Check Out the New Google Earth

Google recently released its newest version of one of my favorite tech tools: Google Earth. This new release (Version 5) looks and works very similiarly to previous GE versions, but it includes some pretty cool new features:

• A New "Ocean" Layer: Now you can fly underwater to learn about expeditions, shipwrecks, and marine life. (I don't think the underwater graphics are amazing, but I'm sure they will improve.)


• Travel to Mars: Previous versions allowed you to explore Earth and Space, but now you can visit The Red Planet to see satellite and Rover images. There are some excellent guided tours located within the "Mars Gallery" layer.


• View Changes Over Time: Use the new "historical imagery" feature to view how locations have changed throughout the last several decades--a great way to check out our impact on the environment.


• Record Your Tour: We have always had the ability to create, save, and share "Placemarker" tours in Google Earth. Now, we have the ability to record narration, which gives students the ability to talk their way through their tours.

You can click on any of the titles above to see a short description of the feature. Or, click here to watch an overview of Google Earth 5.0.

5th Grade Teacher Nicole Enny recently attended an after school professional development class about Google Earth. She had been using the volcano layer in GE to teach her students about The Ring of Fire. After attending the class and learning about some of its new features, Nicole decided that she wanted her students to create a tour of different types of volcanoes around the world. She also wanted her students to record and narrate their tours so that they could be shared back in her classroom. Click here to watch one of their completed tours.

*Please note: You will need Google Earth Version 5 in order to watch the tour. Not sure if you have Version 5? You probably don't. Click here to download the newest version.

Here are some other awesome Google Earth resource pages:

• Google Lit Trips
• Real World Math
• Google Earth Blog
• Google's Earth Gallery

Please let me know if you'd like my help with creating your own Google Earth Tour!

Chris

Make Your Own Google Custom Search

We all know how a typical Google search works with students. They tell Google what they want it to search for. They click on the first result. There is too much text or it's too difficult to read. They click on the next result. It has nothing to do with what they're looking for. They raise their hand and tell you that they can't find any information.

Sound familiar? There are few ways to solve this problem:

1. Teach your students how to use Google (or let me show them how). A Google Advanced Search is very powerful.
2. OR, make a (free!) Google Custom Search with your own list of websites and show your students how to use it.
   

What is it?

A Google Custom Search is just what it sounds like. It's a Google search that you can customize. Basically, instead of Google searching the entire Internet, you tell it to search specific websites that you have previewed and approved. A Custom Search looks like and works like a typical Google search, but it's faster, safer, and more useful to your students. Click here to see a Google Custom Search I made recently for a 6th grade social studies class. They were studying Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses and a lot of the Internet material they were finding was too difficult or inappropriate. So, I found 8 kid-friendly websites and made a Custom Search for them to use. It made research much faster! Try it out! Search for your favorite God or Goddess!

How do I make a Google Custom Search?

1. You (the teacher) find useful, safe, and appropriate websites that are at your students' readability level.


2. Create a Google Account (unless you already have one).
   
3. Go to the Google Custom Search Homepage and follow the steps. You'll have to provide some information about your search, but it's not a lengthy process.


4. Paste the URLs (addresses) of the sites you want the Custom Search to search.


5. Eventually, you'll be given a URL for your search. Create a link for it on your classroom webpage and you're all set! Custom searches are also embeddable!
   

Please let me know if you'd like some help setting up a Google Custom Search!

Good Luck!

Chris

Are You a Googler?

Note to e-mail subscribers: You should click here to go directly to my blog. There are some things that I have included in my blog post that will be left out of this e-mail.

Everyone has a favorite. Yahoo. AOL. Lycos. AltaVista. Ask. Google. Blackle (just learned about that one from a 5th grader). Live Search...and the list could go on and on.

My favorite happens to be Google, and I think that it's because throughout the last 2 years, I have really dedicated some time to learning how Google works. As you can imagine, I spend a fair amount of time on the Internet learning, researching, troubleshooting, etc., so I really need to understand how to search in Google.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: What else could I need to know about Google? It's so easy because I can go to www.google.com, enter my search term, press enter, and then follow the first link. Well, sure, that works sometimes. But spending a little time learning how to search in Google will help you find exactly what you're looking for quickly. And, you might learn about a few of Google's cool features along the way.

Here's a great 7 minute video from TeacherTube with some timesaving Google search tips:

So, as you may have learned from the video, it's all about how you search in Google. You sort of have to train yourself to think a little differently--instead of just typing a few random words into the search area. This is such an important skill for us (adults) to learn, but imagine if your students were Google pros (I bet that some of them are). Instead of spending countless class periods looking at (mostly useless and irrelevant) information, they could be finding exactly what they need--quickly! We spend so much time teaching kids how to use reference books, but we don't spend much time at all teaching them how to use the Internet. (By the way, where do you think most of the are going to start their research?...Hmmm...)

Check this page out too. It's Google's search "help" page that lists some of the other things that Google will search for (and how to do it): movies, stocks, flights, calculator, unit conversion...It's pretty amazing.

One final thought: This might seem strange to you, but it's something that I've noticed recently. The way in which we navigate to websites breaks us into 3 groups:

1. People who use Google as their homepage and use it as their "portal" to get where they want to go. For example, if they wanted to visit the Target website, they would type "target" into the Google search space, press enter, and follow the first search return (which is the Target store). This seems a little weird to me. It seems like an extra, unneccessary step, right?
2. People who use whatever homepage they want and type the URL of the site they want to visit into the address bar. So, this person would just type http://www.target.com/. This makes more sense to me.
3. People who keep a list of "favorites" or "bookmarks" and use those to navigate to sites.

So which one are you? I created this poll to find out, so cast your vote! I'm interested to see what the results will be...

Please let me know if you'd like me to come into your class and help your students learn how to Google fast and efficiently!

Good Luck!

Chris