The short version is simple. Google Lit Trips are free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. At each location along the journey there are placemarks with pop-up windows containing a variety of resources including relevant media, thought provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about “real world” references made in that particular portion of the story.
The focus is on creating engaging and relevant literary experiences for students. I like to say Google Lit Trips “3-dimensionalize” the reading experience by placing readers “inside the story” traveling alongside the characters; looking through the windshield of that old jalopy in The Grapes of Wrath or waddling alongside Mr. and Mrs. Mallard’s duckling family in Make Way for Ducklings.”
What Google Lit Trips AREN’T
Google Lit Trips aren’t like sparknotes and other resources that can be used to circumvent the need to actually do the reading. They are designed to stimulate higher level thinking skills and to connect the story’s themes and messages to the issues of the real world in which students live.
Are they really free? Why?
Absolutely!
Why? Have you ever seen the movie Paying it Forward? It’s about showing one’s gratitude for the kindnesses received by doing kindnesses for others. The Google Lit Trips project is simply my personal act of kindness in gratitude for the life-changing experience I had in my senior English teacher, Mr. Ferdie Kay’s English class. We’ve probably all had a teacher like Mr. Kay. He had a way reaching our minds through our hearts. He knew how to build bridges between where we were and where he was confident we could go via the wisdom of great literature.
An example? It was 1966 and Mr. Kay arranged for our class to go on a field trip to Berkeley, CA to see Bob Dylan in what turned out to be a pivitol concert in Dylan’s career. Dylan baffled us. But, he also fascinated us with his mysterious lyrics and “not like other contemporary musicians” style. We had some incredibly interesting class discussions following that concert. And within the week, Mr. Kay had built a bridge from that concert to T.S.Eliot and we got it! In his own way T.S. Eliot became as intriguing in his mystery as Dylan had been and we knew we could figure him out just like we’d done with Dylan.
I was so changed by that experience that I began telling my friends, half-jokingly, that I wanted to grow up to be a bearded English teacher just like Mr. Kay. But, before I graduated a few months later, I came to realize that I really sorta, kinda, maybe wasn’t joking at all. I really wanted to become a bearded English teacher just like Mr. Kay so I could be for my future students what Mr. Kay had been for me. I literally dedicated my 38 year teaching career to that goal. And today, I still wear the beard I grew in honor of Mr. Kay.
As I approached my retirement from teaching, I found myself wondering how I might find a way to continue to honor Mr. Kay. Coincidentally, (perhaps) the idea for Google Lit Trips was swirling around in my mind. The project’s early and unexpected attention sealed the deal. From day one of the Google Lit Trips project I locked into the vision of making Google Lit Trips my own “little philanthropic gift” to the profession to which I’d given my entire professional career.
So how can you afford to make them available for free?
Fortunately, within months of being outed by educational blogger, Will Richardson, the project was honored with the $5000 LeRoy Finkel Fellowship from the Computer Using Educators. Because the costs of the project are relatively low and because I had no interest in taking any personal gain from the project, I was able to stick to my philanthropic vision as the project began to gain international attention in the blogosphere.
Then at the beginning of the project’s second year, the project was selected by The Asia Society to be a co-recipient of the Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education, a prize worth $12,500 and a huge boost to the international attention the project was garnering. It was the proverbial snowball from there. I started receiving 3-4 invitations a year to be a paid featured speaker at educational conferences. This along with my teacher retirement and committment to donate all of my labor to the project pretty much “covered the bills.”
The other huge reason why the project can survive on such a relatively small budget was that the project has grown into a community of Lit Trip developers and contributors who are themselves taking up the project’s philanthropic vision. Contributors wishing to publish their Lit Trips on the site do so without expectation of any compensation beyond the rewards inherent in gifting their contributions to the world’s educators and their students.
But, how will you be able to grow the project AND continue to give the resources away for free?
That certainly is a concern that has arisen of late. The operation costs and time demands are challenging the existing resources.
Therefore, I’m becoming much more proactive about increasing the “back door” funding source through an increased attention to seeking grants, awards, sponsorships, donations, speaker fees, and volunteers is underway.
But rest assured, though project beneficiaries may soon see opportunities to choose to help support the projects through donations and volunteering, the project dedication to free access to the project’s resources is a lock. PERIOD.
A quick overview of what a Google Lit Trip is. This audio interview originally posted on The Infinite Thinking Machine... (Interview by Steve Hargadon 2007)
Interview for Public Radio International’s “The World: Technology Podcast.”
(Interview by Clark Boyd 2009 Google Lit Trip segment starts at 35.09)
Jerome speaks of Google Lit Trips...
Video Chat with teachers from the Korea International School. Interview by Kathleen Ferenz (2007)
Jerome interviewed about Google Lit Trips following his being named a 2010 Laureate by the Tech Museum of Innovation to receive the Microsoft Education Award for Technology Benefitting Humanity (2010)
