Introducing the New "Google Earth"

Introducing the New Google Earth

Google Earth is a tool that has been around for a while. If you are anything like me, then you have probably used it to search for your house, neighborhood, or the city in which you live. It has such potential for students to explore places around the globe. The trouble has been that it has been a program in which you have needed to download to your device in order to use. That's no longer the case! Google Earth is now completely web-based and ready to start using! This tech tip will take a look at some of the features included.

Explore

Search for any address or place you want to visit. Google Earth will take you there. Give students visual background on the places they are learning or reading about.

Bookmark places you visit for easy access later on. These bookmarks are saved in your "My Places" tab that can be shared out to create your own guided content tour.

Street View

Once at a location, click in the bottom right corner to activate “street view” and gain the ability to walk around.

Drag the little person icon to anywhere highlighted blue on a location to start looking around. (Note: not every place has street view)

Voyager Tool

Google has joined with some of the world’s best scientists, storytellers, and non-profit organizations to create informational guided tours that are ready for your students to jump into.

These tours have multiple points of interest to visit and explore, each with an information card to go with it.

I’m Feeling Lucky

Click the dice icon for the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature to uncover some fascinating new places around our world. When clicked, you will randomly get one of 20,000 different locations. Once you have landed on spot you can open up a knowledge card to learn more.

Google Lit Trips

Google Lit Trips are an idea that uses Google Earth to mark the journeys of characters inside different works of literature. Students can interact with the book they are reading as teachers add relevant media, thought-provoking discussion questions, and links to different placemarks. This creates an engaging literary experience that moves past just imagining the place in our mind.

Click here to learn more about Google Lit Trips and to explore some already created ones.

Please contact your Digital Learning Specialist if you would like additional information on anything mentioned above.