Google Earth 6 brings some major improvements to navigating through the streets in Street View. Though Street View has been available in Google Earth for a while, it was somewhat awkward to navigate through the streets with it. I found it easier to use Street View in Google Maps and even then it was a bit choppy to use. Mind you, I’m not complaining! That I can get these kind of views of much of the world at all, is amazing. Still I’m happy with the improvements.
Zoom in on a view in Google Earth and when you get close enough to the earth, your view should tilt right down to street level. (more…)
Many of you know how much I love Google Earth, so I’ve been trying to find an hour to play since the release of Google Earth 6 earlier this week. It might take me more than an hour. I’m having too much fun. So what’s new?
Trees! Lots and lots of trees. Trees have been modeled and added to a selection of public parks in major cities and in some special ecologically interesting areas. Make sure you’ve turned on Layers –> 3D –> Trees, then search for these locations in Google Earth and explore the trees:
Kahigaini, Kenya
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
You’ll start to see the trees as you zoom in to street level. As you zoom, your view should automatically tilt and the trees should start to appear. If they don’t, just grab the little Google Earth PegMan (on the right in with the navigation sliders) and drag him on to the earth. You’ll be zoomed in to the earth and be standing beneath the canopy of trees.
The full length videos referenced in this video can be found at Climate Change in Google Earth. That page also links to tutorials to help you (and your students!) create your own tours in Google Earth. How much more interesting these are than bullet points on a slideshow!
Thanks to Jane O’Brien and all the great folks at TST BOCES SLS for sponsoring and attending my Google Earth workshop. I had a wonderful time with you all yesterday and look forward to hearing how you use these tools in your schools.
Thanks to everyone for attending the last two workshops at the Capital Region BOCES School Library System. As promised, here are the slides from today’s Search Update and the Google Earth workshop a few weeks ago.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the next session on Google Sites & Docs. Do let me know if you have specific things you want to cover. (leave a comment below) Thanks! (more…)
This morning I saw a tweet that led me to a wiki that mentioned a blog post that answered a question I didn’t realize I had – yet! The question was how to add audio to placemarks in Google Earth. One of the school library systems I work with is offering a session on Google Lit Trips. And being able to have students add their own voices would be terrific. Tom Barrett outlines the steps to do this in his blog post: Google Earth is our Paper – Part 2: Add your Voice
Vocaroo is the handy recording tool that he recommended using. No accounts to set up, just go to the site, click on Record and well, record! That’s it. Your audio is saved and Vocaroo gives you options to download your audio, share it via a link directly to the file and code to embed it on a web page. It’s the embed code you need to add it to the Google Earth placemarks. Easy!
I was hoping I could do the same with AudioBoo, another easy to use voice recorder that I love. But I couldn’t get the embed code to work with the Google Earth placemarks. I’ll fiddle with it some more when I get a chance.
Despite that, if you haven’t seen AudioBoo, take a look. It’s a handy way to get short audio recordings posted quickly. There’s an iPhone app for recording on the go (I want a Droid app please!), you can record directly to the web site and you can upload files in a variety of formats. Your ‘boos’ have an rss feed and can also be posted directly to Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, FriendFeed and Tumblr. There’s also code for embedding the boos on other web pages.
Now that spring is here (or was here briefly), I took a long walk around the neighborhood. It seems a whole new high rent district has sprung up less than a mile away. How do I know it’s less than a mile away? As soon as I got home, I turned on Google Earth and checked my walking route with the terrific RULER tool. The whole route was 1.66 miles. (more…)
Smarter Navigation in Street View
