Google Earth Assignment

Google Earth was interesting yet somewhat confusing to me.  When doing the Historical Imagery part of the assignment, I did Denver, Colorado because it is a city I am familiar with that is constantly changing.  It was interesting to see the visual changes in development and size as compared to years in the past.  I think it would be great for kids to choose a large city and do the same.  Many of my students will not have the opportunity to go to a large city because they are from lower income families.  This would be a great way for them to see the growth and progression of the city.  We could even just do Alliance, where we live.  The kids would also enjoy seeing how it has grown through the years as well.

I was able to find my home and record its coordinates (42 degrees 07' N  102 degrees 51'  29.56 W).  When talking about directions, coordinates, and location of places like their home or our school it would be great for the students to actually be able to find familiar places and view them on Google Earth.  A bonus would be to find the coordinates so we can actually locate it on a map/globe.

Using Layers, I was able again to go to the city of Las Vegas and find points of interest near a specified location.  I could see icons for museums, health clubs, first aid centers, police departments, etc. which would allow me to locate them very easily if I were visiting Las Vegas. 

Creating a Guided Tour...Now this is where I started to have difficulty on this assignment.  I was able to locate 5 locations, Las Vegas, Denver, Walt Disney World, Paris, and Puerto Vallarta.  That part was ok.  Then I was able to place Push Pins on each location and could see them on the left side of the screen.  But, when I went to find a picture for Denver and went back to add it to the right area under my site an place it in the right location, my Push Pin icons were no longer visible.  So I wasn't sure where to place the pictures.  So, at this point I had to stop with the assignment and talk to you about how to proceed.

I did learn a lot from this assignment, but feel that I just need to be able to play with it more in order to figure out how to manipulate it.  As you said, it is always changing and we just need to learn about it by doing.