The Google Earth Balloon Maker is a tool that I cobbled together to make building virtual field trips easier.
Virtual Field Trips
Google Earth is a great resource in the classroom. Sites like GoogleLitTrips.com have done a great job to promote one of my favorite learning activities – the virtual field trip. The problem though, is that Google Earth’s native balloon maker tools are quite limited leaving most users with the ability to add only text, links, and images – with no formatting.
I felt like more teachers and students would be inclined to create original virtual field trips if it were easier to make more asthetically pleasing informational “balloons,” so I built a WYSIWYG tool specifically designed for Google Earth. It’s called the Google Earth Balloon Maker and you can view it here: http://mmacfadden.com/balloon-maker. Watch the video above to learn how to use it.