When I present at conferences or schools around the state/region, I take my daughters and my Momma with me for a mini vacation! The girls hang out with Grandma in and around the hotel while Mommy gets excited about educational technology! (We leave Daddy and Papa at home to work!) Last week, I shared the awesomeness of Nearpod with a fantastic group of teachers at Pembroke Hill in Kansas City, Missouri. I LOVED their enthusiasm for teaching and their excitement for using Nearpod in the classroom!
I absolutely LOVE so many features of Nearpod, but my favorite engagement tool is the virtual field trip. I LOVE being able to take my students to places around the world-I think it makes the content come to life in a way that can’t really happen with a video or primary source! As I was sharing this fabulous feature with the great teachers at Pembroke, a teacher asked if the virtual field trip feature was like Google Earth. I said that this was similar to a Google Earth activity, except that the virtual field trip was actually part of the presentation instead of linking to another site.
Then, I mentioned the new updates to Google Earth … have you seen them? Google Earth now works on a Chrome browser! No more downloading clunky software that, let’s be honest, was NOT user-friendly and rarely worked – at least for me. Now, students can access Google Earth and all of its awesomeness on their Chromebooks! Woohoo! Google Earth also unveiled “Voyages” which are great collections of resources and tours for a variety of topics that can be wonderful for use in the classroom.
The new version of Google Earth allows teachers to easily share locations with their students via link. Here’s where Nearpod comes in!
As I was sharing the new updates to Google Earth, I had an ah-ha moment … I was talking about sharing links to locations with Google Earth, and about how Nearpod allows teachers to include websites in their presentations. THE LIGHTBULB CAME ON!
Nearpod (Gold Account and above) allows teachers to include websites in their Nearpod lessons. Nearpod also offers fantastic virtual reality options, but what if you can’t quite find what you’re looking for? Go to the new Google Earth, search for a location (or use Voyages for super awesomeness!), copy and paste the link to your selection in your Nearpod lesson, and voila! Your students are transported around the world without leaving your classroom!
Nearpod + Google Earth = awesome!
Thanks for reading 🙂
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