WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
I remember when I was at school you needed an imagination. My geography teacher, for example, used explain concepts, ideas and places to us in a way that I didn’t really get. I’m a visual learner, I need to see things. That’s why I love Google Earth so much. It’s a great tool for teaching in almost any subject, as we’re going to find out below. Read on to find out how you can (virtually) fly across the earth, find the distance between two places to the nearest centimetre, and zoom in on important places in History!
Lots of people are developing ‘layers’ or additional content for Google Earth. Here are some of my favourites:
- 3D-mapping of London
- History Illustrated - all the battles of WWII
- Tools for viewing Google Earth in an educational context
- Globe glider (makes global browing easier)
- GoogleEarthHacks.com (overlays and links to major recent events around the world)
Noel Jenkins, an Geography AST, has an excellent introductory guide to Google Earth over at JuicyGeography.co.uk. There is also a detailed (but rather confusingly organized) page on Google Earth at geographypages.co.uk. The Google Earth Blog has some useful tips as well.
Perhaps one of the most important things to do is bookmark places you will use often (e.g. your school or important landmarks to use in teaching). Here’s how to do that:
1. In the Google Earth browser, use your mouse to rotate and double-click to zoom in (you can also right-click, hold and drag or use your mouse wheel). Use the buttons at the bottom to rotate the view. (hint: in the Layers box in the bottom left-hand corner, put a tick next to Google Earth Community so that more place names show up)
2. Once you’ve found the location you’d like to bookmark, go to Add/Placemark.
(you can also do this by clicking on the pin icon at the bottom of your screen)
3. In the box that pops-up, give your placemark an easy-to-remember name, and press OK.
4. Your new shortcut now shows up in Places on the left-hand side of the Google Earth window.
5. Add other placemarks and then find out the distance between them using the measuring tool (Tools/Measure)
6. Navigate to the first location (use placemarks if you’ve added some already) and left-click on the exact location you want to measure from.
7. Navigate to the second location and left-click on where you want to measure to.
8. The Measure box shows the distance, by default in miles. But you can change this, even to centimetres! 
(I read recently of a teacher who used Google Earth with his class to find out how far the ingredients on an average pizza had travelled. It worked out at over 80,000 miles!) 
To make navigating around the world a little easier when you’re doing it freestyle (i.e. not using placemarks), go to View/Overview Map, which will bring up a small 2D map of the world in the top right-hand corner. Use the crosshairs to get to the general area you want to explore…
I believe Google Earth can be an extremely powerful teaching and learning tool used properly, especially in the hands of Humanities teachers. Give it a try and use it with a class next week!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Indeed - I agree entirely. This is also indicative of how ICT for Geography is now growing far more quickly than for History.
Some of the best geography based activities are fly-overs that can even be exported to a video. Would be ideal to show things like the distances Harold Godwinson travelled to Hastings after Stamford Bridge, where Medieval Castles were built or where the Battles in the English Civil War took place. The ability to export such things, perhaps adding additional shading and labelling is incredibly powerful.
Linked to this - it now shows how many geography teachers are now leading the way, where previously it has been history teachers.
Do you think that anyone is really ‘leading the way’ for other (’normal’) teachers, or do you think that the same small percentage of teachers is being perpetuated? The latter contentious claim was made by an author who I read last week for my MA.
He believes that ICT integration in education was intended to be disseminated from a small vanguard but this hasn’t actually happened. I can see where he’s coming from, to some extent - it’s the ‘whizzkid’ factor: seeing someone else as possessing much more skill in a certain area than you can gain quickly and easily.
Back to Google Earth - really DO try out the stored flyovers feature - is brilliant as you can prepare routes to show students.
Regarding the ‘leading the way’ principle I most certainly believe in it. If you have to make general comments, I would say that you can divide teachers into three groups. About 10% are willing to try anything that comes along. About 10% refuse to try anything at all that comes along. The other 80% would love to try new things, but they are so busy teaching and doing admin that they are just trying to survive.
In reality there is clear graduation - those who are willing to try anything are observed by others, who pick up things that they feel will be successful. Where they have a success, or see potential that idea is then developed and shared. All departments constantly look for new ways of teaching, and thus all departments gradually pick up on ideas. Eventually even those 10% who are not willing to try anything new start teaching the new idea or method because it isn’t new any more.
So, yes, I most certainly do believe that there are those that are leading the way. Ten years if you uses the internet to help you with your teaching you would be seen as a radical. Now you are seen as a fool if you don’t.
My point about Google earth, and other tools now available, is that Geography teachers haven’t ever had it so good. There are many, many tools to help them develop exciting ICT-based lessons. There are also now many geography teachers grabbing hold of the opportunities and pushing the use of ICT in geography further.
I think History teachers were ahead of geography teachers a few years ago - we were pushing the boundaries. I think geography teachers are now both defining new boundaries for the effective use of ICT (and we’re not talking ordinance survey boundaries). As the market for ICT teaching tools matures, Geography has many more opportunities for companies to tap into - maps, visual exploration, data analysis etc. etc. History on the other hand is much more difficult to develop ICT activities for. Simply, basic activities are easy - a quick quiz or game. But really useful, in-depth activities that encourage interpretation and analysis not just of data, but of human empathy and suchlike are challenging to produce.
My goodness - that’s amazing! I followed the instructions on how to create a flyover at the GoogleTouring website and created a flyover of Harold Godwinson’s journey from the Battle of Stamford Bridge. I have to say, I’m very impressed - pupils will absolutely LOVE this…
I have now created a dedicated section on the Shareforum for Google Earth flyovers here
Hi Doug - Alan Parkinson here, author of the confusingly organised GeographyPages.
I think there is a growing group of Geographers who are not only trying new ICT ideas, but are willing to share them and collaborate with others. The SLN Geography Forum is growing all the time.
Google Earth brings the earth into the classroom and with a little imagination and experimentation there is potential to bring new ideas to even the most staid Geographical topics (of which of course there are very few…)
Keep up the good work and keep checking Geography Pages for more of what the Geographers have been up to…
My Google Earth Users Guide, which received Royal Geographical Society funding, should be available by Easter.
Best wishes!
Excellent! That hopefully will help make this amazingly useful tool even more accessible to the average teacher.
That’s the plan…
It will be a free download and will collect ideas for using Google Earth as well as a basic guide for educators.
The only problem I have is that people such as Noel Jenkins keep pushing the technology forward by the day… and it’s hard to keep up.
Digital Geography: Noel’s new site at http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk has some excellent ideas, many of which could be adapted to other subject areas.
An interesting discussion. Google Earth is indeed an amazing tool, representing part of the concept of Web 2.0 (ie the trend towards collaborative resource building) perfectly. It’s most attractive feature is that it can be extended by anyone, easily. The more people use it, the better it gets. Thanks for the mention, and long live disorganization Alan!
I have referenced your site as a resource from our website as part of the resource list from our podcasst on Google Earth. Thanks for the great resource!
Thanks! Glad it’s of use.
I like the look of your website and have subscribed to your podcast. I look forward to listening to your shows… 