Just putting the finishing touches to a guide for travellers and those going on expeditions and overseas projects on using blogs and other digital media tools to bring their journeys to new audiences online.
Decided to base it around the Blogger platform, this being the simplest, although would love to spend some time including more information on Wordpress (think this will be in a few months’ time).
Just wondering if there are any bits of advice out there, that you wished you’d had before making your first blog or any things that you would really like to know how to do.
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 video of Digital Explorer’s ‘Virtual Fieldwork Using Google Earth’ course is now on YouTube. Thank you to everyone who made the recent teacher training UK Roadshow possible: Kate Hammond and Ed Parsons at Google, Shane Winser and Lucy Bruzzone at the Royal Geographical Society, Will Evans at Just So Films and Marjan Shirzad here at Digital Explorer.
Just received a very nice note from the Geographical Association. I ran two sessions at their conference at the end of March and managed to pack in 55 geography teachers. We managed to make good progress especially given I had condensed the normal 6-7 hour course into 2 hours.
Anyway, they had some very nice things to say…
Excellent and inspiring new ideas
I have never realised the full potential of Google Earth as I have never had the time to sit and mess around with the computer for long enough. An excellent session with an excellent handbook to take back to school.
Great way to develop fieldwork in a very pupil friendly way. Have already used it in my teaching as a way of promoting appreciation of fieldwork.
Can be put in to use immediately - hopefully with out too much cash outlay!
Excellent tutor - good practical ways to use Google earth.
Well delivered, fast pace, interesting and appropriate skills being implanted
Thank you to Lucy at the GA for organising ever thing and if you would like to find out more about what happened at this year’s conference see the Geographical Association website.
The first in a series of 10 UK workshops supported by Google took place on Monday 12 November in Swansea. Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop was joined by 12 educators from South Wales to learn how to create virtual fieldwork using Google Earth.
It was great to be on the road and bringing this kind of training to educators who cannot get up to the courses in London. Duncan Hawley (Geography PGCE tutor at the Swansea Institute of Higher Education) was our host for the day, and made the excellent point of developing a deeper pedagogy for the work. Based on his feedback, we will look to develop a deeper range of links and resources on Digital Explorer’s Google Earth pages and host an online forum where educators from all over the UK will be able to discuss how they are applying the methodology in their classrooms and in the field.
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) hosts the world’s premier event for those wishing to lead their own expeditions and fieldwork. Explore will take place on the weekend of 24/25 November 2007.
The Explore weekend has been the starting point for many expeditioners. Some 200 participants are joined by over 50 ‘experts’ for the weekend. Panel discussions and talks range from:project management, field research techniques, fundraising health & safety, insurance and the logistics of living and working in rainforest, polar, marine, desert and mountain environments.
Some of the iNOMAD, Offscreen and Digital Explorer crew will be there speaking about education , new media and film.
Digital Explorer will be running ten free Google Earth courses for key influencers of geography teaching in LEA maintained schools. The courses will be taking place from October 2007 to March 2008. The courses are kindly sponsored by Google.
I am very excited, having found a great little programme developed by R. Sgrillo of the Cocoa Research Center in Ilheus, Bahia, Brasil.
We are currently developing a course that will demonstrate how to use this and other tools to build Google Earth into a useful platform for communicating field data.
Two new dates have been confirmed for the Google Earth Courses at the Royal Geographical Society: Monday 14 May and Monday 2 July.
To book a place contact Lucy Bruzzone at the Royal Geographical Society.
This practical workshop will show teachers and expedition organizations how to create virtual fieldwork using Google Earth as a template. It will involve hands-on experience with digital cameras and GPS units creating mini-fieldwork projects in Hyde Park. Participants will then be shown how this data can be transformed into a virtual journey using Google Earth.
Cost: £111.63 (£95 + VAT) includes course notes, lunch and refreshments. School Members, Fellows and Ordinary Members of the RGS-IBG are entitled to a 10% discount.
The Explore weekend has been the starting point for many expeditioners. Some 200 participants are joined by over 50 ‘experts’ for the weekend. Panel discussions and talks range from:project management, field research techniques, fundraising health & safety, insurance and the logistics of living and working in rainforest, polar, marine, desert and mountain environments.
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