Google Earth vs Google Tour Builder

I've been on a world tour this past week, and I didn't have to pack a thing!

I will be the first to admit - maps haven't really been my... thing. Geography wasn't my strongest area of study, for sure. Enter: Google Earth and Google Tour Builder. Man, how I wish I would have had these impressive online tools when I was a kiddo! It's really amazing how exploring an interactive map can bring Lewis and Clark's expedition to life, and it's thrilling to be able to get down on street view and explore the avenues of Paris without even leaving my house.

Google Earth: 
To use this feature, you will first need to download Google Earth. Once you have done that, you can start exploring. I recommend searching for your own address first. This will show you how accurate Google Earth is. My favorite feature is the historical imagery. You can view aerial images from years back, and see how the area has changed. I enjoyed watching my neighborhood as it was built up from farmland.  Here's the town where I live shown in 1991, and then in 2016. Just a BIT of growth in the past 25 years!

Gardner in 1991

Gardner in 2016

 This week I plan to send my students on a virtual scavenger hunt around the Midwest Region of the United States since we just finished studying that area. I will give them clues (I have four heads but no brain! - Mt. Rushmore; I am the Gateway to the West. - St. Louis Arch; My land's not so Bad. - Badlands National Park), and they will place pins to show they found the locations, and write down the map coordinates.

Google Earth also has street view.

This is a fun way to explore a city you may be thinking of visiting, or for students to feel like they are taking an actual field trip to a different city. Here, we get to visit the base of the Eiffel Tower:

Street View of Eiffel Tower

You can also be in map view with 3D buildings. I think this is really awesome for kids (and this 38-year-old kid who has never been to Paris) to see the size of the Eiffel Tower in relation to everything around it.

3D Buildings View

Google Earth can be fun to just explore, but you can do so much more with it. You can change the view by tilting it or changing your orientation. You can add placemarks and save locations to visit again later. With the placemarks, you can set up a virtual tour, as well.  Speaking of tours...

Google Tour Builder:

I had a lot of fun playing with Google Tour Builder, and it feels a little more user-friendly than setting up a tour within Google Earth. It uses the same technologies for searching and finding locations but is set up specifically for making tours.  Check out my example tour here. I can see this being used in the classroom for any number of reasons. A music teacher might visit the birthplaces of different composers. An art teacher could visit museums throughout the world. A history teacher could trace the route of the Westward Expansion or plot the important battles of the Civil War.  With each stop on the tour, there is the ability to add photos, videos, and/or an explanation.  You could view this whole class, or give students the opportunity to explore the tour at their own pace and take notes as they go. 

The background of Tour Builder is pretty inspiring:

From the Google Tour FAQ page

My students will be their own Tour Guides around different areas of Kansas City this week, as they plan virtual tours in small groups. Each group will be assigned a different area of the city to present to the rest of the class.

Both of these tools are fantastic resources for the classroom. My students have been very curious about Google Earth, and now I'm excited to tell them that we're finally going to be using it in class!  I love how interactive Google Earth is, and how easy-to-use Google Tour Builder is. Out of the two, I think GTB wins my heart.  Since it's only in beta I can only imagine how much it will grow and expand in the coming years. It's an exciting time in education!