Archive for October, 2008

Reaching a wider audience - the cost of quality

Published on October 28, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

Innovation in technology and design means money and time. Nothing that Digital Explorer does is radically new nor are the methods we use different from what thousands of others are doing. So what’s the difference?

Quality.

I have watched YouTube videos that pupils have made. It’s always quite exciting to see which teachers have been secretly filmed. If you’re a teacher and never searched YouTube for your school, it can be quite revealing. The quality of these videos is pretty poor, and not just the content. Sound quality, framing, narrative, soundtrack, etc. are all out of the window. However, for a small group of people they are interesting and amusing. Quality in web video production gives you access to a greater audience.

There are blogs that I read that are easy to navigate, well laid out and full of interesting content. On some blogs, the design really adds to the content, giving a sense of place, ideas and inspiration. Others are truly shocking, full of garish fonts and mis-sized photographs, with dull headlines and lack of decent opening paragraphs. Again, unless you have a very particular interest in the person/people writing the blog or the content, you will not browse, but move on.

When Digital Explorer started, the inspirations were the model of the broadcast news journalist reporting from across the world, and the rigour of the professional expedition. Digital Explorer remains adamant that no compromise should be made in terms of quality, but that costs money.

A curriculum for the digital global citizen would include…

  • the skills to shoot, edit and upload a quality digital video (nothing more complicated than an establishing shot, a few interviews with proper framing and decent sound quality, and maybe an appropriate cut-away or three)
  • the skills to create or identify an engaging, appropriate and accessible online platform (blog, ning, social networking group or page, etc.) and the ability to write engaging content with a mix of digital media to back it up (photos, video and maps)
  • an appreciation and knowledge of digital mapping technologies and how they can help to inform and contextualise issues online
  • the ability to apply these skills to learning in Citizenship, English, Geography and Science taught curricula, so that any digital content has proper rigour in terms of research methods and young people understand how to create change

This curricula involves money and time. Who will build this capacity outside of the current taught curriculum? Where will the money for additional hardware come from? Who will link these new skills to local, national and global issues?

In the future, Digital Explorer wants to grow its current programmes to become a techno-eco-scout movement for the 21st Century.

Give young people the skills they need to become leaders.

We are failing them if we don’t.

ICT in Geography

Published on October 24, 2008 in education and technology. 0 Comments

ICT in secondary schools: a short guide for teachers, edited by David Mitchell and produced by the GA with the support of the RGS-IBG and Becta, outlines some of the most important ICT available for teaching and learning geography, both in and outside the classroom. Drawing on the work of geography teachers and what they find really works, each short chapter takes a separate area of technology and explains, in simple terms, its meaning, why it is helpful for teaching and learning geography, and practical steps to get started.

Digital Explorer’s work is highlighted in the section on Virtual Fieldwork, written by Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop.

Ofsted views support [de]’s work

Published on October 24, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

The Learning outside the classroom report by Ofsted published this month comes out in strong support of the value of learning outside the classroom in raising pupil motivation and attainment.

What was particularly good to see, was that some of the points raised by Ofsted directly support Digital Explorer’s work.

Learning outside the classroom was most successful when it was an integral element of long-term curriculum planning and closely linked to classroom activities.

This is exactly what the expedition to Dubai and Oman achieved, with every pupil at one school involved in curriculum learning in every subject based on the expedition.

The second section that supports Digital Explorer’s work:

Some schools have made an explicit link between the use of school grounds and education for sustainable development. They effectively promote pupils’ understanding that care for their immediate surroundings is the first step in caring for their planet [...] The survey showed that primary schools were more effective than secondary schools in using their grounds and locality to support learning about sustainability.

These findings were backed up by the recommendation that leadership and management need to:

[...] make better use of the grounds and immediate locality to promote learning outside the classroom

The manual on School Grounds Projects enables schools to do exactly this and is designed for the secondary curriculum.

Two great days’ training

Published on October 23, 2008 in education and technology. 4 Comments

Thank you to all the participants at the past two days’ training at the Royal Geographical Society. It’s been great getting the courses underway for the 2008/9 academic year.

I promised participants that I would post their work on the blog, but unfortunately some of the advanced work was lost with Google Earth being closed down before I could get to it.

Participant Google Earth files, RGS-IBG Course 21/10/2008

Participant Google Earth files, RGS-IBG Advanced Course 22/10/08

Please do comment with any more thoughts on how to apply the course content in the classroom or on expedition.

URGENT Help! Searching for the right video editing software

Published on October 20, 2008 in education and technology. 6 Comments

I have been searching for a couple of years now for the best video editing software to use on expeditions, both youth and school expeditions, as well as professional expeditions and field research.

The video editing software is the last piece in the puzzle.

So far, I have identified the following as the best in class for value and effectiveness for multimedia web communications from most places on the planet.

Now, I would love to use Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements as the media editing software, because…

Photoshop Elements allows for processing multiple files at the same time. This means that an expedition team could automatically resize and auto-adjust contrast, colour, etc. for all the images in one online gallery. All this can be done at the touch of a button.

Premiere Elements allows for multiple audio and video tracks, separation of audio from video, export to a number of file formats, but most importantly flv and gives a good range of flv export options as well as custom options for bitrate, frames per second and frame width / height and codec.

The problem with both these packages is the amount of memory they need, not only for the files, but also to operate. According to the system requirements, they also need 2GHz processor, 1GB RAM and a combined 6GB of hard drive space.

These are the kind of specs that are not likely to be found on solid state memory mini laptops such as the ASUS or indeed on rugged laptops such as the Panasonic Toughbook.

I’m stuck! Please help if you can.

PS over the weekend I have tested the following software to see if it delivers: Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, Cyberlink PowerDirector, Corel VideoStudio, Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 and Muvee Reveal and none quite hit the mark.

PPS I have just spoken to ASUS who have a more suitable laptop with the following specs:

Intel® Core™ Duo Processor U7500 : 1.06 GHz FSB: 533MHz, 2MB L2 Cache;

Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset + ICH8M

DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM, 2 x SODIMM socket for expansion up to 4GB SDRAM
*Due to the 32-bit operation system’s limitation, only 3GB will show up with a 4GB memory. The 64-bit operating system will not have this issue.

Free Google Earth Pro Licence for schools

Published on October 13, 2008 in education and technology. 2 Comments

Google have extended their US programme for free Google Earth Pro licences to UK schools.

Before you think about applying, please consider whether you really need the Pro version.

Visit the Google Earth product comparison chart to see which product is best for you.

The next step is to email Anna who works on Geo-Education for Google in California - geec@google.com. Anna will then send you some information about the programme and a questionnaire to fill in. At this point, you will also be prompted to download the 7-day free trial version of Google Earth Pro. Once Anna has received all the information, she will then be able to convert the trial into a year’s licence.

If you are looking for a entry-level GIS tool and are considering something like Google Earth, but would like to be able to integrate it with spreadsheets and GPS as well, then Google Earth Plus is probably best. It currently costs $20 per licence (good for two log-ins for a year). For more information about Google Earth Plus licenses see my previous post on the subject.

I am currently pushing for a site license for Google Earth Plus, which I hope will be pitched fairly reasonably.

Adventure racing and online gaming

Published on October 13, 2008 in technology. 0 Comments


As part of this year’s Volvo Ocean Race, the organisers have designed and built an online game in which you can join in a virtual race. I can now set the sails and plot the course for the good ship ‘Digital Explorer’ and use live wind speed data to influence my decisions as well as look at what the other competitors are up to.

I am currently languishing in 636th place, despite my best efforts to drop south to pick up more favourable winds.

It’s an interesting little model. Free to enter, really engaging and pretty simple, but with pay-for add-ons if you’re really serious.

Go on, join in and see if you can beat me. You can even befriend me! See you on the water.

Volvo Ocean Race Game
Volvo Ocean Race main site
Volvo Ocean Race tv site (interesting having a dedicated micro-site as a media library)

Environmental education - great use of Flash

Published on October 13, 2008 in education and technology. 1 Comment



The Forest Life site from European Forestry company, UPM, is a great example of using rich media to create an immersive educational environment. Full marks!

The geo-web: next steps

Published on October 12, 2008 in technology. 1 Comment

It has been a few years now since Google Earth first appeared on the scene. According to figures released by Google, over 350 million people have used the software. But how many of these users have moved beyond looking at their own house or perhaps researching a holiday destination? And how does the arrival of earth browsers (the generic name for software that displays virtual globes) change the way geographical information is represented?

One of the barriers to the full-scale use of Google Earth has been the need to download the software separately from your internet or web browser (software such as Internet Explorer or Firefox). This means that users will go to a website to view information, and then be redirected to download data in a separate application, with the associated 15-30 second wait for Google Earth to load.

Some of this has changed through the use of Google Maps and the ability to create bespoke maps and embed them in a web page using the ‘My Maps’ service. However, this takes away from the awesome 3D experience of Google Earth.

The most recent innovation has been the Google Earth browser plug-in, allowing for the full 3D world to be displayed within a web page. There is as yet no data as to how many downloads of the plug-in there have been. Educators and expeditions, as well as international NGOs must be hoping that the plug-in download may become as ubiquitous as browser plug-ins such as Flash and Java.

I am in two minds as to whether I think that the Google Earth plug-in should be an included download with other Google products. It is a really powerful tool, and yet I am reticent about software providers bundling products together. The other problem at the moment is that the plug-in is only available on PC. Mac users will have to wait, alongside anyone using Google’s new Chrome internet browser (oops!).

Let’s say by some time in 2009, the Google Earth plug-in will be installed on enough computers globally that we can start to make it a primary, rather than secondary mode of online communication. Where does that take us?

First, have a quick think about how much of the web content that you consume or produce is geographically located. Then, ponder how much better we can communicate what is happening in the world if instead of using the blank slate of a web page, we can start to use an interactive 3D globe as a starting point.

By using a 3D environment, web designers are not limited to placing the media we are all used to (video, photographs, text and graphics) but 3D models (using SketchUp) and 3D graphs come into play.

This development marks a exciting departure for expeditions (really take the online audience with you), education (the ability to use this new 3D world for anything from a decision-making and scenario-planning environment to locating news stories and lessons about our world), news (watch and read where it happened) and NGOs and development organisations (real-time media and statistics to encourage public involvement in development and disaster relief).

So what does geo-web 2.0 look like? We are already there in some ways. Google ‘My Maps’ allows users to create and share maps in the same way that Flickr allows users to share photos or YouTube enables video sharing. Maps have entered the media sharing/hosting aspect of web 2.0. Some blogs use geo-blogging plug-ins to show the location of a particular post on a 2D map.

The social networking side is lacking and it is in the sphere of MySpace, Facebook and friends that the real innovation and societal worth could be realised. It is accepted that we must act locally and yet think globally. The geo-web can become a tool that allows us to understand the world better and provide a platform for informed debate and action.

We can start to tell stories geographically, place media that ehance our understanding of the world and now place all these in a 3D global environment, and maybe in the not too distant future we will be able to add comments and interact more fully.

Take for instance the decision by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to plant 10,000 new trees in London. Wouldn’t it be great if Londoners had some say in the matter. Here’s my image of a beech tree planted on Columbia Road. Should other people have the same ability to choose the type of tree they would like and where it should go. Maybe my neighbours think it will block too much light and would prefer a shorter tree such as a rowan or willow. Can their voice be heard too? Or could I get a community group together and buy a tree online which the council would then plant?

The geo-web fully realised means a citizenship-based world, with communities making decisions about their lives and their environments using participatory technology. These stories can then be shared globally to create a web of information and positive action.

We have the technology, do we have the will?