iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

This week Google added a new round of Where in Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? The new game follows up on the popularity of the first Where in Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? that was launched in March. The new game has players help Carmen Sandiego find Tutankhamun’s Mask.

Since the release of its web-based version, Google Earth has been tremendously incorporated into educational contexts by teachers from all around the world. Google Earth empowers students with the required tools to navigate the planet, enhance their geographical literacy, develop both critical thinking and visualization skills,  and most importantly it helps them become engaged citizens aware of their  planet and actively contributing to its well being. In today’s post, we are sharing with you this wonderful collection of resources to help you and your students make the best of Google Earth in education. These include ‘step-by-step guides and tutorials on Google’s Geo Tools, inspirational stories, plus lesson plans, product information, and much more.’

Canadian Geographic Education has launched its first-ever Google Earth Voyager story, which addresses a dark chapter in Canada’s history: the residential school system.

Canada’s residential school system was a government-sponsored, church-run network of boarding schools aimed at assimilating Indigenous children by taking them away from their families and forcibly erasing their cultural identity. The first residential school opened its doors in 1831 and the last one, Gordon's Residential School in Saskatchewan, closed in 1996. Trapped in the system, children suffered emotional, mental and physical trauma. Many children never returned home, dying from disease or during attempts to run away.

GE Teach Tour is a free tool that you and your students can use to create tours to play in the new web version of Google Earth. To get started head to geteach.com/tour/ then enter a title for your tour. The next step is to give your first placemark a title and to enter a description of the location you're featuring with that placemark. To place your placemarks in your tour you can either manually enter latitude and longitude coordinates or you can click on the map to insert your placemarks. Finally, to add images to your placemarks you will have to link to publicly available images that are in your Google Drive account or on another image hosting service like Flickr (by the way, linking to images found on sites that prevent hotlinking won't work).

Looking for a little old timey computer nostalgia with a dose of espionage and a taste of geographical flavor?

Well, gumshoe, you are ready for your next assignment from the ACME detective agency. This time Carmen Sandiego is sneaking around the world via Google Earth.

The Crown Jewels Caper is the first of a series of new Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? games being developed by Google Earth in partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Yup, you still fly around in chase, question local witnesses, and, of course, respond to questions about geography, history and culture as you gather intel about Carmen’s location. But this time you get the way-better-than-DOS ability to zoom in and explore the sites. Coming soon are The Tutankhamun’s Mask and The Keys to the Kremlin capers.

"Google Earth just released a brand new tool that lets you measure the world around you. If you want to know how far your hike, run, walk, jog, bike ride, or other path is, you can now use this easy measuring tool to find out.

You can also use this new Google Earth tool to figure out areas to learn the size of a piece of property, a park, stadium or country.

Now you can measure the exact distance between two points, or three points. Or as many points as you’d like. Or the area of a parcel of land."

Google has just released a brand new version of Google Earth for both Chrome and Android.  This new version has come with a bunch of interesting features you can use for educational purposes with your students in class.  Here is a quick overview of each of these features: