I still remember the first time I ever heard about google. I think I was in middle school. I was riding in the car with my grandmother, and we were listening to NPR. They were talking about a new phenomenon of googling someone before you met them. The piece told the story of two people who had been set up on a blind date. Both had googled each other before meeting in person, and it ended up coming out during their first date because they ended up revealing that they knew more about the person than they should have.
Seeing as Google has now been around longer than most of my students have been alive, they can't imagine life without google. I remember life without google. I remember it vividly. On my first day of sixth grade, my science teacher gave us a worksheet that asked us questions about various inventions and their inventors. After doing the ones I knew, I went to my parents for help. My mother directed me to the set of encyclopedias she received as a graduation gift in the late 70's. That worked great except for the fact that some of the inventions were not around in the late 70's. So, do you know what we did? We called the library, and a reference librarian kindly looked up the information for us. I can't even imagine doing that nowadays.
By the time I started 7th grade, my parents decided that it would probably be a good idea to have a home computer. Before that time, if I wanted to use a computer, I had to do it at my parents' work place. It's crazy to think about how much things have changed in just my short life span. When I tell my students that I was 16 when I got my first cell phone, they are amazed. The iphone wasn't introduced until my senior year of high school. And, they still can't quite comprehend how I can survive with a non-smart phone. "You mean you use twitter from a computer? I didn't know you could do that!"
So, anyway, back to my story about googling myself. A couple of days ago, I googled my blog username just to see what popped up. Most of the search results were my blog. And, a few mentions of my blog on other blogs were there as well. What I wasn't expecting was a youtube link.
I found a video describing how to do my Pre-Algebra Road Trip Project. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the video and seeing how another teacher explained things. If you're interested in the project, click here.
Or, alternatively, press play below.