Manaiakalani Toolkit- Google Earth with Steve Smith

 Yesterday I had the priviledge of attending a Google Earth Toolkit by Steve Smith. His enthusiasm defnitely made me excited about using Google Earth. 

Even though we learned about Google Earth during my DFI training, it was one of the tools that I have not yet used to it's full potential in my class. As we went through the many possibilities of using Google Earth, I reaslised how special this could be for our learners from all over the world. So today I used it during our Google Meet with our students. I introduced how to use Voyager. We went on a little tour to all the different places where Diwali is celebrated. (Celebrating Diwali). It was so good to see the different temples, we did a 360 degree turn and could see what it looked around the temple. We learned through noticing that they take their shoes off when they enter their temple, just like our Maori students when they enter a Marae. It's such a good tool to start conversations, compare things, look at people in different countries etc. The possibilities are invinite. 

Further,  I showed my students how to find our school  Google Earth. How to move the person so that you can go into streetview and how to move up or down the street. Some students immediately searched up their homes. 

This is what one of my students did: 

She counted the steps from her home to the school, found her home country, found her favourite holiday destination, identified the place where she wants to live one day, and identified where her favourite animal lives. In just this little casual activity, I gained so much information about her. How great will this activity be at the start of the year when we learn to know our students. Google Earth will defnitely move to the top of my go to applications list.