Hall Davidson
Joe mentioned it earlier, but Hall Davidson is very entertaining to listening to and not only that, has some great ideas. This Google presentation sounds like one he was going to do at the 2006 NECC conference in San Diego. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it because there was some copyright confusion with Google. I vaguely remember how that was soon cleared up yadda yadda yadda, but not in time for his presentation.
Google Earth is one of my favorite applications…visually it’s awesome…but besides just the satellite views, there are lots of ways to add content on top of that.
Here are Hall’s handouts.
Google Earth is a platform…one that you can add more information to…web cam, image, video, whatever. If you’re an educator, you can get a Google Earth Pro license. If you use it, just be aware that it is even more of a bandwidth hog than just regular old Google Earth.
Google Earth Tips
- Type N on the keyboard to put North at the top.
- Right-click on a placemark and choose Snapshot View to keep that same view each time you visit the placemark.
Hall highlighted the 3D overlays…there are tons of buildings, monuments, and landmarks available for anyone to use. Same thing with Layers. Most people probably use thse pre-made layers that are available for free. In Google Earth, look down on the left and you’ll see them under Gallery: Discovery, National Geographic, NASA, and more…
Route
Use a route “drive” from placemark to placemark. It kind of looks like driving along from a bird’s-eye view.
Ruler
Use the ruler to measure distances from point to point, or even along a route…and you can change the units on the fly.
Image Overlay
From any image on the Internet, copy and paste its URL and paste it right on top of Google Earth. You can change its transparency, size, rotation. It also will lay right over terrain if the Terrain layer is turned on.
There’s so much embeddable content on the web…sites like YouTube or Flickr or whatever that give you a URL…that code can be quickly copied and pasted into Google Earth. It’s easy to make a multimedia presentation simply by adding content on top of maps.
Last resource from Hall: Google Lit Trips.
Hall didn’t get through nearly as many items as he may have wanted to. Remember to check out his handout. Also, Ben Rimes is giving an 11:30 presentation entitled, “Google Earth for Tech Savvy Educators.” Very enjoyable!
Which is why this year I’ve tried to focus my presentation on what teachers want. Specifically, little tools and tricks that they can take back and use in the classroom the very next week. Since Google Earth (GE) has become synonymous with the idea of a “digital globe” in the classroom, I thought other educators’ experiences with is. I haven’t talked with a teacher or administrator yet that hasn’t seen how powerful GE is. I hear about how great it was to find their houses, places of work, and their favorite restaurant. Some teachers even have their students mapping out and navigating their local community. However, Google’s digital globe is capable of so much more. So I decided to put together a presentation that would give teachers from every subject area a few simple ideas to get them started exploring how the application could be used in Science, Social Studies, Math, and Language Arts. There are even applications for using Google Earth in other areas of education like Music, Visual Arts, and more. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and how to use all of Google Earth’s bells and whistles.
