Bring your Lessons to Life with Geo Tools

This workshop takes you on a grand tour of Google's many amazing tools for virtually exploring the world. From Google Maps and Google Earth, to Streetview and Expeditions, we will learn to bring the whole world into our classroom, enabling you to take your students to far-away places. From there we will look at Google MyMaps, learning how to add your own information to maps for greater meaning and understanding. Finally we will spend some time exploring the Google Arts and Culture collection. This session is useful for teachers of any subject or age group.

Before we start

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Streetview & Maps

Visit the Streetview site at www.google.com/streetview/

The streetview site contains 360 panoramas (photospheres) of thousand of locations around the world. You can explore almost anywhere on earth by finding it in Streetview. Some photospheres are made by the Google Maps team and some are contributed by people like you and me. Learn about how Streetview works, where the Streetview cars are driving right now & even who in your local area can make professional 360 photos for business.

Want to contribute to the Streetview collection? Get the Streetview App for Android or iOS. You can not only explore the Streetview collections, but you can also make your own!

Are YOU using maps to explore the world regularly in your classroom? If not, why not?

About Streetview (16:9)

HINT: right click on any part of Maps to calculate distance and area (super way to teach length, perimeter, area in a Maths lesson!)

The New Google Earth

Google Earth is now web based! Nothing to install, nothing to update, and it works on a Chromebook! With great new features for exploring the world in your classroom.

Search
Voyager
I'm Feeling Lucky
My Places
Share
Measure

Activity

Explore the Voyager collection called This is Home. How might you use a Voyage like this with your students?
Browse through the Voyager collections to find other Voyages that might be of interest to you and your students.
Create a collection of "bookmarks" to mark the locations of any places that you could use in your teaching area.
Add to this shared Doc: AMAZING BUILDINGS

Google MyMaps

Next time your students are learning about a topic that involves any sort of geographical information, get them to work together to produce a collaborative map of key locations.

This idea can be used in ALL subject areas, not just obvious ones like geography!

Science - show where data was collected.
English - show the places mentioned in a novel.
Art - show where different art movements started.
History - show locations of famous battles
Use your imagination!

MyMaps...student created Google Maps (ACT Ed)

Tell a story

Check out this map which shows the story of Pannikin and Pinta, a story about two pelicans migrating across Central Australia. Each location mentioned in the story has been mapped and a pin added with photos of the place. Some pins also include pictures of the place.

Back it up with a worksheet that can be finished using mapping data like this.

Start with a Sheet

Rather than getting your students to drop pins on the map, why not start by getting them to compile the data on a shared Google Sheet, then import that data onto a map? Maybe showing where they live in relation to the school.

Activity: Mapping Datasets

Here are some datasets for you. Just click on one that sounds interesting, and it will automatically make a copy in your own Google Drive. Choose a sample file from the list below and open a new MyMaps page to import the data in. Then go play with it!

Hint: include the word "dataset" eg [san francisco dataset] when searching for datasets. Also, include the [filetype:csv] operator to go directly to CSV files (a useful file type for datasets)

This video is a little dated now (its now called MyMaps, not Maps Engine Lite) but it works basically the same. So until I remake the video, this should help you remember some of the things we did today.

Other amazing mapping tools

Tour Creator

Use 360 Streetview imagery, or upload your own, and create your own VR tours. Add hotspots that can include text, images or audio narration. This is a fabulous tool for getting students to share stories about the world, while adding their own information. Completed tours can be viewed as immersive 360 tours using Google Cardboard googles.

Tour Builder

Create your own virtual tours through the world. Mark your own locations, and add information like pins, information, photos, etc. Once you build a Tour you can share it with others to explore, or send it to Google Earth and show it using the Voyager interface. Can't yet be collaborative or embedded onto a Google Site....yet!

GeoGuessr

GeoGuessr is a geo-based game that uses Google Maps. It shows you a (more or less) random place in Streetview mode and you have to work out where in the world you are. It's a great game to play with your students to improve their observation, reasoning, logic, and of course mapping skills.

SmartyPins

SmartyPins also uses Google Maps to create a geo-based trivia game. It asks a question and you have to drop a pin on the map where you think the answer is. See how close you get! You have a limited number of attempts based on how close you get to the correct location... the closer you get, the more turns you get.

GPS Tracking Apps

Take a look at the GPS Essentials in the Android Play Store. It records a track from waypoint data as you move around and then exports it as a KML file. There are probably similar apps in the Apple Apps Store too if you search for them.

You can import the KML files created by these apps directly to Google Earth to relive the journey!

Google Arts and Culture

Just click on over and explore...it is utterly amazing!

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