Blog 7: Google Tour Part Deux

Let’s be real, I took a combined 4 years of French in high school and college, and I will find some way to actually use it!

Hello everyone!! I know I have not posted in forever but I’m back!! I got engaged on 10/10 and literally have been spending every night since looking at venues, florists, photographers, EVERYTHING. Do we have a date or a venue yet? Nope but it’s fine, I’m fine, I’m definitely not stressed about not having a venue yet (WHY ARE THEY ALL AN HOUR AWAY FROM HOUSTON???), but it’s fine I’m fine. I also may or may not have “Say Yes to the Dress” on 24/7 (also may or may not have it on side by side while writing this, Randy invite me to New York!!).

Okay!! So last post I was talking about this awesome website called Google Tour Builder, and if you looked at it you probably saw the notice at the top, “Google Tour Builder will shut down in 2021”. Ugh, thanks Google. BUT! There is a bright side!! Because Google is smart!

You have the option instead of using Google Earth, and honestly I think it’s better. If you have access to iPads, and if students are using phones, Google Earth is way more user friendly. And I’ll be real y’all, I love maps and things like Google Earth. I would literally sit on the bus going to campus in college and just explore on my Google Earth app (I was very lame, and still am again it’s fine). But Google Earth, if you don’t know, allows you to actually put yourself on the ground! I mean, it’s how you were able to do all of that in Google Tour Builder! So for me, when I would explore I was able to actually see where my great grandmother came from in former Czechoslovakia!

The way that Google Earth operates is basically the same as Google Tour Builder. When I made my teams Google Earth tour I actually just exported the Tour Builder version into Google Earth which was SUPER simple. So if you’ve already started playing with the Google Tour site, then you can just export! If not, let’s learn how to make a Google Earth tour in Google Earth!!

First things first, open up Google Earth! You might have to launch the Earth browser, which is not horrible! Once you’re in Google Earth, it does take a minute to load, but once you’re in you’ll notice a whole bunch of icons on the left side of the screen! If you hover over each they will show what they represent, and we want the “Projects” icon! It’s circled below!

Once you’ve created your new Google Drive project you can name your project, or tour, whatever you want! Now comes the fun part, adding in your different locations! You simply just search for different locations that you want students to see. What’s cool is that most places, at least major cities have descriptions and information about the city. Like for Houston, it gave information all about the city, what colleges are here, and different things you can do here and even the city of Houston website! But if you’re like me and my team, we don’t teach about present day cities we teach history!! So you do have the option of creating your own text for students to read when they arrive at each location! Below you can see what to click to add a specific location!

And now we can see how to change the description that students read to get their information below!

And just like in Tour Builder, wherever you go you can pick a specific location, you can put the little person down and explore the area! Which I will say, I think my students really enjoyed having that opportunity to explore around these different areas (maybe because it was fun? Or because sometimes you can see people look like ghosts with no feet or no hands or no head? I’ll go with the first). But what was more fun with the Google Earth tours was that my team and I were able to put the learning into the students hands! Instead of us having to go through each location and drone on about them, they were able to actually see those different locations of the American Revolution.

I think I said this in my last post, but I’ll say it again, I think that this could be used really for any subject! Especially social studies and ELA! If you’re reading a book with lots of different locations, well here’s a chance for students to see what those places actually look like. I think students are better at making connections when they’re able to actually imagine themselves on location or in that time.

It stinks that Tour Builder is shutting down, but still awesome that we can use Google Earth! And honestly, explore it yourself! There are so many cool things that you can see and do on Google Earth. I even think you can go to the moon if I remember correctly! Or at least at some point you could have. But you can visit literally anywhere! When Ben and I’s trip to Iceland was cancelled I may or may not have contemplated doing a virtual tour to try and replace the trip (but I was too sad that we didn’t get to go and am still sad about it).

I hope that you are having a better year, I hope that school is getting better, and this new normal is starting to feel normal. Honestly y’all, I love masks. Don’t have people breathing or spitting on me, like why did we not do this before?! And what if I have food in my teeth? Doesn’t matter, I got a mask on!!

Hopefully you have students more engaged in class and online, and are turning in their work!!! I think that is something we can all agree that we are having problems with. If you aren’t with virtual classes, um please teach me your magical skills!!!

I promise to be back with another blog later this week! Now go be awesome and explore Google Earth! You can also subscribe to my email list to be notified of new blog posts (it’s a real life “like and subscribe” scenario!!)!!

- Bay :-)

PS: Election Day is November 3rd, make sure you vote if you haven’t yet! Go make more history for me to teach!