An Easy Way to Find Google Earth Tours

In my presentation To Geography & Beyond With Google Maps & Earth I always share some tips on how to locate Google Earth tours. One of those tips is to refine your Google search by file type and select .KMZ. In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to quickly find, open, and save Google Earth files.


Applications for Education
One of my favorite uses of Google Earth outside of the typical social studies lesson is to use Google Earth in literature lessons. Google Lit Trips provides many great examples of using Google Earth to help students understand the importance of place in a story.

A Handful of Lessons on the Water Cycle

SciShow Kids is quickly becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels for educational videos for kids. The most recent video released on SciShow Kids is a concise explanation of the water cycle. The video, titled Where Does Water Come From?, explains how clouds are formed and why water is released from clouds. The video also includes a little activity prompt for students to try that can give them a first-hand illustration of the water cycle. The video is embedded below.


I've previously shared some other resources that help students learn about the water cycle. Those resources are outlined below.

Why Are There Clouds? is a Minute Earth video that explains how clouds are formed and how they rise or fall in the sky. The nice thing about Minute Earth videos is that a list of references is included in each video's description on YouTube.


Thirstin's Water Cycle takes students on an animated and narrated tour of the water cycle from water, to vapor, to clouds, to rain. Thirstin's Tour of a Water Treatment Plant takes students on a narrated tour through a typical water treatment facility found in the United States.

Waterlife is an interactive story about the water cycle in the Great Lakes. Waterlife is a twenty part story through which students can learn about the role of water in our lives. Through the story students learn about things like fishing, pollution, invasive species, wetlands, and the politics of water conservation. When students select a part of the Waterlife story they will be able to hear narration, see visuals, and read the text of the story. Some parts of the story also contain links to external resources that student can explore.

Scholastic's Interactive Weather Maker is an activity in which students adjust temperatures and humidity levels to create rain and snow storms. Students simply move the temperature and humidity sliders until rain or snow begins to show up in the scene on their screens.

The Week in Review - Hot and Cold

Good morning from Maine where there is a light coat of snow on the ground with more snow in the forecast for this afternoon. I love this time of year in Maine! Earlier this week I was in Atlanta for three days for the Georgia Educational Technology Conference where there was no threat of snow as it was a good 50 degrees warmer than it was at my home in Maine. GaETC was a great event. Thank you to everyone who came to one or more of presentations. And a special thank you to Clint, Todd, Steve, Ashley, and Carrie who took me to experience Atlanta culture away from the conference center.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Literature Map Helps You Find Authors You'll Like
2. How JoeZoo Express Can Save You Tons of Time Grading in Google Documents
3. 5 Tools Students Can Use to Create Music Online
4. Student Stories - ClassDojo Portfolios on Chromebooks, Desktops, and Mobile Devices
5. Three Good Tools for Collaboratively Creating Multimedia Books
6. Projeqt - Create Dynamic Presentations
7. Create MadLibs Through Google Sheets

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Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.

Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards.

Pixton provides a great way to create comics. 

QuickKey saves teachers tons of time when scoring formative assessments.

SeeSaw is the best platform for creating digital portfolios with K-8 students. 

Math Playground offers hundreds of math games and tutorial videos. 

Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.

PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.

Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.

EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.

My Simpleshow provides a great way to create explainer videos.