Explore Madagascar with Google Street View

Google has once again made an awesome place on the Earth available to anyone through Street View. Madagascar (not Mada-who-ha :-) ) is an 88 million year old island off the coast of Africa. It is an amazing place with amazing ecosystems. You can now take a virtual tour of the island with Street View in Google Maps.



It's an amazing place to explore, especially with students. Many of them have probably seen the movie.

Read more HERE.

Related

Google for Education Resources

Some Excellent Virtual Field Trip Resources, including lots from Google Maps

Virtual Field Trip Resources





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Some Excellent Virtual Field Trip Resources, including lots from Google Maps

Virtual Field Trips are a great way to expose students to the wonders of our world without the expense and time of a real trip. Most museums and historical sites have an online presence and many have virtual tours. Check their sites for more information. Here are some that do have great online resources: Colonial Williamsburg, National Museum of the American Indian, The British Museum, The Anne Frank Annex, American Red Cross Museum, National Museum of American History, The Imperial War Museum, The Vatican Archives and many more.


Here are a lot of great resources for virtual field trips:



Smithsonian Institute Museums has a lot of resources to use as virtual field trips.



Google has some great resources that are excellent for virtual field trips, including Google Maps and Street View.

• Mapping Brazilian islands, above ground and under the sea - explore areas you can't even go in real life
• Growing up in the shadow of Everest - a virtual tour of the greatest mountain on Earth.
• Google Maps goes Underwater! Explore the Great Barrier Reef - explore one of the greatest natural resources for marine life
• Google Maps now has street views of Brazil and Prehispanic Mexican Cities 
• Visit the Amazon with Google Maps Street View - great resource
• Google Maps adds Photo Tours of World Landmarks - in 3D - excellent views and tours of these wonders

Google Field Trip - app that finds info about where you are - more useful when actually traveling, It will help you find some cool things near where you are, sometimes things you would never find otherwise.




WhatWasThere - historical photos linked to Google Maps - visit the past!This site connects historical photos to Google Maps, letting you see what places looked like in the past. You can tour locations, browse photos and even upload your own historical photos.




The Grand Canyon National Park’s Distance Learning Program is a great resource for schools to let their students explore one of the most famous national landmarks. 




The Virtual Field Trips Wiki has some great tips and resources for creating virtual field trips using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Earth.




NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Virtual Field Trip shows the student around the JPL, explaining what the mission is and what they do. A great way to learn more about one of the most advanced science research labs in the world.



Virtual Tour of NASA Goddard Space Center and Missions goes through the entire life cycle of a mission from idea, to design, to construction, to testing, to launch to operations and finally the analysis of the data collected.


Related:

Virtual Field Trip Resources

Google for Education Resources

Here are a lot more great, free Educational Resources from NASA


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Google Street View adds over 250,000 miles of roads - explore more of the world!

Google Maps Street View is a great resource for teachers and students to explore the world right from their classroom. Street view recently added the Great Barrier Reef and Google just announced a huge update, adding over 250,000 miles of roads around the world to street view. This means that there is more of the world to explore via Google Maps. You can explore parks, cities, castles, tourist attractions, and more from countries around the world. This update adds more coverage from Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the US, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. There are also some new special collections from South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and more.

Imagine being able to explore and visit palaces, monastaries, memorials, and parks right from your computer.  This is a great way to help your students explore and experience more of the world around them.

The courtyard of Kronborg castle, Denmark

Google Maps goes Underwater! Explore the Great Barrier Reef

Google Maps is a great resource for more than just finding your way around. It includes street view, inside building views and panoramic views, along with other resources that make it great for education. Take virtual field trips around the world and take virtual trips to museums.

Google has just announced a new set of panoramas in Google Maps - The Great Barrier Reef. I'm a SCUBA diver and the Great Barrier Reef is a place I'd love to dive. But, I have a back injury and can't dive for a while, so this is very exciting for me.

You can now explore coral reefs in Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii. You can find fish, sea turtles, manta rays, and much more. There is also more information about the reef at the World Wonders Project. Teachers and students can explore this awesome underwater world and learn more about the habitat and species living there.

Google also has a complete underwater collection, featuring a Google+ underwater Hangout from the Great Barrier Reef.

Check out the interactive map and video below.

Related:

More great resources and information about Google Maps in Education. 
(indoor maps, wonders of the world, virtual field trips, and much more.)

Google for Education Resources
(all kinds of great resources, tips, and ideas for using a variety of Google apps and resources in education)

Source: The Official Google Blog

How Google Builds its Maps

Google Maps are a great resource in many ways. Obviously, they are great for plotting trips and getting directions and the mobile versions have GPS directions. There are also some great features for education including taking virtual tours of different places around the world, including museums (see links below for more information).

The Atlantic, an online magazine, has a great article that explains exactly how Google makes Maps. The article is well written and has some really interesting technology and methods that Google uses.

This is a great resource to use to show students how ingenuity and creativity are important and how technology can be helpful, related to something that they have all used before or at least have heard about.

Check out the article and learn more: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-google-builds-its-maps-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-everything/261913/



Related:

Google Maps adds Photo Tours of World Landmarks - in 3D

Google Maps now has street views of Brazil and Prehispanic Mexican Cities

Why I Use Google's Products as an Educator

Google for Educators Resources, Tips, Help, and more

Visit the Amazon with Google Maps Street View - great resource

WhatWasThere - historical photos linked to Google Maps - visit the past!

WhatWasThere - historical photos linked to Google Maps - visit the past!

WhatWasThere is an excellent resource for geography, history, and fun. It connects historical photos to Google Maps, letting you see what places looked like in the past. You can tour locations, browse photos and even upload your own historical photos.

This is a great way to explore the world historically, or just take a look at what your hometown looked like in the past. Social Studies, History, and Geography classes could use this as learning activities or projects.

Here is a photo of the Frisbee Pie Company from the early 1900's. Their pie plate throwing contest led to the original Frisbee.

Google Maps adds Photo Tours of World Landmarks - in 3D

Google Maps is an amazing resource. Google has just announced a new feature of Google Maps - Photo Tours. Photo Tours are 3D photo scenes of over 15,000 popular sites from around the world, including Yosemite, St. Mark's Basilica, Trevi Fountain, Buckingham Palace, the Anne Frank house and much more.

When you search for a location in Google Maps, the left panel will let you know if there is a photo tour available, as well as the info label for a landmark on a map.

Google used photos from Picasa and Panromio to create the 3D tours. The technology and result is amazing. Photos are attributed to whomever contributed them.

Please note that using photo tours requires Google Maps with WebGL so some computers won't be able to run it. 

This is a great way to visit places without leaving your home, and a great way to have students visit these places without the expense or hassle of actually traveling there. 

Take a look around and visit some wonderful places. http://maps.google.com/phototours


Source: Google Lat Long Blog

Related:

Why I Use Google's Products as an Educator
Google for Educators Resources, Tips, Help, and more

Visit the Amazon with Google Maps Street View - great resource

Visit the Amazon with Google Maps Street View - great resource

 

Yesterday was World Forest Day and Google made some great images of the Amazon available on Street View in Google Maps. With this, teachers and students can explore the beauty and diversity of the Amazon from the classroom.

There are some incredible images available, from the Rio Negro, to trails and paths in Tumbira, an Amazon forest trail and so much more.






Start exploring this portion of the Amazon and other collections around the world on the updated Street View site and gallery.

Source: Official Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/visit-amazon-on-world-forest-day-with.html



Related:

Google for Educators Resources

Google Maps 6.0 for Android "goes inside"

Google Maps 6.0 for Android just got released and it has a couple of very cool features.

One of the coolest new features is Indoor Google Maps. Airports, malls, stores, and other public places have map directories in Google Maps. Couple this with GPS and you won't get lost trying to find the terminal for your flight or your favorite store at the mall.

The floor plans will automatically appear when you are in the map and zoom in on a building where there is indoor map data available. It even adjusts for what floor you are on.





Mall of America in Minneapolis before and after, with a floor selector



San Francisco International Airport before and after, with 3D tilt

The other two features announced are easier switching between features using a drop down menu on the top toolbar and a new Places home screen to help you find new nearby places.

Read more about this (including some videos) on the Google Mobile Blog.

Related:

Android Apps related to Bloom's Taxonomy

Android resources - information, news, resources, and more

Android Smartphone and Apps I use as an educator

Quickmaps

Quickmaps is a free website that let's you add comments, notes, and icons to a Google Map. This comes in handy when you use Google maps with directions and want to mark up the map with notes. It can also come in handy in school when having students use maps in their projects.

Check it out HERE.

There is also a help site HERE that gives basic instructions on using the site.

You can create a free account, or just create a quickmap as a guest. As a guest, your map will be deleted when you close your browser. You could print it, or save the graphic file before hand, but I recommend creating an account if you are going to use this more than once.