• Google Earth Basics

   

Google Lit Trips

          Jerome Burg created the award-wining website Google Lit Trips in 2006 as "an experiment in teaching great literature."  The Oddessy , The Grapes of Wrath ,  and The Kite Runner are just a few of the books available as Lit Trips.  Use existing Lit Trips as a teaching tool in the classroom or better yet, have your students create their own, individually or as group projects.   At Spaulding, in a collaborative unit , The Refugee Project,  students created Lit Trips to examine what it means to be a refugee.   Google Lit Trips is the perfect tool to teach refugee memoirs in places like Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Iran.

Planning a Google Earth Lit Trip Student Project

• Book Selection
  • Not all books lend themselves to Lit Trips.  To Kill a Mockingbird--no!  The Grapes of Wrath--most definitely yes.
  • Select books where the main character is on a journey.
• Technology considerations
  • Be aware of digital equity considerations, and provide enough in-school class time to complete the project.
  • If this will be the first time students have used Google Earth, devote a full class to teaching the basics including:  Folder structure placemarking, path creation, adding photos, adding websites, creating snapshot views, and new in version 5.0, recording a tour.
  • Bandwidth.  Google Earth can be a bandwidth hog.  Think about how many simultaneous users can realistically be working.  Check with your IT peole if you aren't sure. 
•  Organization
  • Group vs. individual projects:  for group projects you can assign each group a chapter or two.
  • Use the organizational tools on the Google Lit Trip website.
  • Outline expectations about how many placemarks, photos, websites, chapter summaries, discussion questions, etc.
• What we've learned
  • Allow first time Google Earth users to have sandbox time or staying on task will be difficult.
  • If always takes more time than you think it will.
  • Use some of the short Google Earth vidoes to teach specific skills.  Students have the most difficulty with creating paths.  The best video tutorial is:  Google Earth #6.1:  Telling Your Story Part 1
  • Have a plan for some students who will need more computer time than others to complete the project.
  • There is a learning curve with Google Earth, but it's worth it!
• Assessment
  • Here's a sample rubric that you can edit for group or individual work. Google Lit Trip Rubric.doc

Other Google Earth Projects

• Math

Real World Math: Using Google Earth in the Math Curriculum

• Science

         Earthquakes (with the U.S. Geological Survey and Google Earth)

• Social Studies

          Google Historical Voyages and Historic Events is a similar project for Social Studies.

         Charting With Google Spreadsheets (and plotting on Google Earth)

                   A great project for Social Studies designed by a Google Certified Instructor-- includes a lesson plan and a podcast explanation.  

Links

• Geo Education Home (offical Google Site for educators using Google Earth)
• Google Earth Blog (not offically affliated with Google, but great information including links for teachers, stormtracking, sightseeing, games, and more)
• Google Earth:  Learn (learn to use Google Earth with this self-paced game/tutorial)
• Google Earth User's Guide
• Google Geo Education Discussion Group (offical Google discussion group--a great place to get answers to questions and see what other teachers are doing)
• Google Lit Trips (a great resource from Perdue Universitiy)

Questions?  Feel free to email me!

Linda McSweeney

Spaulding High School

Barre, Vermont

lmcswshs@u61.net