Uses for Google Earth

I attended a session at a professional conference last summer where two faculty members of the Center for History and New Media were using Google Earth to map 1st hand accounts from 9/11 and Katrina (see http://www.chnm.gmu.edu/projects.php for their projects). They were mapping the accounts and cross-referencing them based on such things as where they received news reports (e.g. CNN vs. FoxNews). Very interesting presentation and tying together the web aps.

This morning I attended a talk by the founder of ESRI (the GIS software company) and he discussed broadly how GIS (the technology partly behind Google Earth) can help facilitate new applications. He mentioned a service that his company provides, called Business Analyst, that, for a fee, businesses can gain access to geospatial and demographic data to make decisions such as where to locate a new store. My immediate thought was it would be a great service for districts and/or churches to use when considering locations for church plants or satellite sites (day care, etc.).

Google Earth Community Discussion boards!

There is a section there for educators with not only discussion, but each post has KML or KMZ files attached. Check them out! I learned about his from a workshop at METC this year.

Very interesting links and thoughts everyone. Thanks for sharing!