Back in June Google added a 3D Tour Guide feature to Google Earth for Android. This week Google added that feature to Google Earth 7 for your desktop.

If you install Google Earth 7, by default the Tour Guide will appear at the bottom of your screen. Click on any tour to get started. The tour will fly you over places of note and show you some quick facts about each place in the tour. The tour you play will suggest tours of related places. To find a tours for another location just type that location into the search box. There are more than 11,000 tour locations available in Google Earth 7.

Applications for Education
When I was a kid I loved looking at maps. As an adult I still love looking at maps. Looking at maps raises all kinds of questions in my head about the places that I look at. I know I’m not alone in this practice because I have spoken with numerous students and adults who do the same thing. The new 3D Tour Guide is perfect for folks like us who look at maps and have questions about the places we see. The 3D Tour Guide answers some of those questions for us. And if you’re planning to have students create Google Earth tours, the 3D Tour Guide provides a good model for your students to follow.