Google Earth

I presented Google Earth to our class, and tried to come up with ways it could be used to teach culture or practice language skills. 

https://www.google.com/earth/ 

I think it could be useful as a tool to explore, or walk students through a lesson. For exploration, you could show your class your screen and show them where something is -- maybe you're teaching your Santa Barbara-based class about Colombia, you could start in SB, spin the globe around to Colombia, and zoom in on places of interest. Or practice learning the countries surrounding Colombia. You could talk about the distance, or time it takes to travel in an airplane.

For creating a lesson that the students work through themselves, you could create a tour and annotate it with links to websites or pictures. You could create a worksheet for the students to work through, answering questions about the things they learn during the tour. Here are some guides for creating a tour and embedding media in Google Earth. Pro tip: tours work best over short distances.

Place descriptions

Adding photos

Touring

Embed audio

Ideas for tours: 

• become familiar with a town or city
• compare different university campuses
• compare cities in the same or a different country
• scavenger hunt: find certain buildings, monuments, businesses, parks, etc.
• practice giving/following directions (left, right, north, south, etc.)
• practice listening comprehension with embedded audio files (using something like Vocaroo)
• learn about natural hazards, points of interest, or environmental facts with the "Global Awareness", "Gallery", and "Ocean" layers
• practice or learn about the weather in different regions with the "Weather" layer 

What other types of Google Earth tours, lessons, or modules can you think of for your class?