Using Google Earth - technical hitches and what to do

Published on November 12, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

This is a follow-up post to the recent Google Earth courses in London, Belfast and Edinburgh.

During these courses a number of technical issues arose that can present a barrier to implementing Google Earth successfully in the classroom. Here’s a list of the issues and what to do…

Installing Google Earth
Google Earth is free to download from earth.google.com. In Northern Ireland, the free version is available via C2K. In other areas, consult your school IT support. If your IT is managed by RM, there is a blueprint available from the RM website (this will make sense to your school IT support).

Using Internet Explorer to open images
I wrongly assumed that all Internet Explorer settings would be the same for opening images from the heard drive. If you cannot see the file path and name of the image you would like to insert into a placemark description when you use Internet Explorer, you will need to make the following changes:

  • in the top menu, select ‘View’ > ‘Toolbars’ > ‘Address Bar’
  • the ‘Address Bar’ may now appear in full or as a grey box in the top left hand corner
  • try to ‘drag’ the grey box down show it show in full
  • if this does not seem to work, right click the grey box and click on ‘Lock the Toolbars’ to remove the tick and try again

Google Earth slows up or the screen is grey
This is a network issue. If you have an important lesson with a class of pupils accessing Google Earth at the same time, you should warn your IT support in school in advance and they will help you manage the network to maximise your chances of a trouble-free lesson. If the screen does go grey, simply close Google Earth and restart the application (NB remember to save any work first).

Images show as grey boxes in placemark descriptions
This can be for a number of reasons. Check the manual and your notes to make sure that you have typed the correct code. It can also be because of ‘zip’ settings on your local network. KMZ files require Google Earth to ‘unpack’ the images associated with your KMZ files. There may be settings in place that will stop this from happening. These are in place as a number of computer viruses are sent as ‘zip’ files. Talk to your IT support if this seems to be a problem.

Complete meltdown, confusion or panic
Please do comment or contact Digital Explorer if you have any other problems.

Google Earth in the classroom

Published on November 12, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

I have just got back from running a Google Earth course in Edinburgh and two last week in Belfast. The next two weeks have two courses in Birmingham, two in Newcastle and two in Southampton.

I thought I would make things easier for teachers who have been / are coming on courses, by adding links to some previous posts about using Google Earth in the classroom and specifically about the whole Google Earth Plus / Pro license situation for UK schools.

Click here for the post about obtaining a free Google Earth Pro license for your school

Click here to read more about purchasing Google Earth Plus licenses for your school

If you would like access to resources connected to Google Earth training see the training pages.

There is also information, resources and a video about using Google tools to do fieldwork in the school grounds.

Thank you to all the participants over the past two weeks. There have been a few technical issues with using Google Earth in an educational networked environment and I will blog about these separately.

Here’s what course participants have created…

Participant Google Earth files, Belfast Course 04/11/2008

Participant Google Earth files, Edinburgh Course 11/11/2008

Please do comment with any more thoughts on how to apply the course content in the classroom or on expedition. Also, please comment with any suggestions about fieldwork areas that do not have high resolution imagery and could be updated to enable Google Earth to be used effectively. No promises about any changes, but I’ll pass the information on!

NEW Geo-blogging for gappers

Published on November 6, 2008 in education and technology. 0 Comments

Digital Explorer has developed a new course specifically designed for Gap year students on overseas projects and expeditions.

The course focuses on the use of free services such as blogger, youtube (or schooltube and teachertube), flickr and google maps, but takes these further and looks at how these can be used more effectively for creating a professional record of a gap expedition or project that can then be used for a variety of purposes, as well as looking at the use of technology in remote locations.

The course is ideal if you are looking to:

  • Create a multimedia record of your Gap Year
  • Involve family, friends and sponsors in your project or expedition
  • Have an online project or expedition CV for future funders
  • Use your Gap Year as an educational opportunity and share it with pupils and teachers at your former school

The course runs for a half-day on Wednesday 28 January 2009 and costs £55 (incl VAT) and can be booked with the Royal Geographical Society.

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. 3 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. 1 Comment

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)