Same Field Trip in Google Earth

Google Earth the mind-blowing program that makes a person think about Big Brother. By using KML technology (Keyhole Markup Language), a Google Map can be converted into a 3-dimensional map with various layers for a valuable navigation tool. In this extensive field trip, the roads and elevations can be annotated so the drivers of the RVs can know ahead of time which ones may be too steep to consider. The weather layer shows what's coming. Roads are visually described not just presented, buildings exist not just pointed out with a push pin. As a traveling tool, Google Earth makes the trip less a mystery and more a certainty.

I found it simpler than I thought. I brought up My Places in Google Maps, clicked on the map I wanted to use, double-clicked on the KML link and things happened! By choosing layer options, I was able to dictate what I would see according to my need. If I was the RV driver, I might want to find alternative routes to the one I had initially chosen based on what I saw. As a student finding someplace to stop for a pizza lunch, we'd all know what kind of neighborhood it would be in and frankly, since we're thinking of safety, I'd want to know what we we'd be driving into. The 3-d building option would help with that as well. Tilting, rotating, moving side to side...the coordinates reposition as needed to maintain a factual representation of the journey. The captured image of the map shows the journey, but it changes depending on the layers I choose to show. Jing and Screencast were not as easy to use this time as they have been in the past. It took several passes to finally get an image uploaded. I included the link just to prove I did it but the image you see here has been snipped. I will need to continue updating this post until I get the Screencast image to appear properly.

When clicking on a push pin, the earth's surface gets closer and
closer until buildings appear and get bigger.

Google Earth for Educators offers lesson plans and projects for teachers to use when introducing students to Google Earth. Classroom Resources has categories of projects with varying tabs of difficulty [Easy, Average, Advance].


Although many ISTE NETS-T technology standards apply, this conversion to a 'use-tool' is best explained by #3 -- exhibiting skills and processes representative of technology use by professionals. This could be used by drivers as mentioned, but what surveyors, farmers, land developers, the military. As a digital society, more and more the tools of digital add to  immediate caches of knowledge.