The World At Our Fingertips?

I have been playing around with Google Earth and my first thoughts were, what's the big deal?  I can see my house using Google Maps.  And the images aren't up to date anyway.  For some reason I thought the images were live via satellite and then (after telling my family about it) I had my Father ring up and tell me his house isn't even built yet in Google Earth.  Feeling a little foolish, I endeavoured to go back and explore a little further to see what the big deal was.  I also had a look at Joe Wood's Blog to try to learn more.  Well, all I did was get overwhelmed. 

One thing I did get from Joe Wood's Blog was using Google Maps to create your own tour.  I thought this would be great for students, pinpointing/marking places they have been and entering information about those places.  They might even be able to mark places that they would like to visit and explain why.  Or on a topic on weather, they could map out where cyclones have hit Australia in the last 5 years and enter in statistics, or use it to trace the tracks of explorers.

Back in Google Earth, I was checking out the 'layers' down the side but I couldn't get it to do a great deal. I also had a look at Mars, the Moon and the Sky options but didn't know quite what to do once I got there.  I just kept clicking on little markers, but in the end, I got bored.  I'd type in specific searches, for example, the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, but very little seemed to come up.  If I was lucky, there might be some info attached to it, an image or a video maybe.  I found it exceptionally difficult to navigate around and probably need to spend some time on the tutorials as clearly (from one tutorial I had a look at for 3D buildings) there is a lot more to Google Earth than my superficial exploration.  I have the "Tip" option at startup to give some quick clues as well!!  And I also found this little snippet from Google for Educators that briefly summarises how we could use it and I think there are also a number of 'plug-ins' that are not automatically available when you first sign up that would probably improve my Google Earth experience.  However, this exploration will be at a later date when I have time to casually look through it.

So, in terms of using in classrooms, I am not sure as yet.  Yes, in the 'layers', there appears to be lots of things to look at (global awareness, oceans, buildings, terrain) all of which students could learn from, but until I become more familiar with it, it isn't going to enhance my pedagogical practices or student learning outcomes.  I'd find it easier doing a simple Google search.