One of my favorite things about Google Earth is that it gives me a feeling of global citizenry. Physical features of the earth are very apparent, borders are less obvious. It's not just a globe it's home!
Kevin made great use of a whiteboard with Google earth and his presentation was very effective. His connections to curriculum were relevant and he was organized. He showed us downloadable galleries at Google Earth Galleries where you can download files like Ancient Cities, Ancient Rome etc. This takes a few minutes so I would not try to do this on the fly and you need a good connection.
Google Earth can be a bandwidth hog. I have had problems with this in my presentations and my students have experienced some frustration. His suggestion to work in partners and cut your bandwidth in half was very valid. Also, the more layers you turn off, the faster things run in general. Great tip!
Clicking on the blue dots in Google Earth you will see a picture that has been taken of the site with written remarks. I did not know that anyone can submit photos and details. I think it would be valuable to have students take pictures of local sites and add them to Google Earth - a picture of the school or local landmarks.
Google Earth provides an excellent opportunity to question students. Examples from the Oregon Trail download:
Why did they take this path? Why did towns develop in certain places? What time of year would be best to cross the rivers?
Other excellent curriculum relevant resources are Civil War, Exploration, and Westward Expansion. All of these tie to curriculum standards.
Mathematics applications include Lat/Long, distance, perimeters, area, circumference, units of measure, 3D shapes. Most of these can be done with the ruler tool. FYI: Smoot is a measurement you can use: one smoot is equal to 5' 7" - the height of Oliver Smoot - 1958. Google to get this interesting story.
Google Earth Pro ruler will measure in miles, km, perimeter and area.
Google 3D Building Maker can be used to create 3D Buildings, but you must sign in to save the buildings.
You can create tours with voice over. We were given the written instructions to do this, but there was not time to actually see it done. I did find a tutorial online with step-by-step instructions.
Google Lit Trips.org is very exciting and I went to the Google Booth at ISTE to learn more about this. More later.
Email: geec@google.com to get the Google Earth Pro version for educators FREE.
