Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Google Earth


Hi everyone,

Would you believe me if I had said “I have been to Paris, Canada, our house in Queensland, my cousins house in London, New York City and the Maldives all in an hour”! Your probably thinking um no, that is not possible. Well let me tell you anything is possible with Google Earth it is an amzing, addictive and fun website.

Google Earth is a fantastic educational resource for teachers and students it enables students to see images from different parts of the earth with the ability to zoom,overlay streets/roads with latitude and longitude and much more. Students can see their own backyard, expereince the Appollo landing, view sunsets all around the world and dive the ocean floor (Google Earth, 2009).

The Learning Design Framework (AusInfo, 2003) can be applied in conjunction across a variety of key learning areas (Geography, Mathematics, Science, and History) when using this e-learning tool as suggested below:

Learning Tasks
Students can investigate a variety of environments such as their own, a historical environment e.g. Rome or even the moon.

Learning Resources
Google Earth, united with other resources, can assist in students acquiring knowledge of; viewing landforms from an aerial perspective, using measurement tools such as latitude and longitude and the ability for students to zoom in on historic landmarks to view the impact from civilisation and natural disasters that have occurred over the past. This type of learning resource is also supported by the Productive Pedagogies Framework, 'Connectedness to the world' (Education Queensland, 2006). As authentic learning experiences are created when students are presented with real life challenges and connections are then made to their lives outside the classroom.

Learning Supports
Students will use the information that the resources provide to make informed judgements in conjunction with specific scaffolding from the learning manager.

Within my suggestions stated above, it is important to remember that these are just a few suggestions to think about. As the educational uses for this tool are only limited to the users imagnination, I feel that Google Earth used wisely would be an effective tool to engage and motivate learners in a variety of subjects that may generally have been taught using traditional (boring) teaching methods and it is our role as learning managers educators of the future to motivate our students through the incorporation of a variety of e-learning tools.

Until next time,





References:
AusInfo. (2003). The Learning Design Construct. Retrieved August 16, 2009, from Learning Design:
http://www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/project/learn_design.htm

Education Queensland. (2006). Productive Pedagogies. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Curriculum Implementation Unit.


Google. (2009). Google Earth. Retrieved August 16, 2009, from
http://earth.google.com/

3 comments:

  1. Hi there,
    It is wonderful, I especially like how you can take photos (download images)of what you are looking at!
    Cheers,
    Katrina.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello,

    Google Earth is amazing! On top of all of these great application with the earth, it is now possible to look at the stars, the moon and stars! These contain great information as well.

    Thanks,

    Kira.

    ReplyDelete