Google Street View goes nationwide

Images copyright Google

Google Street View has gone national

A huge update of Google's photography means that over 90% of the UK is now covered by the high resolution, 360 degree imagery along most roads in the UK

One of the first things that people would do perhaps would be to look at their own house, and the houses where they used to live....

Just done that myself, and you can see the house where I lived between 1977 and 1988 (ish) above, tho' it didn't look like that at the time...

There was a useful post on Simon Haughton's blog which suggested some geographical ideas for how the newly expanded Street View could be used in the classroom. Here are some (more):

1. Previewing a journey that is going to be made / risk assessments for fieldwork

2. Carrying out VIRTUAL FIELDWORK in an unfamiliar area

3. Investigate change over time in a local area

4. Clone Town / Land use surveys

5. Remodelling the models: transects from town centre outwards to test their validity

6. Comparing distant locations (Primary)

7. Taking a trip to the seaside

8. Play the "When were the images taken" game: look at clues in the state of buildings, traffic and people in the area, to see whether you can work out the time of year, or time of day, or day of the week when the cars must have taken the images...

My street was photographed in Summer, on a week-day judging by the images, but further towards the centre of the village the images turn to autumn...

9. Do a N, S, E and W, or 5 minutes in each direction from home etc.

10. Most URBAN fieldwork could be done in a slightly adapted way using the images, perhaps supported with some Flip video filming / audio files ? (remember that this is NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL FIELDWORK which MUST continue....)

I have been updating a presentation I used last year, when Street View was limited to just a few major cities, which provided ideas for geography teachers on how they might use Street View in the classroom. Will share that here when it is complete....

Predictably, there has been a little kerfuffle in the Daily Mail...

Read the article and comments for a variety of views on the role of this sort of technology...

And just to show another feature: the maps can be embedded into blogs...

Drag the YELLOW PEGMAN onto the map in the appropriate place, and the Street View images will appear....

View Larger Map

Can also be viewed on my iPhone, which is remarkable really... The UK in your pocket....