Ken Burns's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" Classroom 2.0

Since I didn’t get a chance to see Edtech Weekly live this week I thought I would try and find a webcast on digital storytelling. What I came across was a neat resource for teachers to use when teaching about “Place” (one of the five themes of geography) using National Parks as the foundation for the lesson. During this webinar, the presenters Kathryn Keranen and Lyn Malone demonstrated the use of ArcGIS, a downloadable, presentation tool. It’s a 3D Power Point type program with links to the National Parks. We also watched clips from the Ken Burns film. The lesson plans section on the National Park site is a helpful resource for teachers. I really liked the live webcams at the national parks. Leslie Rule, a producer at KQED in San Francisco presented a very brief place-based digital storytelling lessons. She spoke about creating content using Google Earth and Google Maps. So while this webcast wasn't a homerun for digital storytelling, it is well worth your time - check it out.