Internet giant Google Inc. has launched a new resource, "Google for Educators," that contains classroom activities and teacher guides for using a dozen Google applications in the curriculum. The web site, www.google.com/educators, also links to all these applications from a single location. The move marks Google's latest effort to spread its influence to schools.

One of these applications is Google Earth, a satellite imagery-based mapping product that lets users view the earth from space or at street level and is essentially a three-dimensional model of the planet that users can grab, spin, and manipulate. Different versions offer tools for measuring, drawing, saving, printing, and supporting Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

Using Google Earth, teachers can enhance lessons on geography, economics, and demographics, Google says. They can use the application for geographical units on volcanoes, continents, mountain ranges, and other landforms. Educators also can download GEGraph, a free tool that enables Windows users to create charts and graphs inside Google Earth.

Discovery Education and Google have teamed up to create detailed lesson plans for educators to illustrate key curriculum concepts using Discovery's unitedstreaming video-on-demand product and Google Earth together. On Google's site, teachers will find links to lesson plans on the American Revolution, monuments, great explorers, and lessons related to literature, such as The Red Badge of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front.

"It has been a long time since a technology application got the eye-popping reaction from teachers that Google Earth gets," said Hall Davidson, director of the Discovery Educator Network.

The Google for Educators site also helps schools take advantage of Google Apps for Education, an IT solution that brings communication and collaboration tools to the academic community free of charge.

The solution helps school IT administrators provide eMail, online calendars, instant messaging tools, and a dedicated web site for faculty, students, and staff. All aspects are delivered online, and no hardware or software needs to be installed or is needed to maintain the systems, Google says.

Google is offering its Gmail service free of charge to school domains, performing all of the upkeep of the domain and freeing up valuable IT staff time that often is spent maintaining the overwhelming amount of eMail that must be housed on any school's servers.

Google Gmail gives school faculty, students, and staff two gigabytes of storage per account, as well as search tools and built-in instant messaging that easily can be disabled for the entire school.

In addition, using Google Calendar, school officials can publish their school's calendar on their school's web site to let parents know about events such as back-to-school nights and vacation days. Plus, Google Page Creator allows users to create and publish web pages quickly and easily without needing technical expertise, Google says.