One good part about the interactive nature of the internet is the ability to place a visual to a lecture without any delay. In my creative writing course I do current events because the real world is ripe with ideas and inspiration. Currently we do these only verbally. Periodically I will walk over to the 3’ by 3’ world map that I have hanging up on the west wall of my classroom. Just think of the ways that I might improve this segment with the use of Google Earth.

Having a Smartboard or an easily accessible projector for this would help, but once the projector is set up it could be a quite beneficial exercise. Before my news segment I could pre-plot the locations of the story and then “tour” them as we cover the stories. Imagine how this would add to stories like Hurricane Katrina, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the airplane in the Hudson River, or a battle of the Iraq War. Any story location that had not been preplanned is just a clack of the keys away. Even finding sources that back up a story or facts that accompany a story would be very easy.

I also teach a segment on the 1862 Dakota uprising. Since Google Earth is a satellite photo I can take a shot of the fort and trace the different parts of the battles and how the different Dakota armies approached by using “thumb tacks”. Not to mention I can tracks how and where armies marched and interacted with other armies. The instantaneous navigability of Google Earth gives students a hand on visual to back up what might seem to be baseless words. This can help provide a more realistic idea of setting for a Language Arts student.