Concept lessons will use Google Earth to present math topics, such as rates or scientific notation in unique ways.
Project-Based Learning activities will include lessons that will require the collaborative efforts of students in pairs or groups. These lessons may be of a longer duration and require additional outsource materials.
Measurement lessons will make extensive use of the ruler tool in Google Earth to accomplish problem solving activities.
Exploratory lessons will follow non-traditional math topics such as fractals, topology, or modern geometry.
""Learning requires creating active patterns in the brain," said Baker. "We're working with people with functional MRIs as they learn particular things and it's really different from taking multiple choice tests. It isn't just our allegation. It turns out to be physiologically different." Baker went on to describe how teachers scoring demonstrations could be taught to eliminate subjectivity and bias and how technology was making the use of performance-based assessments more cost effective."
A growing body of academic research supports the use of project-based learning in schools as a way to engage students, cut absenteeism, boost cooperative learning skills, and improve test scores. Those benefits are enhanced when technology is used in a meaningful way in the projects.
Advocates also say that the availability of technology that can call up the knowledge of the world's best thinkers with the click of a mouse, that can graph in two seconds what once took hours, and that can put scientific instrumentation in a pocket-sized computer further argues for moving away from century-old models of instruction.