Research Report: Google Lit Trips

By Adrianna Quetin, Mapping Velocity Team

Abstract.                                                                                                                                                      Google Lit Trips is a website created by Jerome Burg as an educational tool for teachers in the classroom. It offers maps, using Google Earth, to track the trips and travel of characters from an array of novels and books. It is broken up into four sections, divided by grade levels from Kindergarten through Higher Education.

Description.    

     Google Lit Trips was created by Jerome Burg as part of the Google Certified Teacher Program. The goal is to allow the reader to experience the novel, book, or even picture book, in a whole new way. Hall Davidson, director of Discovery Educator Network said of the site “[m]edia, literature, and the earth itself converge here in one of the most exemplary technology integration sites on the educational World Wide Web” (Google Lit Trips). Hall’s description is quite right. The website is not only a collection of Lit Trips created by Burg, teachers and students; it also offers a tip page of how to create your own Lit Trip as well as how to submit it to be included in his website. By accepting and posting Lit Trips created by others Burg is opening up the individuals experience with Literature even further. Not only can the observer view others' Lit Trips, but they can interact with novels themselves when creating their own. This kind of engaging interaction can be the spark needed to draw someone into a text. If they are paying attention to what is going on in the book in order to later record it for a Lit Trip, they casual reader may become a close reader.

          The Lit Trips found on the website are not only for the older reader. He offers four groups, broken down by grade levels. The possible groups are K-5, 6-8. 9-12, and higher education. The idea behind the website was to create teaching tools for the classroom. The Lit Trips offer the teacher another way of engaging their student in a novel. Brenda Dyck, a user of the site said that "Burg believes the success of that application of Google Earth hinges on its multi-sensory appeal and its ability to put kids in the middle of the story, not just at the periphery" (Google Lit Trips). It is exactly this kind of fusion between literature and technology which may help capture the attention of a student. By showing younger how to use technology to understand literature, the teacher is able to bridge a gap. The Aenid by Virgil might suddenly seem less daunting, or Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath less dry.

Commentary.                                                                                                                                                    

The website, as set out by Jerome Burg is basically outlines our intentions for our project.  The idea of maps as being an educational tool when placed against the backdrop of a book or novel is what attracted us to the idea of using Google Earth in the first place. The cache of Lit Trips already posted, although none on our book of choice so far, could give us many ideas for our own project. I found his site very easy to navigate. It also offers a forum in which we might be able to include our own project. What I found to be of particular interest and use was his tips on how to use Google Earth to create your own Lit Trip. As Burg encourages not only teachers, but students as well to help create their own Lit Trip with whatever piece of literature touches them, the tips page is extremely easy to use. He gives directions in clear, concise formats in such a way that even those of us, like me, who are not particularly tech savvy are able to understand and translate into practice. Finding this website shows me that our idea to use Google Earth is not a new idea, but, judging by the feedback it appears Burg has been receiving, it is one which many people are finding useful.   

I found Burg’s webpage very encouraging regarding my group project. It is helpful to know that what we are attempting to create with Eggers’ novel can be useful and that there is a place for it to be shared. The limitation I may find here is that You Shall Know Our Velocity! May not be considered an educational text. That may prove to be a hindrance to having it included with Burg’s website as most of the Lit Trips pertain to books that are on a teaching curriculum. It is not, however, so discouraging because the fact that there are websites dedicated to collecting Lit Trips created to accompany novels means that there must be more like his out there.

Resources for Further Study. 

Boss, Suzie. “Google Lit Trips: Bringing Travel Tales to Life.” Edutopia. The George Lucas Educational Foundation. 10 February 2009. http://www.edutopia.org/google-lit-trips-virtual-literature

Google Lit Trips. 2 February 2009. Google Certified Teachers Program. 11 February 2009. http://www.googlelittrips.org/