Google Earth

For my technology Anja and I decided to do Google Earth. We were looking through the list and saw that integrative maps were on there, but we felt that the google maps would be a little boring, so we went with the Google Earth idea. I have worked with Google Earth many times, just kind of looking around to see what there is, especially looking up addresses that are personal for me. After doing this project I realize how much I have really missed in the many times that I have used it. There is a whole world out there and I had never even thought of "flying" to somewhere other than places that I have already been. Google Earth does a great job of tagging some default places on Earth that are mainly tourist sites, but when looking at them it really makes me feel like I have actually been there.

As we were trying to figure out how we would use Google Earth we wanted to be able to pin point some places that were important to us and then show the class. I was thinking to myself that this would be fun to be able to go to all of these different points with the class because I know that a few have not used Google Earth. However, this was a bit more challenging than I would have expected. Once we downloaded Google Earth we first decided on which points we were going to use and why we thought that they were important. Google Earth is great because it lets you flag those points and you can write an explanation with the points as well. I thought that this was a good idea because when the places were coming up through our presentation, people were able to see why we would have wanted to flag those specific places. There is a place in the top hand menu under tools that lets one change their options. We did not find this until later, but when we did it was really useful. It gave us options of changing our tour speed, the angle at which our tour was looking at the Earth, and an option to show the balloons. These were important because if the tour goes too fast, it does not allow Google Earth to become as clear as it can. There are places on Earth, such as Erickson that let us see what cars were actually in the parking lot. One important thing to remember though, is that this is not at the current time, it is only updated a few times a year.

The reason that we decided to use this for visual literacy is because it is clearly visual. It gives students a chance to view things that they read about in a whole different way. It also gives them the opportunity to search what they want to search. When using this in a school I would be certain to have a day where the students could just have fun with Google Earth. They would first have a list of things to search and then they would have the choice of picking a few other things. We would also go over the many options that you can choose in Google Earth, so that the students would be able to choose the perferences that best work for them. I think that this would be great for older students who are doing research projects because they would be able to find out a lot of cool things about their place or even person of interest by using Google Earth that others might not have heard or seen before. A really cool feature is that when you go to popular places such as the Grand Canyon, people can post pictures so that you are able to see some photos from ground level instead of from the satellite. The feature where you can type a description into the map is also great for the visual literacy part. You could have the students do a project of Michigan and instead of bringing pictures in, they could simply tag those locations and then have the bubble pop up that explains what that place is and why it is important. It would be a great way for all students and especially those who have special needs. It would help them because they would be able to type instead of worrying about their handwriting and it also helps them learn just by looking at something instead of having to read through many books. I feel that it would be another type of motivation for these students because they would be using something different than they use in many other reports.

Finally I think that Google Earth is a great technology and it is very fun to use. The important thing would be to make sure that the students are on track and that they understand how to use it.