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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Google Earth Pro is Now Free for Everyone

Google Earth Pro has been available for free to teachers with GAFE email accounts for quite a while. Now it is available for free to anyone who wants to upgrade to Google Earth Pro. Google announced this yesterday on the Google Lat Long blog. To get a license key for Google Earth Pro you just need to complete the form found here.

Google Earth Pro offers at least nine features that are not available in the standard version of Google Earth. Those features include importing GIS data, mapping multiple points at once, measuring areas of polygons and circles, and automatically geo-locating imported GIS images.

Applications for Education
While Google Earth is clearly a great fit in social studies classrooms, it can also be used in language arts, math, and science classes. In this post I assembled a list of some of my favorite uses of Google Earth and Maps for settings outside of social studies classrooms.

The Week in Review - A Blizzard of Popular Posts

Good morning from snowy Woodstock, Maine where we've had two snow storms in the last five days and school was closed was for three days. My dogs and I love to play in the snow so we're happy whenever it snows. In fact, as soon as this post is finished we'll be romping around in the snow. I hope that you have something fun planned for the weekend too.

Before I jump into this week's list of the most popular posts I want to remind you about the Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter. I started the Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter at about this time last year. On Sunday evening I send out an email with my favorite tip of the week along with a summary of the post popular posts of the week from FreeTech4Teachers.com. You can subscribe here.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. CommonLit - Thematic Discussion Questions Paired With Interesting Texts
2. How to Search Twitter for Educational Content
3. Three Platforms for Writing Choose Your Own Adventure Stories - A Comparison
4. Twine - An Open-source Program for Writing Choose Your Own Adventure Stories
5. Four Ways to Create Digital Records of Physical Items Your Students Create
6. Read and Download 250+ Art Books from the Getty Museum
7. What the World Eats - A Comparison of Diets

Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference this year? Click here to learn more about professional development services.

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Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
Versal is a great tool for building interactive online course components.
MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.
Typing Club offers free typing lessons for students.
Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.
MasteryConnect provides a network for teachers to share and discover Common Core assessments.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.
Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.
EdTechTeacher is hosting iPad Summit San Diego in February.