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Educaching
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Educaching is bringing the popular adventure sport of Geocaching into the classroom. Teachers around the world are giving GPS devices to their students to create a fun and innovative learning atmosphere. History Geocaching has been around for years and each year has become more and more popular. It was only a matter of time before teachers would bring this technology into the classroom. Now all over the world educators are taking their students out of the classroom to learn in an entirely new way, Educaching! What is Educaching Educaching could be described as a mixture of Hide and Seek, treasure-hunting, and learning all wrapped up into one experience. When you were younger and you used to play Hide and Seek, there was a thrill involved with finding other children who were hidden in secret spots and the victory won when you "spotted" them. And who of us has never has thoughts of finding "buried treasure" or finding the "X" that marks the spot? There is also a fascination, especially among children, with gadgets, gizmos, and technological wonders of our day and age, in which young people are the chief users. In many cases they can run circles around their parents and teachers in regard to the use of technologies available to us today. The students actually seek knowledge. They are responsible for probing and discovering what they must know. It is an incredible responsibility that is incredibly fun! How it Works You take some math problems, or a piece of historical knowledge, or a science experiment, and you hide these things somewhere on the school grounds outdoors (GPS does not work indoors...yet). Then, you use a GPS receiver to obtain signals from the satellites to give you the exact locations of the objects you have hidden. You save these locations as "waypoints," which can be stored in your receiver's memory. Next, you give the students the waypoints, along with a map and a GPS receiver and have them go out into the school yard and find what is hidden. When they find these objects, a.k.a. an Educache, they have a job to do. For example, they must collect data, take measurements, solve a problem, perform an experiment, or take a picture. When the hunt is over, the students return with you indoors to discuss their discoveries, complete assessments, and extend their learning further throughout projects and presentations. Further reading Educaching - GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers By Jason Hubbard and the staff of SDG Creations LLC See Also
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