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August 25, 2009
Educational Uses for Google Earth
Nearly every year at this time, I make sure to remind educators - and students - that Google Earth is a great tool for education. It's not just about learning about geography, Google Earth is a platform that lets you put practically any learning into geospatial context. Not only that, but it is a very versatile 3D presentation tool for teaching things, or for students to present their assignments (and maybe get a great grade for such an innovative way of presenting their hard work!).
And, don't forget that Google Earth isn't confined to Earth. Google Earth 5 also has Sky (perfect for astronomy classes), Mars for Google Earth, Ocean for Google Earth, and the brand new Moon for Google Earth. And, you can add on other planets as well - see Jupiter for example.
Another new feature in GE 5 that could help teachers and students is the touring capability. Here are two great examples of what tours can do that might open your eyes for educational applications: Apollo 11 Tour, and a news overview Tour of Afghanistan. Read more about Tours.
Here are some links to some important resources on the subject of Google Earth for education:
- Educational Uses of Google Earth by GEB - links to many resources
- Google's Earth for Educators web site
- Many layers in Google Earth useful for education
- Google Earth Basics - many tips from GEB on using Google Earth.
Posted by FrankTaylor at August 25, 2009 9:13 AM
Comments
Posted by: Richard Treves at August 26, 2009 6:51 AM
Hello Frank,
Another great example, My Wonderful World,
the orientation quiz link at http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/11/national_geographic_supports_geogra.html has been broken, the Quiz and other educational kmz's can still be loaded from http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/continents/asia/
Posted by: jpwade at August 28, 2009 9:02 AM
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A timely reminder of educational uses.
I agree with you that tours can be very useful educationally, not only to watch but also for students to *produce themselves* in projects and assignments.
Google Outreach have produced advice on how to do this:
http://bit.ly/cTeVI
And I've produced some tutorials of my own:
1. http://bit.ly/p5wK5
2. http://bit.ly/b09nD
3. http://bit.ly/zpwna