The Virtual Heroic Journey Online Conference

Kevin Hodgson spoke on how to "kick it up a notch" in his 6th grade ELA classroom. He had his students use Google Maps and Google Earth to create a fictional heroic journey story. This unit was tied to literature (The Odyssey, The Lightning Thief), writing, and use of technology. To model this process Mr. Hodgson and his students read the graphic novel ofOdysseus's escape of Poseidon's curse to illustrate the heroic journey and plot device. They then read The Lightning Thief (excellent series I too am reading and one I would highly recommend for use in a Mythology class or unit) to follow Percy Jackson in his quest to return Zeus's stolen lightning bolt. They then used the tools to plot this quest. The students were then ready to create their own heroic journey to include three encounters with creatures marking places on Google Map where the hero enounctered the monsters on their journey home. Students had to type their text (story) and embed images of monsters (from his Picassa folder). Mr. Hodgson created two web sites to view their work. To view student work you would go to http://sites.google.com/sites/heroicjourneymaps. The second site is a slide show showing step by step how to use googe maps, google earth, and Picassa: http://tinyurl.com/heroicjourney. Once again, I like learning how I can incorporate the technological tools into the classroom and to help students expand their literacies.