Embedded Files
The true power of of using the New Google Earth comes from the creation of new tours. When we give our students opportunities to create their own stories we provide them with transformational experiences.
GE Teach
GE Teach
Josh Williams is high school teacher in Austin Texas. He spent the last several years working with Google Geo Tools creating interactive lessons for his students and sharing them with the rest of the world via his website, GETeach.com. Josh and his students were some of the early testers of the New Google Earth. After spending some time in the New Google Earth Josh decided to write a web program that provides a template for users to create their own tours. Needless to say, Josh is the man! Below you will find a link to the resource along with instructions on how to create your won tour.
GETeach.com/tour/ is the URL of the site Josh created. The screenshot below shows the creation panel on the left and the map view on the right. Note how you name the tour and then begin adding placemarks. To add your first placemark simply navigate or search for a place on the earth. Once you have your location view set, click on the map and the latitude and longitude are set in the panel. You also have the ability to change the range, tilt, and heading. This takes some practice to get it to do what you want but in time it becomes easier to position your placemark.
Each placemark can have multiple images associated with it. To add an image you will need the image address. If you search for an image on the internet, once you find one, simply right-click on the image and select "copy image address". Past the link into one of the five image placeholders.
Note that when you have all of the information into your placemark, you have the option to be done, go to the previous placemark or create a new one. Continue adding new placemarks until you have all of the places you want to include. Once you have all of your placemarks in place, click add to save the last placemark and then click on done. A new window will appear, with many lines of code. While this can be a bit overwhelming, all you need to do is click on "Download Tour" at the bottom right of the window. Save it to your hard drive with the appropriate name.
Once you have the file saved (kml), you will need to import it into Google Earth. Open Google Earth and click on the "My Places" in the left panel. It will open a sub panel with all of your tours showing. Click on "Import KML File" and your file will be loaded into your "My Places" library. Note that you can save a KML file to your local hard drive or to your Google Drive folder, making it easy to create tours on a Chromebook. Once you load the tour it will take you to a new screen where you can begin your tour. Notice how you can look through your images on the right hand panel as well as advance to the next placemark.
Think about all of the different tours your students will be able to create using this tool. And the best part is it can be shared via Google Drive.
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