AssortedStuff

In this section of the AssortedStuff site you'll find a collection of materials I use to train and assist teachers (and others) who want to publish on the web, work with digital images, and generally use technology to improve their professional practice. If that's also you, then welcome and feel free to rummage through the pages.

Some of the materials here came from my old School Webmaster and Other Stuff sites. If you landed here while looking for something in those pages, try using the search tool at the top of the right column.

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If you were able to attend one of my sessions at the 2008 JOSTI conference, thank you and I hope it was worth your time.

All of the references and materials we used in the workshops are linked from one of the two sections below, along with more for you to explore and learn from.

If you didn’t get to join us, you’re still welcome to use any of the materials you find on these pages. Of course, they don’t come with my sterling presentation. :-)

Questions? Comments? Please write. And thanks for visiting.

Blog It Yourself

Traveling the World with
Google Maps and Google Earth

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This is the latest draft of a constantly changing workshop on how to use the free mapping tools provided by Google for teaching and learning. The material and links were valid as of the publish date of this page. Everything, however, is subject to change.

With that disclaimer, let’s get started.
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In order to use the examples from the MyMaps section and to create mashups in MyMaps you will need to register for a Google account. It’s free but you’ll need to give them an email address that you can access immediately so you can click on the link they’ll send you to complete the process.
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Using Google Earth

Google Earth Download - Before starting, you’ll need to download and install the Google Earth program. It’s available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Be sure to check the computer requirements for the program since it does require a relatively new machine to work well.

While Earth is free there is also Google Earth Plus (costing $20 a year) and Google Earth Pro ($400 a year) each of which offers additional capabilities and features such as higher resolution pictures and the ability to connect Earth to a GPS device.  Take a look at this handy chart for a more complete comparison of the three versions.

Navigating in Google Earth - To get where you’re going, you’ll need to know how to move around the world. Fortunately, that’s easy and this page will give you more than the basics. If YouTube is not blocked in your school, this video tutorial will also help you get started with the most current version of Earth (4.3).

If you’re using version 4.0 - 4.2, this page has the basics of navigation or you can watch this video.

Regardless of the version, this tutorial will show you how to conduct a search for locations in Earth.

Instructional Applications

The Earth software includes a number of options that add layers to the globe marking all kinds of information. While we will be creating layers of our own, first take a look at the material found under the layers section in Earth that comes from Google and it’s partners. You may find that some of it will be useful in your teaching.

To turn on a layer, click the box next to the name. To turn everything off, click the box showing a minus sign next to Primary Database at the top of the list. It’s never a good idea to turn everything on since things will be very crowded and, since some are real-time links to information, it may slow things down to a crawl.

Here’s a sample of layers that might be useful in the classroom:

Geographic Web: includes materials from Panaramio, a sharing site for travel photography, and Wikipedia. Zoom in until you see an icon and click on one to see pictures and other information. In the Preview folder you’ll find newer material provided by the National Geographic Society, the New York Times, NASA and others that Google is giving a try out.

Roads, Borders, Terrain: all give you pretty much what you’d expect.

3D Buildings: Google offers another free program called Sketch-Up which allows you to create three dimensional models. Turning on this layer, shows buildings that have been created using Sketch-Up in place on the globe.

Street View: new in Earth version 4.3, this adds a feature from Google Maps which allows you to see photographs take at the street level in many major cities and navigate using that view.

Weather, Traffic: adds layers showing information about those features which is supposed to be recently collected.

Global Awareness: here you’ll find layers dealing with ecology topics.

There’s much more lurking in these layers and Google and their partners change the information frequently. Don’t be afraid to turn them on and play.

Layers From Others

Geography Awareness Quiz - The folks at the My Wonderful World blog (sponsored by the National Geographic Society) have put together a quiz about Africa that uses a Google Earth overlay. Just download the KML file, double-click on it, and follow the directions.

Asia Tour - A collection of activities, including several KML/KMZ files, from My Wonderful World that focus on various aspects of the countries and people in Asia.

Google Lit Trips - Teachers combine Google Earth with classic literature by mapping the places and events found in books commonly read by high school students. Download the KMZ file for each.

Spring Sojourn - During spring break of 2007, 150 students and their teachers took a road trip to visit some of the major sites of the civil rights movement. One school used Google Earth to document both the trip and this history. Use their KMZ file to follow along.

Smithsonian Volcanism Program - This site keeps track of active volcanos being studied by scientists all over the world. Download the placemark file to see an Earth overlay with markers for all known volcanos and links to more information.

Placeopedia - A site that links locations on Google Maps with the article about that place in Wikipedia. Registered users can add markers to the map and you can download the KML file to see the 50 most recent additions overlaid on Google Earth.

Google for Educators-Earth - Google’s own education section with links to lesson plans and other materials that use Earth for teaching. One of their partners is Discovery Education’s Unitedstreaming and their section has several activities to download and use (Unitedstreaming is not required).

Do It Yourself

Marking Locations - Part of the larger Google Earth Tutorial, this page will show you how to create and edit your own markers on the maps. You can then save your places to a KMZ files which can be easily shared with others. This video will also explain the basics of marking locations.

Google Earth also allows placing some HTML into the marker descriptions, including links to pictures, videos and other web pages. Here are some basic instructions on how to create better balloons without learning a whole lot of HTML along with six templates (link to kmz file) to give you a good foundation. This YouTube video tutorial will also help you understand using templates.

Do-It-Yourself Activity - Click the link and open the file in Google Earth.  We’ll be using these templates in the workshop.

Welcome!

The purpose of this session is to help you with setting up a blog, wiki, or other content management system so that you have complete control over the appearance, accounts, and more.

Most of this information comes from my experiences, both with running my own blog and two other sites, as well as setting up blogs, wikis and other structures for friends and relations.

There are a lot of variables that go into this process and a lot of terms that we’ll need to define. Which means that I won’t cover every single contingency or possibility.

However, I hope this will give you enough information and suggestions to get you rolling.
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