Technological Leaps

My freshmen are currently studying the entry of the U.S. onto the world stage - better known as "1890-1920 - The Age of American Imperialism," and two technological applications that I learned through 21C have definitely come in handy. When we were talking about the Panama Canal, I brought Google Earth up on the screen and we were able to see the canal from above. It was finally easy to show the students that the canal actually cuts from north-west to south-east across Panama, and they enjoyed seeing the photos that visitors to the canal had uploaded onto Google Earth. Secondly, I happened across an interesting quote about American imperialism during the early 20th century and posted a possibly controversial blog topic about the quote on our class blog. I will be interested to see where the students go with it. Neither of these technologies has radically changed my teaching, but instead have added new dimensions to student learning that really weren't as possible before.