My Google Map Blog

Earlier this week we talked about variety of uses for Google Earth in the classroom, and Donald emailed us with another one -- "A New Life", by Classroom Copilot.

Using Google Earth, you create a new island on earth, design a flag, elect a government, develop laws, and even create a new town. They've created quite a few tutorial videos on how to work with the software, such as this video to help you get started:

Classroom Copilot has a variety of other games and tools, such as a phonics-based Guitar Hero clone and a tool that uses 3D paper for some cool effects.

For classrooms that create imaginary worlds in an effort to show how all aspects of a society come together, A New Life would be a great addition to the class. Learn more and try it for yourself here.

The Overview Map is an available feature in Google Earth to help you determine your position on the Earth. You can turn it on by going to the "View" menu as shown to the right and select "Overview Map".

The overview map is a handy tool which shows a miniature overview of the earth map in the lower right corner of the 3D view. A red rectangle (or a cross hair when very close) highlights your current zoomed view. If you point your mouse at another location on the overview map and double click your left mouse button you will be flown over to the new location (and end up at the same altitude as your last position).

The overview map helps you keep perspective where on the Earth you are looking at, and is a fast way to go to another part of the world you want to see. You can turn the overview map on and off by keyboard shortcut: CTRL-M (a different combination on the Mac). You can also adjust the size of the Overview Map by going to the GE Options (under "Tools->Options" on Windows, or "Preferences" on the Mac). Here you can also change the "Zoom Relation" which means how close the Overview Map matches the zoom level of your current view (default is infinity, a smaller value has the zoom level more closely match your view). The smaller-value zoom relation can be handy if you need to compare your view to a slightly larger zoom level.

FlightRadar24.com is a site that does a nice job showing live air traffic on top of a Google Map. They have a great interface, but it's similar to other sites that we've seen in the past.

However, they've just launched a new feature that almost seems obvious, yet I've never seen it before -- "Aircraft View" using the Google Earth Plug-in! By clicking on a plane and choosing "Aircraft view (BETA)" from the sidebar, a window pops up on your screen and shows you the view from that plane via Google Earth.

The view runs pretty smoothly in most cases, and includes 3D buildings in the view. All in all, it's a great addition for a site like this and a very creative use of the Google Earth Plug-in.

You may notice that coverage is most comprehensive in Europe where most aircraft have the right type of transponder and there is a denser network of volunteers picking up the signals. You can read more about that on their about page. That said, coverage in the US and elsewhere is continuing to expand.

Go explore this fun new feature for yourself at FlightRadar24.com.