Instant Google Street View

Going to an unknown location is often a little unsettling.  Uncertainty of finding the location, the parking, business of the location, are always in my head.  Sometimes I know I have been there but just cannot quite picture the location in my mind.  Enter Instant Google Street View!  This resource instantly searches an address or location and shows you the street view of that location.  It actually starts searching location as you type things in.

While I have to admit, as silly as it sounds, the first address I tried was my own.  And why do we do that?  It is not like I don't know what my house looks like!  Anyway, after having a good gander at my house and musing about how I wish I would have seen the Google car go by taking the photos, I moved on to more interesting places like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France and The White House.  Interestingly, the White House does not bring up a street view of the building but an interior tour.  I am sure that is done for security reasons, but I got to thinking about all the locations that a teacher could type in to help students gain a frame of reference for a specific unit of study.  Some ideas for the use of Instant Google Street View were:

• Historical locations 
• field trip locations (Capitol building in Madison was great)
• National Parks (Not always a street view but very cool!)
• A unique house for a descriptive paragraph or story starter
• Vacation destinations

RY