172 – Google Earth
This week is education week on the WELSTech Podcast, and Gail Potratz joins us to take a look at Google Earth.
Podcast: Download (39.4MB)
The discussion:
Tour the world – Google Earth is a powerful desktop mapping tool that has many uses in the classroom. Martin and Sallie welcome back our semi-regular classroom technology correspondent, Gail Potratz, from Emanuel in New London, WI, and we discuss the many uses of the software.
Getting started resources:
- Feature Tour
- Tutorials for Educators
- Sharing Stories with Google Earth
- Google Earth on Google Tools for Schools
- Create a Narrated Tour
- Blogs
- Google Earth on the WELSTech Wiki – Add your Google Earth projects
Eight uses for Google Earth in ministry:
1. History and Literature tours
- Gail shared downloadable samples from Johnny Tremain (class instructions) and Castillo De San Marcos and Fort Matanzas
- 10 US History Google Earth Tours via Free Technology For Teachers
2. Historical maps
3. Bible land tours
- Bible Geocoding – Google Earth files of every location mentioned in the Bible organized by chapter and book
4. Geography class
5. WELS locations
- Download the WELS Locations file in KML format for Google Earth
6. Map your members and prospects
- Use Batch Geo to easily create maps for outreach and of member locations
- View Gethsemane’s instruction page for mapping prospective church members
7. Ocean exploration
8. Astronomy
- Hubble Telescope – Downloadable tour
- Tour the Moon
- Space games
Ministry resources:
(33:44) Proclaim – Cloud based worship presentations
News in tech:
(34:46) Google Docs Viewer Now Supports 12 More File Formats
Picks of the week:
- (36:12) Mark your calendar for World Maths Day (March 1) and World Spelling Day (March 3)
- Sixty-Six Clouds – Word cloud images of each of the books of the Bible
- Windows Live Writer – Multi-platform blogging tool
Community feedback:
- (46:25) Lesley Bergeman from Good Shepherd’s in West Allis, WI shared the news that YouVersion is giving away free mobile downloads of NIV 2010. Offer is good through March 1.
- John Shoosmith from Redeemer in Yakima, WA suggested we provide easy to include images and links to popular WELS content. We’ve started a new Webmasters Widgets page on the WELSTech Wiki to share this info.
- Jason Schmidt from Gethsemane in Omaha, NE shared a link to the FACE Kids Site which focuses on copyright
- Maren McPeak from St. Mark’s in Citrus Heights, CA trained their teaching staff on Engrade online grade book and shared video tutorials of the getting started process
- Chris Hintz form Emmaus in Phoenix, AZ asked our recommendation of a Content Management System (CMS) tool for congregations and schools. Martin and Sallie recommend FinalWeb and WordPress.
The featured artist:
(52:55) We close the podcast with the music of Mike Westendorf (www.mikewestendorf.com and mikewestendorf on Twitter) – You Are Amazing from his CD titled ”Undefined”
Get involved:
- Add a comment below
- Send us an e-mail [email protected]
- Leave us a voice mail 405-FOR-WELS (405-367-9357)
- Add to the WELSTech wiki welstechwiki.wels.net
- Contribute to the #WELSTech Twitter conversation
- Follow us on Twitter – mspriggs and welstechtrainer
- Use the del.icio.us tag welstech
- Use the diigo tag welstech
- Join the WELSTech community:
Google Books – Google’s mission to organize the world’s information extends to offline content with their 
Google Calendar – Martin and Sallie kick off Bonus WELSTech Goodness (or BWTG for short), a mid-week, mini podcast series and companion wiki pages covering simple steps to put today’s technology to work in the congregation and school setting. The inaugural BWTG topic is Google Calendar, which is useful for church and school staff collaboration and display on your web site.