Google Maps

[Lori Holcomb]

Google Earth is a virtual globe program that maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS over a 3D globe. (Wikipedia definition). In the article, Using Google Earth in the History Classroom, the author talks about three ways that Google Earth can enhance history lessons:
- Terrain/Overlays, which are maps that are scanned from a computer and then dropped over a historical site to give a much better sense of “place.”
- 3D Models: Allows you to “whiz” around various edifices, such as the Taj Mahal
- Tours/Flyovers: a series of placemarks which can be arranged by date or theme and then Google Earth “flies” from one spot to another along a route chosen by you.

Here is the accompanying website to the above article. It contains a searchable database of Google Earth resources for use in the history classroom
http://activehistory.co.uk/google-earth/

Juicy Geography is a personal collection of ideas, lessons and resources for Geography teachers. It contains all kinds of ideas utilizing GIS, GPS and Google Earth, and Google Maps among many other things:
http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/

[Lauren Philbeck]

Wow! All 3 of these ways to enhance history lessons are fun and very useful. I especially like the terrain/overlay one. I think today many students have played around with simple programs and tools involving Google Earth, but these are 3 very cool things to further introduce them too.

[Natalie]

I agree with Lauren. These are wonderful sites that would greatly enhance the social sciences classes of any grade. The Juice Geography site was neat because it's teacher "tested" & included lesson plans & allowed for suggestions.

[Zeynep Yurtseven]

I think these are all wonderful, supporting activities for History, also for Geography classes, and other social science classes as Lauren and Natalie mentioned . I remember every student had two different atlas books in my secondary school years. One was for History classes and the other one was for geography classes. The history atlas was consisting of maps which show frontiers of countries in some certain times, it was also including some geopolitical information about countries. The geography atlas was including physical (showing geographical shapes in that place, economical (including information about agricultural, cattle dealing, etc. ), political maps of geographical parts of Turkey, or some other countries. Teachers were using those atlas books to be able to make the class more effective and valuable even meaningful for students. Nowadays they are also being used in most of the schools in Turkey, and additionally some teachers use big maps like a presentation board. Those are good to make the content more visible and meaningful for us, but I think the new technologies like terrain/overlays, 3D modals, tours can be more useful for both teachers and students. They make the certain events like people are living them today, and they are also giving the chance to see everything in three dimensional world.

[Kelly Maxwell]

I love the concept of using Google Maps and Google Earth with social studies and geography classes. They both have so many useful tools that can belp students better understand concepts because they are able to have a better visual than just the book. I am actually planning on using Google Maps with my final project and I it is really interesting what all these programs can do.

[Veronica Lewis]

I think these are great resources that can integrate technology in to the history curriculum. I get questions from that department about what can we do to work together and unfortunately in the past the best we have some with is the old and ever faithful PowerPoint. This could really add some spice and motivate the students to delve deeper into the subject matter. I have shared this with other faculty and hopefully we can take a step in another direction to improve student engagement.

[Jennifer Cable]

I had never heard about Google Earth until one day when my assistant principal came into my classroom with a tech and asked if I wanted them to load Google Earth. I said, “I guess” although I did not have a clue what it was. After the tech was finished, the assistant principal showed me how to use it. It is fascinating to all the features it has. I love to play with it, go to different points of interest, and look around. What is scary is to see my house on Google Earth. Technology is changing our lives and sometimes we do not even know it. I will have to admit that I have never used it in my class. I think I will see if I can get it loaded on all the computers in my lab and create a lesson plan using it.

[Karen Hughes]

I love Google Earth and I have also used this in my Computer Applications I classes. We teach Internet safety in our curriculum. I used Google Earth to show students why they should not publish personal information on the Internet and how predators can use their personal information and programs like Google Earth to locate them even if the predator knows nothing about the town they live in. The students were astonished. I had several students come back to class the next day and tell me that they actually removed a lot of their personal info from their MySpace page after this activity.

I am sure Google Earth is an invaluable tool for teaching geography. When I was in Geography class, several years ago, we only used maps. A world globe was as 3-D as it got. Now students can view locations as if they are flying over the area and looking out the window of a plane.

I really enjoyed the all of the enhancements utilized by Google Earth: Terrain/Overlays, 3-D Models, and Tours/Flyovers. I was amazed at how realistic the images appeared. It was like looking through a window at the images not just look at pictures of the images.

I was amazed at “FlickrMap.” How wonderful it would be to Geotag pictures taken on a class fieldtrip for the students who were unable to attend. These students could watch the “FlickrMap” and experience much of the same reality as if they were on the fieldtrip. I am going to research this technology more.

Karen

[Rhonda W]

This technology is cool, but I disagree with your point that viewing pictures taken on a field trip could substantively reconstruct the experience for students who missed it. Being there in person is better. Pictures might be better than nothing, but they don't replace the real world. Otherwise we could write off field trips completely -- which, given the current state of the economy and cuts facing education, might be a very real possibility.

[Kaitlin]

I think all 3 websites are very useful and I enjoyed touring them. I would definitely use them in my classroom. I especially like the active history website. It had a lot of interactive games for the students to use and also forms of assessment the teacher could use to see what the students are learning. Along with the Juicy Geography site which included a way for teachers to test students. The Juicy Geography site also had a lot of resources for teachers to use as well as lesson plans. I learned a lot from Google earth and their 3-D Models, tours and terrain/overlays. They would be a lot more effective in my classroom. Unfortunately I only have a globe and the maps that are provided in my social studies book, I don’t even have a large map in the front of my classroom to pull down. It is hard for me to get the students engaged when teaching geography and I think using these sites would help out a lot. With the terrain/overlays students get a view of places they have never seen and get an understanding of where they are and what kinds of landforms they have. I couldn’t think of a better visual to use. The students don’t get excited about their books; I think they would definitely get excited if I used these resources. I am definitely going to share these sites with my faculty as well as my technology teacher. I think sometimes teachers get so many resources they aren’t sure what to use but these sites are very teacher friendly and easy to navigate.

[Rhonda W]

When I was in high school, history teachers had figured out how to suck all the life out of the study of history. Looks like these tools have put some of the interest back in. Really, these web sites have a ton of information and provide a lot of ideas for using these technologies in the classroom. I still don't see a lot of applications for Career and Technical Education. These strategies seem to be constructed within a silo of social studies instead of using an interdisciplinary approach that could be more meaningful to students.

[Loretta Batchelor]

I agree the replies that discuss the fact of Google Maps invading people's privacy. I do think that you should have the option to not have this on the maps like the "Don Not Call List" maybe "DO NOT POST PICTURES OF MY MY PERSONAL PROPERTY."

I do like some of the features of Google Earth such as the Global Awareness Resources that are available. The Google maps are great for History, Science and Technology in general to help illustrate how far technology has come. The maps seem to be more up-to-date than Yahoo Maps.

Geography is a subject area that is not taught in every high school's curriculum's and Google Maps is a great way to integrate technology and geography in Science, History or Technology classes.

I love great FREE resources!
Loretta

[Staci Lyon]

I agree with the discussion thus far. Google Earth is such a wonderful tool to be used in social studies classes. I will share the information and articles with the social studies teachers at my school. Several of them are incorporating a lot of technology into their curriculum including having the students create podcasts. If they don't already know about it, I'm sure they will be intrigued.

When I first heard of Google Earth and my husband showed me how it could be used, I had the same thought about the privacy. The fact that anyone could put in my address and see where I live was a little scary. But at the same time, when he showed me exactly how to get to a retreat, road by road, I completely forgot about the privacy :) It was so neat.

Now if I could just think of a way to incorporate it into my math classes :)