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Using Google Earth to Enhance Curriculum

February 15, 2021

As Library Media Specialists (LMS), we are always looking for new tech tools to increase student engagement and help teachers enhance their curriculum. One of our favorite tools over the years was Google Tour Builder. Needless to say, we were quite disappointed to find out that Google Tour Builder was going to be phased out and replaced with something called Google Earth Projects. But, turns out, this new tool is amazing!

When school buildings closed during the second half of the 2019/2020 school year and continued to stay closed throughout most of the 2020/2021 school year, the need for tech tools to enhance virtual instruction was at an all time high. Teachers were struggling to learn how to do their jobs virtually while also keeping kids engaged. So, they looked to the LMS and ITS (Instructional Technology Specialist) for help navigating through these unprecedented times. Google Earth Projects was a perfect fit!

Google Earth Projects allows students to travel all over the world virtually, diving into an interactive map and exploring locations with 360° photos and street view, while giving them the ability to create their own tours and projects to share their learning with teachers and classmates. Teachers can create templates and share with their students to edit, or students can create projects from scratch.

screenshot of a Google Earth Project

Since Google Earth is part of the G Suite, all projects are saved automatically in students’ Google Drives and can be added to or edited as they move through grade levels. Google Earth Projects allows students to drop pins to show locations, add 360° photos for an immersive experience, and add multimedia like photos, videos, and text to pinned locations. Students can also make copies and share out, as well as add collaborators. This tool allows for cross-curricular learning, combining research and writing, as well as content. In addition, students even have the opportunity to present their tours, allowing for oral communication data to be collected.

As Library Media Specialists, we hope to turn what could be a simple lesson into an engaging and interactive experience where students can showcase their research skills, along with their ability to engage in the 5Cs, while exploring curricular objectives. For example, students can show their learning of specific Civil War or American Revolutionary War locations. Additionally, Native American tribes, VA regions, landforms, landmarks, continents, and oceans are just a few of the content areas that have been highlighted within these projects.
As the pandemic and travel restrictions continue, the use of Google Earth projects allows students the opportunity to tour countries around the globe.

Street View image of Egyptian pyramid

Is your class researching countries? With Google Earth projects, students don’t have to just read about it in books; they can take a virtual field trip to see it up close and personal. Teaching geometry? Show students 3D shapes in the real world (think pyramids in Egypt, Spaceship Earth at Disney’s Epcot, cylindrical towers in Germany).

Google Earth projects can even enhance a simple read aloud. Yes, students are able to visualize the events in a story, but it would be fun to follow a characters’ travels throughout.

While you may be used to Google Tour Builder, give Google Earth Projects a chance and you won’t be disappointed! The opportunities are endless and will take your students on a trip around the world all while staying put in the confines of their very own classroom chair.


Written by Erin Nye and Courtney Phillips. Erin is a Library Media Specialist at Kingston Elementary School and can be found on Twitter @enye001. Courtney is a Library Media Specialist at Strawbridge Elementary School, and tweets @MrsPhillipsLMS.

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Making Makerspace Mobile During a Pandemic

February 10, 2021

Covid. It’s truly amazing how one word, one event, could single-handedly change the face of education across the world in such a short period of time. However, as we are all aware, that is exactly what happened. In the winter of 2020, Instructional Technology Specialists such as myself, were busy leading professional development, attending and participating in collaborations, and modeling effective instructional strategies for the teachers and students in our buildings. Then, in the spring, everything changed. Our normal everyday educational occurrences were changed in ways we never could have imagined.

I cannot say that everything changed in a negative way. I watched as the teachers in my building and across our city, as well as across the country, learned very quickly how to navigate Zoom and Google Meet. There was more participation in professional development in my building than I had seen in the past several years. Teachers immediately jumped on board with PearDeck, PlayPosit, Flipgrid, and so many other programs to engage our virtual learners in ways they never thought they could. It was amazing to experience and be an active participant in this learning experience. It became obvious that our teachers were going to do whatever was necessary to ensure the success of all of our students no matter what was happening in the world around us.

photo of mobile makerspace with student and teacher

Another thing that changed was my role and the role of the Library Media Specialist especially as we envisioned our shared library space. Over the past three years, we have worked diligently to create an amazing Makerspace program in our library through donations from parents, the community, and several grants we have received. In March 2020, our Makerspace initiative immediately came to a screeching halt. We missed the looks on the children’s faces as they speed walked to the library to use the Dashes and Dots, the Lego sets, the arts and crafts projects, and Merge Cubes. We went from having approximately 750 students a week rotate through the library to a library that was empty. This fall, it was obvious that the students were missing a much-loved piece of their education.

Thanks to the Virginia Beach Education Foundation Grant opportunities, my LMS and I decided to write a grant for a Mobile Makerspace Initiative. We were awarded $1900 to purchase carts and supplies to keep Makerspace alive in our building. We were given another $1800 to purchase a Makey Makey class set for our students to use. If the students couldn’t come to us, we would go to them! We used the funds to purchase things like arts and crafts, build your own planes and boats, Egyptian tombs to do archeological digs, pots and seeds for children to paint and plant amongst many other items. On the carts, we have also included Dashes, coding mice, Merge Cubes and smartphones, and Ozobots that we have received from other grants.

Now, instead of the students coming to us, we can go to them. Our Mobile Makerspace is as flexible as teachers and students need it to be. Teachers can email us about materials that they want to use in their class as they have a list of what was purchased with the grants. They can check out our electronic equipment as long as everything is sanitized appropriately between uses. Teachers can request a variety of the materials and activities to keep in their classroom for their own Makerspace area, or they can have students meet us in the hallway to choose activities to take back to their classrooms during specific times of the day. Additionally, teachers can sign up for us to work with a small group, socially distancing, with our Dashes and Dots and Merge Cubes. They can also request for us to model and instruct on the class set of Makey Makey in small spaced out groups or as a whole class.

We all know that things have changed since the Pandemic began. What I have learned from the pandemic is that our "normal" is now different. In some ways, things will never be the same. Our shared philosophy behind Makerspace was the value we placed on developing students' communication and collaboration skills. With that, my LMS and I followed our own values and adapted to create a new normal, a Mobile Makerspace. A space, mobile and different, but one that still allows students to create and be innovative, skills which all of us have needed over the last year.


Written by Nicole Cabral. Nicole is an Instructional Technology Specialist at Landstown Elementary in Virginia Beach.

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Support School Librarians: End School Censorship

July 9, 2016

State Senator Amanda Chase has suggested that school librarians in Chesterfield County should be dismissed for making certain book recommendations as part of summer reading lists.

EveryLibrary, a school library advocacy group, has initiated a petition that will be sent to both Senator Chase and the Chesterfield County School Board asking them to reconsider their stance on this issue.

Please consider signing the petition to support intellectual freedom.

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