EDINA / OS free access to Digimap for Schools scheme

A reminder that if you teach in a school in one of the more deprived area of the country, you can get free access to Digimap for Schools. 

This is not linked to the quality of provision in your school, but in your geographical location. I am told that many of the schools who are eligible for free access to Digimap for Schools - a saving of over £100 from your budget, have not yet signed up. Go here to check your eligibility.

New Digimap for Schools Webinar

Come and have a listen...

NEW WEBINAR ALERT! Looking into teaching #fieldwork with Digimap for Schools? Join us on the 27th at 4pm for a fantastic training session hosted by @GeoBlogs. Book your FREE ticket today! More details: https://t.co/yv50k3ZXgl #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/TybJDRU4rp

— Digimap for Schools (@Digimap4Schools) April 19, 2022

Digimap v2

Having an early play with this today. 
A new, improved version 2 of the GA Gold Award winning Digimap for Schools.

Information from Edina.

Digimap for Schools - the definitive global digital atlas for schools




The Digimap for Schools Team are pleased to announce the imminent arrival of a new version of their award winning schools service.

This new version has all the mapping products and functionality Digimap for School users are already familiar with (Ordnance Survey mapping, historical data and aerial photography for GB, drawing tools, image library, webinar and training support), but adds:

Global mapping
- incorporation of the beautiful and authoritative Collins Bartholomew World Panorama product providing a definitive global school atlas




- the same wonderful Ordnance Survey data for Great Britain and beyond GB for the rest of the world, detailed street level mapping from Open Street Map:





An updated and modern intuitive User Interface has been added - this is similar to the one on the DataNation website which is an optional upgrade for schools who don't already have Digimap for Schools perhaps. It also includes a useful additional option to find your location and zoom to it, rather than using the search, or drawing a rectangle as currently.





The new version of Digimap for Schools will be available from November 2019 at http://digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk

Access to the old version will remain available from the same address.
The existing Digimap for Schools version will remain supported until January 2021.
Schools resubscribing to Digimap for Schools before March 2020 will be able to chose between the old version and our new enhanced Global version.
From March 2020 subscribers will only be able to take our new enhanced service.
(Re)subscription will be on a rolling twelve month basis as is the case now. It will not be possible to subscribe to both new and old versions.

As always, the Digimap for Schools Team are happy to respond to any questions or concerns you may have over on the website.

New updated Mapstream page

A few years ago now, I wrote a whole suite of lessons for Edina's MapStream for Schools service. For those who don't know what this is, it's a streaming service for the Ordnance Survey's mapping. Unlike Digimap for Schools, which has a set of tools that come with it, this provides a stream of the maps themselves, which can then be visualised by another GIS tool, such as QGIS.

Check out the updated website… and the resources… and MapStream….

Digimap for Schools MapStream - WMS for Google Earth

At the start of the year I finished off a project with EDINA, who operate the Digimap for Schools MapStream service, in association with the Ordnance Survey.
This is a little like the Digimap for Schools tool, but without the tools...
Subscribers to MapStream will find that they have access to the Ordnance Survey's mapping at the same scale as Digimap, but the difference is that they stream them into their own GIS software using a WMS (web mapping service) - this works with open-source options such as Quantum GIS, but also ArcGIS and even Google Earth (I was amazed when I first saw this in action...)

One advantage of this option is that the maps are streamed to your GIS as an extra layer, so there is no data storage / installation issue. Having said that, you need a reliable and fairly fast internet connection if you want the maps of course. The cost is much cheaper than Digimap, but you need to use the tools in your GIS client, rather than the ones provided by Digimap. This may require extra time on training how to use your chosen GIS package.

If you head over to the site, you will now find that there are the first of what will be a series of educational materials for teachers, available for free download. These are particularly designed for subscribers to the MapStream service.
I wrote the materials, the cover of one is pictured to the right....
Check them out.
Subscription is just £35 a year for a primary school and £50 for a secondary school.

I will be referring to this, as well as other mapping options in my GA CPD days which will take place in Birmingham at the end of May and London at the start of June.