Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Visually exploring earth with Panoramio

In preparing for week 4 of the Wednesday night class I’m teaching this term on Google Earth at our church, I discovered the website and Google Earth layer Panoramio. Panoramio is one of three layers which come with Google Earth under the top category “Geographic Web.”

Google Earth - Panoramio - Dead Sea Scrolls

Photographs are submitted by Panoramio’s users to be included in Google Earth as geo-tagged blue dots. In Google Earth, users can click a dot and view embedded photos which are located at approximately the location on earth where they were taken.

The current wait for a new photo to be approved in Panoramio is approximately one month. We had a question tonight in class about whether or not anyone could post any photo to Panoramio. The answer appears to be yes, anyone can submit a photograph, but there is not a guarantee that every submitted photo will be approved and actually show up in GE. The Panoramio acceptance policy provides more details about why photos are or are not selected for inclusion.

Another notable geographic resource we explored this evening was a collection of 23 three dimensional buildings created for Ancient Rome. These have been created by various individuals using Google SketchUp, and are examples of Geo-referenced models included in Google’s 3D Warehouse.

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One response to “Visually exploring earth with Panoramio”

  1. Hannah Grace Avatar
    Hannah Grace

    I did not know that you could do this on Google. Of course, I am not surprised these days. Modern Technology is so astounding. This would be wonderful in a geography class or even a physical science class. The geography part would be good for students to make a connection with the places they are learning about. It would no longer be just a picture in a book. They could actually interact with it. As far as the physical science aspect, students could better under the physical things about a location. They could draw conclusions about the climate among other things. This could help their critical thinking skills. I like that a teacher or even one of the students could submit a photo. Personally submitting the photo would make the student more involved in the learning process. I really like this.