Bernie Dodge: Puzzle Pieces

Session Information
Bernie Dodge is a self-avowed map lover.

How can we take advantage of Google Maps and Google Earth in a way that makes pedagogical sense?
It's all about place. Kids hear about history as words - place provides a way to glue these things together. It contextualizes and gives another way to think about it. Spatial abilities reside in the hippocampus - straddles both hemispheres. Historically people have known the importance of place.
Simonides - we have a fragment of his poems - he was at a banquet and was reciting a poem. He went out for a moment and while he was out the hall collapsed - because of his visual memory he was ab le to identify who had been there. The method of loci - where something is located - using place to remember by attaching things to places you already know. There is a connection between place and things you want to remember.

He talked about learning that Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stower were neighbours - it became a new way to look at them.

Taking kids outside - is novel - their attention will be activated. If you are in a strange place - activate uncertainty. Walking - triggers the senses - the concreteness.

http://promiseofplace.org

getting out into communities - taking advantage of the attention that comes from being outside.
http://www.peecworks.org

Geocaching - his class put together a geocache with travel bugs - one of his students wanted his bug to go to Berlin. He can now share with his students where the bug has been.

Field trips - so much energy spent on permissions etc. the content and forethought of a field trip often go by the wayside.
Criteria

• low - no cost
• easy
  
• quick

PlacePuzzle is a map-based activity designed to encourage close reading of a complex text. It uses a limited physical space to priovide a context for learning and includes short-answer clues that require recall and creative interpretation.

Critical Attributes
Resources - to be studied ahead of time
Map -of a related place
Clues -on the map that relate the map to the resources and require both recall and ideation

Optional Attributes
Scores kept based on speed and accuracy
Roles to divide up the reading
- Leaderboard posted publicly (gamers like this)
Clues made available one at a time based on performance (like a treasure hunt)

Communication channel allowing players to collaborate in real time

Chaos in Teheran - place puzzle

Clues - Map
Tinychat - embedded in a page or blog
Real Shoestring -
Google Maps - Google Sites to embed the map (at the moment it doesn't always work)
Type in clues - google forms / spreadsheets / docs
You can know when each team solved each puzzle
Eventually Google Wave

Placemark is a clickable clue
"He worked near here and waited patiently for them to pop the question. The grass nearby might remind you of a dairy pasture" - use clue, readings to figure out the clue

Clue |Possibilites (visual - street view, visual - photos, text - wikipedia, proximity - what's nearby)

http://tinyurl.com/cluewriting
Trade Secrets in writing Treasuree Hunt clues
http://www.riddleme.net (pay for service for creating scavenger hunts)

Curricular Opportunities
historical events
distance - area - shapes
literature - novels,
geography concepts
language learning (street view lets you zoom in on street signs etc.)
current events
Field Trip prep - getting kids ready to go somewhere so they can immerse themselves in a place before they get there
Campus orientation
Earth Science and oceanography

|Implementation possibilities
-timed special event (only available at a certain time)
- self-promotion - promote school
- interschool competition / collaboration - have kids create for another school

Novelty, uncertainty, concreteness, time pressure, competition...

Design steps
- Pick topic
- Identify resources
- Pick locations
- Write Clues

He is working on an interface to help with the design - not quite ready

Google Earth - with street view - you can include different clues

Outdoor Version - change format so clues require you to be in the place. Growth in mobile learning will help kids get outdoors.

Web Site Story - http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1913584 - so hooked on Google Earth we don't get outside to see it.

http://placepuzzle.org - will be available with examples, tutorials, forum - authoring tool
July 21, 2009 3:59 pm PDT will be live

Very intriguing ideas

http://www.neccning.org/forum/topics/placepuzzles-1
Links to session slides