Google earth

Hello bloggers,

I flew to my home in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Denmark and Fiji! That was amazing and fun! I felt like I traveled all over the world (with sitting in a room). The graphics were clear and precise. When I type my home address in Australia, only took me there in 4 seconds.

It is a good learning tool for geography, science, cultural study and IT (including CG design) areas. If I use Google earth in my teaching, I would use it to explain Japanese geography or describe adjectives in Japanese while my students are experiencing in the Google earth world. The characteristic of the Google Earth is that speedy movement, recognize the shape of the land at the each level of the height with the county, city and town name and high technology of graphics.

It is suits for the active learner and visual learner. The term "Let's try it first, and see how it's works.", which exactly refers Google earth (Felder, R. & Solomon, B., n.d.). For the visual learner, it is evaluated that using the tool with text material able to obtain long term memory (Cooper, D., 1998).

By the way, to download and activate the soft ware, Google earth, I had to bring my laptop to university because it was failed to save on the university's computer. I think that the reason involves security system as Scot noted that the requirement the assistance of a technician on a instruction of the Google earth activity (Central Queensland University, 2009). I need to aware of it when I use the technology at school in my teaching.

I expect that student will show their intense toward the learning because it is enjoyable for most of the students who are visual learner.

Regards,

Shiho


References

Central Queensland University. (2009). An introduction to teacher's delivery technology: Google earth. Retrieved August 18, 2009, from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=671

Cooper, D. (1998). Research into cognitive load and instructional design at UNSW. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from http://dwb4.unl.edu/Diss/Cooper/UNSW.htm

Google. (2009). Google earth. Retrieved August 18, 2009, from http://earth.google.com/

Felder, R. & Solomon, B. (n.d.) Learning styles and strategies. Retrieved July 28, 2009, from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm