Thanks to Ogle Earth, I came across the Planet 9 site with some intriguing demonstrations of their 3D work. Perhaps the most useful, especially for teaching earthquakes, is the amazing textured Google Earth model of the Transamerica Pyramid. I really recommend a look at this (large download though) - another glimpse into the future of digital representations of the urban environment.
click to enlargeAlso on Ogle Earth a mention for the Google Earth airlines site. The BIG news here for teachers is that the site has a free movie capture program for Google Earth under development, MovieBuilder 4GE. I know that it doesn’t currently work for GE 4, because I’ve just had a go at testing it. It might be OK for V3 though. Please let me know if you get it working. When this application is finally sorted out, it could be an indispensible teaching tool. There’s also a sample of code to allow you to run Google Earth directly from inside Internet Explorer 6 via a plug-in. I’ll be testing this shortly (maybe!)
I just wanted to say that you’re absolutely right about programs like Google Earth being fantastic teaching tools. I was talking to a friend who uses GE for homeschooling purposes, and I’ll be sure to send along these other links you included in your post. Thanks!