Monday, March 2
9:00 AM-12:30 PM
PST
Amazon J

Creating Google Earth Tours for Teaching and Learning in a Geospatial Context

Workshop ID: 44387
  1. aaa
    Heather Almquist
    University of Montana

Abstract: Creating Google Earth tours is an exceptional way to help students organize information in spatial and temporal contexts, and create presentations that solidify their learning. Google Tour Builder is a powerful new tool that allows users with no prior Google Earth or kml experience to create informative and professional-looking tours. Use of this tool for various learning activities, such documenting field trips, analyzing geologic features, or learning about communities, will be modeled. Google Earth provides a more powerful means for creating tours, but requires more technical skill. Essentials of creating core tour artifacts, including ground overlays, screen overlays, 3D models, placemark balloons, and web pages will be covered along with the basic kml coding required. Participants should bring their own laptops with Google Earth, the Google Earth plug-in, and SketchUp installed, as well as an active gmail account. Handouts and online resources will be made available for later use.

Objectives

This workshop will introduce participants to the following: 1. The role of geospatial analysis and visualization in enhancing student learning. 2. How tour-building activities can be used in the classroom. 3. How to use Google Tour Builder to quickly and easily create informative, professional-looking tours. 4. How to use Google Earth to help analyze and visualize spatial data. 5. How to work with ground overlays in Google Earth. 6. How to use basic kml coding to produce high-quality screen overlays and placemarks. 7. How to create geo-referenced 3D models for Google Earth. 8. How to use Google Sites to store assets and create web pages.

Topical Outline

1. Introduction (20 minutes): a. Geoliteracy – The role of geoliteracy in the geosciences, social studies, and the 21st century workforce will be discussed. b. Creating artifacts and presentations to enhance learning – A brief review of the literature will be presented and discussed. c. Student capabilities using Google Earth at various grade levels – Recent results from the literature, including the presenter’s own work, will be presented and discussed. 2. Google Tour Builder (40 minutes): a. How the tool can be used - Example tours for geoscience and geography that illustrate different types of assignments and learning activities will be presented. Best practices for working with students in various age groups, including teamwork, group composition, and peer review will be discussed. b. Demonstration – How to create a tour in Tour Builder will be briefly demonstrated. c. Hands-on practice – Participants will create their own tours. 3. Google Earth (2 hours, 30 minutes): a. How the tool can be used – An example tour showing how different types of artifacts can be employed with the Google Earth environment will be presented. b. Demonstration and practice: i. Map overlays – These include both geo-referenced, vector graphics and unreferenced, raster images. Downloading and altering vector graphics will be demonstrated. “Rubber-sheeting” unreferenced historical maps or other raster overlays will be demonstrated and practiced. ii. Screen overlays – These include map legends and titles, etc. The use of Photoshop to create images, Google Sites to store images online, and kml code to create screen overlays will be demonstrated and practiced. iii. Placemark balloons – Creating placemark balloons using Google balloon templates and editing the kml code to create more customized presentations will be demonstrated and practiced. iv. Geo-referenced 3D models using SketchUp – This free tool can be used to create geologic cross-sections and block models, as well as 3D buildings or site layouts. The fundamentals of creating geo-referenced 2D and 3D models and embedding them in a Google Earth tour will be demonstrated and practiced. v. Embedded web pages using Google Sites. Google Sites provide a free, secure, and accessible means of creating simple web pages suitable for deployment from placemark balloons. Creation of these web pages will be demonstrated. 4. Wrap-up (30 minutes): a. Questions and discussion b. Workshop evaluation

Prerequisites

Pre-service and in-service middle-school, high-school, and college level teachers of earth science, environmental science, geography and social studies. Some familiarity with Google Earth and other web-based Google tools such as Google+ is recommended.

Experience Level

Beginner

Qualifications

Heather Almquist, PhD, has been conducting teacher professional development programs focusing on the effective use of geospatial technologies in the classroom for the past ten years. She has developed online Google Earth-based curricula for geoscience and geography instruction and published numerous peer-reviewed articles about their use. She has made presentations and conducted workshops at many regional and national conferences including, Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), Association of American Geographers (AAG), National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE), Geological Society of America (GSA), National Science Teachers Association (NSTA, Montana Education Association (MEA), and Montana Google Geo Teachers Institute. She is currently serving as a senior researcher on an NSF-funded project entitled “Goggle Earth for Online and Distance Education” (GEODE) with responsibility for teacher professional development. Recent publications include: Almquist, H., Blank, L., Halvorson, S., Estrada, J., and Crews, J. Project-based, Collaborative Learning with Google Earth and Wikis: Case Studies of Five Middle School Classrooms, Journal of Science Education and Technology, in review. Blank, L., Almquist, H., Mannix, L., Halvorson, H., Crews, J., and Estrada, J. 2014. Exploring Invasive Weed Species using Google Earth and Wikis: A seventh grade student research project to evaluate environmental change over time, In, Teaching About Invasive Species, Tim Grant, ed., Green Teacher, Toronto, Ontario, in press. Almquist, H., Blank, L., Crews, J., Stanley, G., and Hendrix, M. (2014). Design Experiments in Field-based Professional Development: Teachers Investigate the Geologic History of Eastern Montana Using Geospatial Technologies, Chapter 3, pp. 43-65, In, J.G. MaKinster, N.M. Trautmann, & M. Barnett (Eds.), Teaching Science and Investigating Environmental Issues with Geospatial Technology: Designing Effective Professional Development for Teachers. Springer Publishing Co. Almquist, H., Crews, J. & Blank, L. (2013). Cyber-Enabled Earth Exploration (CE3): A new approach for teaching about volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics. In R. McBride & M. Searson (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2013 (pp. 4620-4626). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. http://site.aace.org/conf/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?&presentation_id=56734 Almquist, H., Blank, L., and Estrada, J. (2012). Developing a scope and sequence for using Google Earth in the middle school earth science classroom. Geological Society of America Special Papers 2012; 492: 403-412. http://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/492 Blank, L. M., Plautz, M., Almquist, H., Crews, J., and Estrada, J. (2012). Using Google Earth to teach plate tectonics and science explanations. Science Scope, Summer 2012:45-52. Almquist, H., Stanley, G., Hendrix, M., Blank, L., Hanfling, S. and Crews, J. (2011). An integrated field-based approach to building teachers’ geosciences skills. Journal of Geoscience Education 59: 31-40. http://nagt-jge.org/doi/full/10.5408/1.3543926 Almquist, H., Blank, L., Crews, J., Gummer, E., Hanfling, S. & Yeagley, P. (2009). Embedding Spatial Technology in a Field-Based Science Education Course for Teachers. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2009 (pp. 3708-3713). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. http://www.editlib.org/p/31229.

Topics

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