Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Merry Christmas to all my readers...

Image by Ronald Lampitt

See you in 2009

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

More blogging to come in 2009....

Final addition.
New GOOGLE EARTH SNOW IN ALPINE SKI RESORTS LAYER - thanks to LatLong blog...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

South Ribble Network

Just been investigating the SOUTH RIBBLE materials on the CGEOG NETWORKING section of GEOGRAPHYTEACHINGTODAY.
Loads of good GOOGLE EARTH materials here....

Over 40 000 visitors....

Now well over 40 000 visitors to this blog.
Thanks for coming !
There's been quite an uptake in classrooms since the blog was started in the early days of Google Earth...

Geotagging your photos...

A very useful new post on GEOTAGGING images by David Holmes has been added to the GEOGRAPHYTEACHINGTODAY website in the fieldwork section.

Also a nice resource produced by Tom Barrett, who has been making some creative use of Google Earth for WRITING, and STORY TELLING....


Some ideas which hark right back to my GOOGLE EARTH classic from SAGT 2006....

Monday, November 17, 2008

SketchUp 7 launched

SketchUp 7 launched.




Via Lat Long Blog

Sunday, November 16, 2008

River Severn: Source to Sea

Another nice piece of work discovered via TWITTER.
David Noble has put together a SOURCE to SEA trip by Flight Simulator down the RIVER SEVERN...

Part 1


Part 2

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Climate Change

Climate Change layer from DEFRA
Climate Change impacts around the world...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Wildgoose Vista

Vista” – Our School Aerial Photography

Vista is brand new software from Wildgoose, an update of the “Aerial” software containing colour vertical aerial photography, site-centred on your school together with Land-Line data. The viewer allows the user to navigate around the image in any direction as well as zoom in or out to view the area at different scales.

Students can draw over the top of the photography, creating their own maps by adding symbols, lines, polygons, text and labels. This can be printed out with the photographic data or as a separate layer.

Scale bars, north arrows, and title information are shown.

Students can set up their own projects about the school and the local area to incorporate text, photographs, video and sound into user-generated hotspots.
Ordnance Survey Land-Line data can be overlaid on the photography.

4-6 or 8-figure co-ordinate references are displayed on screen together with Latitude and Longitude.

The software has many levels of functionality which makes it equally

Suitable for primary and secondary schools.

Wildgoose, Bluesky International Ltd
The Old Toy Factory
Jackson Street
COALVILLE
LE67 3NR
Phone: 01530 518568

Email: lynette@wildgoose.ac      Website: www.wildgoose.ac


Had demo of this yesterday. Good introductory GIS for Primary, Middle and Lower Secondary.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Google Earth as a GIS - 2



Something to explore: the SPREADSHEET MAPPER 2.0
The video takes you through the process step by step, or click the link for a tutorial page.

Google Earth as a GIS - some ideas - 1

This post has been made for a session that I am running at the Conference Centre, Priory Business Park, Bedford on Monday the 10th of November.
Here's the agenda for the day:
I am going to be using a range of materials - as you can see, I will be "standing on the shoulders of giants"....
More to come on my plans over the weekend as I pull things together...

Monday, October 27, 2008

Google Earth now available for the iPhone

The title says it all really....
Also on iPod Touch.




Thanks to Ollie Bray for the tip off on this one.

3 wonderful manuals for Google Earth

This is very helpful.
There are 3 manuals at Jamie Buchanan Dunlop's DIGITAL EXPLORER site now.
The first 2 are training manuals from Jamie's excellent courses, the third is a manual for using tools for doing FIELDWORK ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Google Earth Antarctica Food Web

Thanks to Jamie Buchanan Dunlop for passing on information about a new addition to the Discovering Antarctica website: a FOOD WEB ACTIVITY with Google Placemarks.
See it HERE.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Navigation Buttons in Placemarks

A couple of weeks ago, had a very interesting demo of Google Earth, and since then have been trying to find time for writing it up. While in the middle of doing that, I came across another interesting development.

This video by John Gardiner explains how to add navigation buttons into placemarks, so that users can work through a series of placemarks in order...



Going to have to have a go at this when I get a chance. One for February 2009 when I'm leading a Google Earth day....

Ollie Bray's SAGT Workshop

Ollie Bray is presenting a workshop at SAGT at the weekend

Here's the blurb from the Conference programme:

The ‘How To….?’ of Google and Geography
Ollie Bray, Deputy Head Teacher at Musselburgh Grammar School

Following the success of previous SAGT Conferences Ollie Bray returns and continues to pick up the theme of ‘small ideas change things’. This year’s presentation will focus on the use of Google Maps and Google Earth in the classroom.

This will not be an Advanced Google Earth Workshop although conference delegates wanting to find out more about GPS and Google Earth tours will be shown a number of examples and sent in the right direction. The main focus of this presentation is to show how Google Earth and Google Maps can be used in practically every Geography lesson. The seminar will include lesson starters, assembly ideas, assessment methods, plenary sessions, hacks, mashups and problem solving activities. Most importantly the session will share developed, tried and tested ideas that have been used, experimented with and successfully evaluated from P6 – S6.

Studies of Google Sky, Google Earth Layers, Google Street View, the Google 3D Buildings and Google Custom Maps will also be covered.

As with previous conferences Ollie will link the presentation into the experiences and outcomes of A Curriculum for Excellence and explore how the concept of place does not just fit into the Social Subjects outcomes.
All delegates will have access to a comprehensive on-line handout and be given the opportunity to carry on the discussion via an on-line community after the conference.
__________

Ollie Bray is Deputy Head Teacher at Musselburgh Grammar School & Geography subject support coordinator for East Lothian. He has won numerous awards for classroom practice & project development, including a Royal Geographical Society Innovative Teaching Award, two Learning and Teaching Scotland ICT Enhancement Awards & a Microsoft / SQA Partners in Learning Award. He has contributed to the publication of four textbooks and various other on-line and off line resources. Recently he became one of the first teachers in Scotland to be appointed as a CEOP Ambassador (Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency). Ollie is a member of the Association of Outdoor Learning, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a full member of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors (AMI). His learning log can be found at www.olliebray.com




Check out OLLIE'S BLOG after the event for all the details, and the presentation that he will use.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Web 2.0 makes a difference, and some new Noel

Since I started all this blogging and social networking thing, various people have questioned its value, and although I knew that it made a difference it was hard to 'quantify' that difference...

A BECTa report into the value of these tools has now been published...

Becta has published major new research into the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, blogs and social networking, by children between the ages of 11-16, both in and out of the school environment.

The reports found that young learners are prolific users of Web 2.0 technologies in their leisure time but that the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom was limited. However, schools and teachers who are innovating in this area have found benefits, such as:

* Web 2.0 helps to encourage student engagement and increase participation – particularly among quieter pupils, who can use it to work collaboratively online, without the anxiety of having to raise questions in front of peers in class – or by enabling expression through less traditional media such as video.
* Teachers have reported that the use of social networking technology can encourage online discussion amongst students outside school.
* Web 2.0 can be available anytime, anywhere, which encourages some individuals to extend their learning through further investigation into topics that interest them.
* Pupils feel a sense of ownership and engagement when they publish their work online and this can encourage attention to detail and an overall improved quality of work. Some teachers reported using publication of work to encourage peer assessment.

The research also found that over half of teachers surveyed believe that Web 2.0 resources should be used more often in the classroom. However, the majority of teachers questioned had never used Web 2.0 applications in lessons, despite being frequent users of technology in their personal and professional lives. Their main concerns involved a lack of time to familiarise themselves with the technology and worries about managing the use of the internet in class.

The reports recommended that teachers should be encouraged to help learners to develop more sophisticated use of Web 2.0 technology and to give them the skills to navigate this space.

Tony Richardson, Executive Director Strategy and Communications, said:

"Some schools and individual teachers have been very innovative in developing their use of Web 2.0 to support learning. However, clearly teachers need the support, time and space to develop skills and practices that will allow them to integrate Web 2.0 into lessons. The report shows that the impact that Web 2.0 can have on the motivation and engagement of pupils. We need to ensure that these benefits are extended to all learners."
All very encouraging, and in many Scottish schools, as was apparent at last week's Scottish Learning Festival, this was flourishing...
Down here in England, perhaps less so. There are some innovators out there...
I'd like to work with those innovative geographers and gather some examples of how people are making use of the social web tools to engage learners.
Please get in touch if you would like to showcase something that YOU do....

Check out NOEL's DIGITAL GEOGRAPHY blog where he has 2 new posts on how to use Google Earth to teach SPHERE OF INFLUENCE...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Google Earth Gallery - have you seen all of these ?

Some nice features and mash-ups on the GOOGLE EARTH page.

I like the quote on one of the sections that suggests that 80% of the world's data has a geographical element. Is that all ?

Check out some of these:
  • World Oil Consumption (very useful graphical representation on the world map)
  • An international flights animation
  • Rising sea level animation
  • City of London timeline
  • Night lights of the world
  • Dengue Fever movement (one for those who have disease as an area of study) in Singapore, and the Singapore Grand Prix
  • Real time earthquakes

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ollie's UPDATES

Check in at OLLIE BRAY's BLOG for the latest additions on how to make more use of GOOGLE EARTH.
Great ideas for all educators.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Ollie and Noel at Google in London

An interesting post on Ollie's BLOG about a trip to Google in London and their plans to further support UK Geographers.
Some exciting times ahead hopefully !
Don't be evil...


UPDATE: and Richard too.....

Check out the work that Richard refers to by reading the comment that he added to this post...

Monday, September 08, 2008

Sea Level Rise tool...

Thanks to the folks at RIDO for passing this on to me today..

I'm not certain that it's 100% accurate...
If anyone wants a copy, drop me an e-mail...



Thursday, September 04, 2008

INVISIBLE PATHS

A little tip via the latest issue of SIGHTSEER.

You can create a tour that follows an invisible path. This is helpful if you want create a movie that follows a very specific route, but do not want to show a path or any placemarks. Just create a path with the color opacity set to 0% and play a tour that follows that path.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

New Google Earth Training

Being offered by the RGS (as included in the latest CGeog newsletter)

Google Earth training

FREE Google Earth training for LEA Maintained schools

Google™ has kindly sponsored 10 courses to be run throughout the UK allowing teachers to attend free training sessions. Who is eligible? Key influencers in geography teaching from LEA maintained schools are invited to attend.

Belfast Monday 3 November 08

Edinburgh Tuesday 11 November 08

Birmingham Tuesday 18 November 08

Newcastle Thursday 20 November 08

Southampton Wednesday 26 November 08

Manchester Date tbc 2009

Exeter Date tbc 2009

Glasgow Date tbc 2009

London (RGS-IBG) Date tbc 2009

Cardiff Date tbc 2009

Free of charge - but please note that if you accept a place on one of these courses and subsequently do not attend you will be charged the full price of a standard course. Booking form available at http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/Training+and+CPD/Fieldwork+and+expeditions/Google+Earth+training+for+teachers+and+educators.htm

FREE Advanced Google Earth training for LEA Maintained Schools and all CGeogs

The RGS-IBG Chartered Geographer (Teacher) scheme, funded by DCSF, has sponsored courses to be run throughout the UK to allow teachers to attend free training sessions. Who is eligible? Key influencers in geography teaching from LEA maintained schools are invited to attend along with Chartered Geographer (Teachers) from both Independent and maintained schools.

Birmingham Wednesday 19 November 2008

Newcastle Friday 21 November 2008

Southampton Thursday 27 November 2008

Free of charge - but please note that if you accept a place on one of these courses and subsequently do not attend you will be charged the full price of a standard course. Booking form available at http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/Training+and+CPD/Fieldwork+and+expeditions/Google+Earth+training+for+teachers+and+educators.htm or email c.wheeler@rgs.org for details

Google Earth Training for Teachers and Educators, Tuesday 21 October 08, London

Coordinated by Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop, Digital Explorer

A hands-on workshop that demonstrates how GPS and digital cameras can be used to capture geo-referenced data on a field trip and used to create classroom resources using Google Earth.

Cost: £141 incl VAT includes notes, lunch and refreshments. Details: T 020 7591 3030 E go@rgs.org W www.rgs.org/GOseminars

Advanced Google Earth Training for Teachers and Educators, Wednesday 22 October 08, London

Coordinated by Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop, Digital Explorer

A hands-on workshop that demonstrates how to integrate field data into Google Earth, creating geo-referenced graphs as well as choropleth maps that can be used in the classroom.

Cost: £141 incl VAT, free to Chartered Geographer (Teachers). Includes notes, lunch and refreshments.

Details: T 020 7591 3030 E go@rgs.org W www.rgs.org/GOseminars


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Placespotting

Placespotting

Just had an e-mail from Martin Fussen to tell me about PLACESPOTTING: a site that allows you to create your own map based quizzes...

Go to the website and click CREATE.
Move and zoom the map until it shows an interesting place. Provide some hints for the person / friend who will try to solve the puzzle (a number of hints can be provided) and a message that they will see if the riddle is solved. After saving the quiz you can send it by mail to a friend or embed it in your homepage as a picture. The task is to find the place shown in your picture on a second google map.
The website has 6638 different quizzes stored. 108274 quizzes were solved and
927275 opened.

Looks worth checking out and creating a few quizzes.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Tour de France Street View

The route of the Tour de France 2008 can now be seen in STREET VIEW.
Go HERE for the images and maps.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Norfok Geography Conference

Did a session at the Norfolk Geography Conference yesterday, and presented an update of some ideas on using Google Earth from a session I ran 2 years ago...
Below is my presentation, minus the videos...

Friday, June 20, 2008

Norfolk Geography Conference

Norfolk Geography Conference
Monday 30th June

Stonehenge! 'Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise with a dragon's face
Stonehenge! Where the virgins lie
And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky






This is a trail for the Norfolk Conference, at the PDC in Norwich, which has a keynote session by Sarah Watts.

I am offering a 55 minute session (ish) - you know I always over-run....

I have decided to mention a few new ideas for using Google Earth and also showcase a lesson designed by Noel Jenkins from Digital Geography.

This will go through the process of curriculum development that I hope will inspire the folks who come to my session to see how they can take an idea for a lesson and "run with it" and use a few of the new website tools to make it a little more creative and engaging...

Will also mention the guide made available at Digital Explorer by Jamie Buchanan Dunlop.

Will also be mentioning my new favourite website: WORDLE.

Also coming up is the new THEMATIC MAPPER tool, which was also picked up by Mark Batchelor on SLN...

Here's one that was made earlier with the TOOL (or ENGINE)
It shows mobile phone subscriptions...



Also the GOOGLE CODE API, which I had a play with a while ago, and was mentioned by Tom Biebrach. Here's the details on that as an embedded video:

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Google Earth Update at Norfolk Geography Conference

Will be delivering a session at this conference, which will be held at the Professional Development Centre, Woodside Road, Norwich on the 30th of June.
I will be demonstrating some of the newer features in updates like 4.3

The session will be an update of one that I ran back in 2006 for Norfolk colleagues, when I ran through some of the features.


Here is a video from the Google Earth website which explains some of the new features:



The session is called: "Google Earth: Paths, Polygons and Pedagogy". It will cover a number of areas:
  1. Paths (and fly along) / Tours
  2. Polygons (zoning of areas)
  3. Adding images to placemarks
  4. GE Graph (basic introduction)
  5. How to use some of these features as a GIS type resource
Will post more resources and materials nearer the time. Have a number of other projects to work on before then...

Friday, May 23, 2008

DFID, DEFRA and Met Office explore Climate Change Impacts around the world...

Thanks to Ewan Laurie for this tipoff via SLN.

It's a set of resources for Google Earth produced by DFID: the Department for International Development.

A series of files explores climate change impacts around the world:

People in developing countries are already being hit hard by changes in the weather. Visit Climate Change In Our World to find out how, from Ghana to Guatemala, poor people are trying to cope with disasters such as drought, floods and melting glaciers.

You can also read our stories from around the world here:

- Nepal: Watching the glaciers melt – first hand

- Nepal: Surviving mud and landslides

- Bangladesh: River island living

- Bangladesh: Life, land and property devastated by Cyclone Sidr

- Mozambique: Droughts, floods and higher temperatures bring more disease to city life

- Ghana: Destroyed by floods and droughts

- Guatemala: Drought, mud slides and later harvests add to hardships in remote highlands

- India: Trapped by drought and debt

- Malawi: Flood-hit children start taking action

- Sudan: Conflict and climate change

Download a KML file, and you can explore the earth with an overlay of expected climate change.


Explore and learn about the impacts of climate change and find out how you can make a difference with Climate Change in our World. The Met Office Hadley Centre, British Antarctic Survey and UK Government have harnessed Google Earth technology to present you with an interactive animation showing how climate change and global temperature rises could affect our world over the next 100 years.

Once you have opened this KML, click on the icons to find out more about how people around the world are already being affected by changing weather patterns and see the predicted effects of climate change across the globe between now and 2100.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

New Job and Digital Explorer course...

It's official, so I can tell everyone now...
This was me at the Advanced Google Earth day put on by Jamie Buchanan Dunlop at the RGS-IBG yesterday. Thanks to Yvonne, my partner for the day ...

Any idea what's going on here ? Answer to come shortly...

Here's another clue....

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Off to the RGS

Anyone else going to Jamie Buchanan Dunlop's session on Tuesday of next week ?

This course is designed for people who have already attended the introduction course or are regular advanced users of Google Earth. It will cover how to integrate field data into Google Earth, creating geo-referenced graphs as well as choropleth maps that can be used in the classroom.

The weather looks like being nice for it...
I'll report back after the event.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Up to 100 000 people killed ?

By Flickr user TZA (Creative Commons) - image credit Google and associated imaging partners

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Google Earth new version

It's already been blogged about in loads of places, but there is a new version of Google Earth which adds Street View, imagery dating, day-night shadows etc...
Ollie Bray has produced a useful post summarising the key points, so I'll leave it to him to tell you. Click the link to discover the latest...

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Google Earth INSET Courses

The DIGITAL EXPLORER site has kindly made available a range of training materials, and also some example resources made by people who have attended their training courses.
Thanks to Jamie Buchanan Dunlop for this. I'm going to be attending one of these courses which has been organised for Chartered Geographers later in the year.

The HANDBOOK is excellent !
Many thanks.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

100th Post

This has been a while coming...

The first item in this post is the completion by Mark Beaumont of his round the world cycle trip. It is not too late to support
The 195 day trip was followed by Scottish geographer Val Vannet, who posted a daily update of where Mark was that day, using Google Earth and a range of other resources to locate him, and check out the amazing geography of the place that he was travelling to...
Check out the ARTEMIS web site, and the GEOBLOGGING WITH MARK blog, which is being labelled up, so that you can use it to explore the world.
Why not MAKE A DONATION to Mark's charities if you haven't already.

Also check out some great resources at the THINKINGEOGRAPHY blog of Dr Andrew Lee, who currently teaches in China. This includes the recent addition of a superb new resource using Google Earth in an exciting and original way, which I have missed out on using this year as I have just finished my China unit, but would be good to have some additional materials for next year.
This is the LIFE TRIPS WITH GOOGLE EARTH section.

Here's the description from the website:

LifeTrips with GoogleEarth is a new website attached to a Wikispace which allows you to look at the lives of people in different cities. Using Google Earth it tracks the day paths of people who live throughout the world and helps people connect with people in their own city, or in a city across the world.

The site can be visited by anyone, though school students, in association with their teachers may contribute to the site by registering, and then publishing material to the wikispace.

This website provides an index for the Wikispace in which the site’s assets reside.

LifeTrips with GoogleEarth is an invitation to communicate.

Check out the movies on people who live in BANGKOK, and the instructions are also provided on the website. This is a super resource.

Also has a great blog, with posts such as THIS ONE.

One to check out...

Friday, January 18, 2008

FSC Fieldwork Sites

Noticed tonight that certain of the Field Studies Council Study Centres have a Google Earth file to show the fieldwork locations that they use.

Here is an image from the Slapton Ley centre...
I visited this in the 1980s as part of my degree, and have also visited 3 or 4 of the others over the years...

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Creating Graphs and then placing them in Google Earth

Noel J has posted about the new graphing application that has been made available by Frank McAree of Alcester Grammar School.
The application offers the chance to create easy graphs which can be viewed in Google Earth. It can be downloaded from HERE.
The code generates a graph which can then be tagged to a particular location in Google Earth.

Check it out. This has a few possible uses as a basic GIS for plotting values for coursework / enquiries.

Nice work all round.
Will investigate adding to this to the relevant page of the website.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Coming up to 100 posts....

What has been the most exciting use you've made of Google Earth in the Geography classroom. Which example has 'clicked' with the students the most, or what has been the best piece of work that has been produced by a student ?
Add a comment below.
Happy to showcase work that is sent to me...

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers....

Here's one way to spend £1 million...