Tivy Education Medal

The Tivy medal is not awarded every year, and is awarded for outstanding contributions to Geography and education.
Previous winners that I could find were:

2008 - Jim Carson

2009 - Erica Caldwell

2010 - Anita Ganeri

2011 - Scottish Association of Geography Teachers

At the recent Scottish Association of Geography Teachers' Conference, Mike Robinson - the Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society read out a citation describing the person judged to have been worthy of being presented with the medal this year, and it turns out it was me!
It was presented by Professor Iain Stewart, who is the President of the Society.

Along with the medal, there was a very nice certificate of honorary fellowship.

What was equally important to me was to read and hear the comments of others who were there, who appreciated the work that I've created, and shared over the years....

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 ?

New from Richard Treves...

Google Earth for Teachers resources.

As featured on GEarth Blog.http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2013/09/great-google-earth-resources-teachers.html

Go HERE to find introductory page to the online login.

Click ENTER AS GUEST and browse away...

The Checklist document is a useful one for those who want to develop their skills in a particular way, or create perhaps a Google Earth course, with certificate, for students to follow in their own time (or as part of prep or homework tasks...)

Check the YOUTUBE channel too...

Another really useful Google Earth link, and a useful reminder of some of the recent changes and updates.
Also read this to see how Google Earth has changed...

New sky diving game

Thanks to Keir Clarke for the link to the game.
You'll need to use CHROME to play it...

Sky dive onto famous landmarks, and steer between checkpoints and catch stars for points....

Give it a go...

Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase

Enhancing Fieldwork Learning is an HEA funded project, which explores the way that technology can enhance pedagogy in fieldwork in particular. There is a focus on data collection, and the use of mobile learning.

Last year, I went to the 2nd annual Showcase event of the project at Preston Montford Field Studies centre, and until recently I was due to attend the 3rd event at Rhyd Y Creuau

I gave a presentation last time on our work with Mission:Explore and the connections with ludic pedagogies...

This time I was going to talk about the DISTANCE project that we have been working on.
However, instead of making my way to Snowdonia yesterday, I was teaching, and instead of presenting at the FSC Centre today, I was marking Year 7 homework. All part of my transition back to teaching...

I've tweeted a few folks who are at the event, and from the sound of it there have been some excellent presentations and fieldwork excursions.
I've been following the event hashtag too: #eflshowcase

Follow the Twitter account too...

Some apps and other tools that I've been using for some years have been getting a mention, so good to know that I'm up to date here... Some further new ideas too. Some of the resources will also be shared on the website after the event hopefully...
A mention of GE Graph on here...

GA Google Earth and beyond course...

The details of the CPD courses being offered by the GA in the new academic year have been released, and are available for booking now.
Visit the website for details of all the courses.

I'm delighted to say that I will be leading the following days... at various venues around the country from the middle of November through to June 2014...
Hope to see some of you at one of these events...

News on the 3D Warehouse

I picked up this news earlier today via the Google Earth blog.
I've made good use of the 3D Warehouse and SketchUp for some years now... It's at least 6 years since I first started playing with SketchUp and this blog also features some awesome work by Noel Jenkins who has used it with his GCSE groups.

Here's the announcement:

“Hi folks,

With the goal to have every building in the world accurately displayed in 3D, we’ve explored different methods for modeling large areas of our planet in 3D, including technologies like SketchUp, Building Maker and lately 3D Imagery. We’ve decided that in order to pursue the most consistent user experience, we’ll be focusing our resources on the technology that will scale to the entire world and will be discontinuing support of the user generated 3D program.

We’d like to thank all of you who helped form the landscape of Google Earth and helped cities around the globe grow out of the 2D realm, and into the imaginations of virtual 3D explorers everywhere.

Models can still be uploaded to the Trimble 3D Warehouse, where they can continue to be shared with the modeling community, but they will no longer be published to Google Earth starting October 1st, 2013. Existing models will remain visible in Google Earth, until a time when they’re replaced by new models generated for that region. Google Takeout lets you download an archive containing all of your models.

On a personal note: I’ve had the good fortune of being involved in the 3D modeling effort for Google Earth from the beginning, and I’ve watched many of you create collections of amazingly detailed architectural wonders from every corner of the Earth. I’m very thankful to have been along for that ride and to have gotten to know many of you over the years.

With respect and appreciation,

- CraigD and the 3D Modeling Team”

Now it seems that there are changes to the way that 3D models created by people will be accessed.
It may be worth downloading some of the models that you think you will make use of now before they potentially disappear, or get harder to find and access.

For Sale: one slightly used web domain

In 2001, I created a website called 'Mr. P's Geography Pages' which was hosted on the free TRIPOD service.
A few years later, I moved it to web hosts 123Connect and it became 'GeographyPages'.

At the time, other than David Rayner's GeoInteractive and David Robinson's site there were very few Geography-specific websites. This was in the days of Netscape Navigator and dial-up modems chirruping away...

The site had a few thousand visitors a year, but quickly grew to over a million visitors and well over that in terms of page views.
I had to double the bandwidth, and then again and again....
The website still gets hundreds of thousands of visitors a year,  although I 'archived' it in 2008 when I joined the Geographical Association.

If anyone is interested, the domain name is for sale.... one slightly shop-soiled URL

(Not that I anticipate anyone will be for a moment....)

The site will be disappearing shortly, so grab your favourite bits while you can.
The end of an era...
And the start of another in a month's time....

Sail the Book

Contacted by Ira Bickoff from Hudson Valley, New York, with a link to a project that has been put together linking story telling about the Oceans and Google Earth.
Check out the work, which is nicely put together, and could be adapted for other authors and place contexts.
A number of books have been included, such as Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle.

Resources by Richard Treves

A useful Prezi, shared at recent event in Southampton, and also a link to a MOOC on Google Earth tools.

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....

GPS2Google Earth for Android

A useful looking app for displaying the places that you have visited on Google Earth.
Free on Google Play

Via the Spatial in Schools ScoopIt page, which has lots of other useful links...

Burj Khalifa

A brand new STREET VIEW gallery of the tallest building in the world.
And an explanation of how it was created..

Stourbridge models...

Just had occasion to visit Stourbridge in the West Midlands on Google Earth... it's a long story... and someone has been busy creating lots of models in the area....
Enable 3D buildings to see them...

Another simple idea for GE - this time from Tony Cassidy...

Uses the Google Earth overlay showing the Earth at night today when introducing North and South Korea http://t.co/l8jM5cEwv0
— tonycassidy (@tonycassidy) June 21, 2013