest time with all the correct answers.
As the rate of return to the classroom was spread out, I got my top group, to whom I'd taught Scribblemaps on Monday, to teach everyone else as they came into the room, it worked a charm. I watched mixed ability peer tutoring to now eager learners, other student discussions were either comparing answers, routes and times, it was real maths talk.
Our next step is for the students to create their own maps for the rest of the class to follow; plus some students have already asked to create ones based on our other learning topics. We also need to create a scale ruler, last week showed most students were getting more proficient, but still need some practice interpreting and using different scale types.
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