Years ago, one of my first uses of Google Earth was to take my grade 3/4 multi-age students on a virtual field trip when we were learning about the March on Washington during our Martin Luther King/Civil rights unit. Pretending we had traveled back in time, we used the "Tour" tool in Google Earth, in order for students to see the exact trip they would have taken if they had traveled from our school in Maine to the Washington Monument back in 1963. They were able to zoom in on the map and chart the exact path: starting at a hotel they might have stayed in (found through research) and navigating their way to the Lincoln Monument, to get close to Martin Luther King. One of the culminating projects during the unit was for students to write a letter back to their parents in Maine, after listening to King's "I Have a Dream" speech, as if they had just heard it live. By using the virtual tool of Google Earth, I saw a marked differences in the quality of letters from previous years. Using Google Earth, the students reported that they really felt like they had actually made the journey. It helped make the abstract idea of pretending to take the journey more concrete because they could "zoom in" on actual buildings and streets in Google Earth. Google Lit Trips helps accomplish this same goal by taking books out of the abstract and connecting them to the real world.

Broken into 4 levels (Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and even Higher Ed), the site contains almost 30 Lit Trips at present, and more are being added all the time. The best way to experience the power of Google Lit Trips is to download one that's been made for a book that you've read. I teach elementary, so my first download was a Lit Trip created for Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. I would suggest this as a great book for any grade level to use as a starter (both students and teachers), because not only have many people read the book, but the area covered in the trip is confined to a small geographical area and really shows how seeing the "real places" will help students better visualize the book. When you download the Lit Trip, you download a ".kml" file. Simply open this file, and it will launch Google Earth. Within Google Earth you will now have the file added to your "Places" folder and you will be "teleported" to the landmarks and paths that relate to the book. So, for instance, in the Make Way for Ducklings Lit Trip, I have 14 place-marks along a red path right where the story takes place. Clicking on one of the place-marks ---The Public Garden---opens up a "pop-up" with pictures that show what the Public Garden looks like, along with text that reminds me how this spot connected with the story. Head on over to place-mark #9 and by jumping into "Street View" you can actually "jump" into the street and see the busy road as it looks in present day in a 360° view! (If you're unfamiliar with Street View in either Google Earth or Google Maps, then head here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View; you're in for a real treat!).

My favorite thing about the Google Lit Trips site is that there is plenty of clear documentation on how to create your own Google Lit Trips. You're invited to submit completed Lit Trips to the site, and encouraged to have your students create them and also submit them.

So read a good book, create a Google Lit Trip companion and better yet ---have your students create them for strengthening their comprehension and visualization skills.

 Bob Sprankle has been a multi-age teacher in Wells, ME for 10 years and has served as the school's Technology Integrator for the past two years.

_{POSTED ON HOTCHALK}

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