Google Earth

Before doing this assignment, I didn't even know Google Earth existed. I had heard people talking about it before but mistook i for Google Maps. So, naturally, first thing I did was to see if I could find myself. My addressed pulled up a 2D birds-eye-view map that zoomed in uncomfortably close to my home. Then, as I continued searching different areas, I found that there are amazing street-level views and 3D maps that place the viewer right down in the middle of a virtual replication of certain areas of my hometown. Crazy cool. Next, I ventured to the Taj Mahal and Washington DC and got some amazing views, views that I could control, outside and inside of famous monuments and buildings, as well as a collection of photographs of the places from other people around the world. Amazing.

The next part of the assignment was to upload a KML file of the Google Map that I created a few days ago in the last assignment (see picture below). KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language and is a language that can express geological areas including 2D and 3D references. It is interchangeable between Google Maps and Google Earth and other Earth viewing programs. One reason that you would want to do this sort of exchange between programs is because Google Earth has 3D capabilities along with a neat little trick I found while playing with the Google Earth program- you can create and record virtual tours. Meaning, that you can create a site list in Google Maps, transfer your map to Google Earth and run through a virtual 3D tour of the actual places your marked-- you can create your own personalized virtual field trips for you classroom. Not only that but you have the opportunity to choose historical dates for your map and view the world from the past. This would be a great aid in many classrooms, and with this generation of students, the more technological aides for your lessons, the better!

Teaching with free Google products is starting to become more applicable all the time. Google in Education is a website dedicated to incorporating Google applications into academia. From this website, I found Google Earth for Educators. From there, I learned about Google SketchUp which is a program that runs in conjunction with Google Earth. The students can replicate buildings such as their home or school into 3D models and add them to Google Earth. Incorporating this application with Google Earth would benefit a secondary class in computer science because not only does it teach students to learn about Google Earth and it's capabilities, but also challenges them a step farther and helps them to contribute to the program. SketchUp in the Classroom provides lesson plans for using SketchUp in elementary, middle, and secondary classrooms.

This activity relates to the 3d: d. Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning This goal was achieved by giving us a project that required us to use digital tools to locate our information, then collaborate our findings to analyze, evaluate, and use our research in a real-world experience.