Well that concludes the end of another week of expert presenters. Wayd & Geoff presented in today’s class Google Earth. When Google Earth first came about many years a go I remember playing for hours in awe of this new technology. As with all new novelties this soon became boring and I ’swept it under the mat’ so to speak! Only a few weeks a go with the release of street view I did the same thing checked out all the important places to me, home, work, and international icons.
Today was a chance for me to revisit this application from Google. Wayd & Geoff presented some interesting features of the application such as visiting landmarks and basic navigation. Their point about the educative value was valid and I concur that it is an extremely valuable tool in a class. It could be compared to an ‘interactive atlas’.
I think that one day when I eventually have my own class that Google Earth will be one of the first tools that I will ensure is on my students computers. The power that it has be able to assist with SOSE will be unbelievable!
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September 25th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Can you tell Wayd and Geoff to check out Tom Barrett’s series of posts on using Google Earth in the classroom — especially his Presentation that was created by collaborating with educators around the world. Also you might like this for your page on Twitter for the wiki.
September 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Also realised that you are adding PowerPoints to your wiki page. If you want them to look really cool you can upload them to Slideshare and then easily embed directly into the page.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Mat – Google Earth has certainly come a long way from the atlas I grew up with at school. Used effectively it can be such a powerful tool. Geoff and Wayd covered this well. I really like the use of Google Earth mashups: http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2006/12/50-things-to-do-with-google-maps.html