The course that wasn't...

I have an embarrassing day on Thursday when running one of the final Google Earth and Beyond courses for the GA.
The internet at the venue didn't work for the first hour and a quarter of the day, and then came and went during the day, so the course was 'cancelled' but we hung on and I ran through a condensed version of events... less time for ArcGIS Online in the afternoon, which is a pity.
Apologies once again to those who made the journey to London, and thanks to the delegates who hung on and persevered with the day for your kind feedback.

Thanks also to Catrin, who sent through one of the outcomes that she had produced following the course, based on Snowdonia, and with a series of tasks and questions with layers to turn on and off... Really nice work.

New Google Earth stuff...

Coming over the next few days, some new posts which are related to a course I'm leading for the GA twice in the next month...

Leicester is the first date next Thursday...
I'm updating materials to make sure it's as up to date as possible and has some new ideas from my teaching...

I'm also going to be demonstrating ArcGIS Online.
I'll refer to Digimap for Schools
I'll have QGIS with me on a laptop too...

If you can't be there, there are other other courses running - contact Lucy Oxley at the GA and ask here where they are, and request one near you...

See some of you next week

GA course postponed...

Apologies for those hoping to meet up with me in a month or so in London for the first of the year's Google Earth and Free GIS courses. The first course has not recruited enough delegates to go ahead, so will be cancelled - more dates available later in the year - the other dates that are available are included on this poster here:

See you in Leicester in January perhaps ?

QGIS - free course - take Google Earth a step further...

I've been running courses for the GA on 'Google Earth and Beyond' for some time now.... the beyond bit means moving towards Free GIS....

QGIS or QuantumGIS is open source software.
I used it to create the teaching materials for EDINA's MapStream service.

As a GIS package, this is capable of carrying out most of the same tasks as a package like ArcGIS.

It is also capable of acting as the host programme to run a WMS (web mapping service)

A WMS which you may be interested in Edina's MapStream - I have blogged about it previously (and recently) because of my involvement in creating the teaching resources.

While blogging this I remembered, and hunted out a set of resources for use with QGIS, which I got in 2008ish.
They were produced by the British Antarctic Survey, and provided a range of activities for exploring the South Pole and surrounding areas. They came in a spiral bound folder complete with various paper maps of the continent. I shall see where I might be able to fit some of those into my teaching.

For anyone who really wants to get to grips with QGIS, there is also a third option now.

A new set of materials created by Ian Allen @LearnPracGIS can be accessed HERE.

You can sign up for a free course. A Quantum GIS for Newbies eCourse.

Follow the link on the right hand side of Ian's page.

And keep an eye out for the GA's schedule of courses for the new academic year. They involve reruns of the various courses that I'm running including the Google Earth and beyond course....