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Posts tagged Google
Embedding Google Maps on Your Blog or Website
Aug 18th
This is a pretty straight forward process, but it also can have a variety of different outcomes depending on which map you want to display. It is useful to know these options to offer a richer visual experience on your blog or website.
Here is the basic run through:
- Navigate to the location on Google Maps that you want to embed elsewhere.
- Click on the LINK button above the map.
- You can take the second link of HTML to embed in your blog – this is the default size 450 by 350.
- Useful to note here that this is iframe code which doesn’t work well in Wordpress (or Edublogs for that matter) – so if you have a Wordpress blog write your blog post in the Visual editor and when you are ready switch to HTML editor, paste your code and then publish straight away. If you switch back to the Visual editor the code will get stripped out and your map will vanish.
Customise your map for embedding:
- Hitting the Customise and preview embedded map link will give you a bunch of options and allows you to refine exactly what you want embedded.
- The map sizes you can choose from are Small, Medium, Large and a Custom option for you to define the exact size.
You in fact have four different choices for the style of map you can use at this point.
Earth = Google Earth (plugin needed)
Ter = Terrain style
Sat = Satellite imagery
Map = Map
For a fifth and sixth option you can combine the Satellite or Earth imagery with the Maps labels, a little rollover on each button.
Here are the examples of the different maps that you can display embedded below, plus an extra bonus. I particularly like the Google Earth choice that provides that functionality to any user, they of course need the GE browser plugin which is available on Flock, IE, Firefox and Chrome.
GOOGLE EARTH
GOOGLE EARTH and MAP
TERRAIN
SATELLITE
MAP
SATELLITE and MAP
STREETVIEW
To embed Streetview just drag the little Orange pegman to the map and find your preferred Streetview, then just follow the process explained above, easy. You can always alter the view on the Customise page if you need to.
The location of these maps is the Angel of the North. It is worth looking out for these special locations where Streetview goes offroad and follows footpaths to get up close to various monuments or unique locations.
There you go, seven different types of maps to embed in your blog or website – I hope you found this little guide useful.
My Dad Doesn’t Google
Aug 15th
We have been spending some time with my Dad who has been visiting us from Australia. During his stay with us I realised, more than usual, how the internet makes no impact on his life. It led me to think through the behaviours that many of us have grown accustomed to.
I kind of get the impression that members of his generation either made a choice to have a computer and so eventually to use the internet, or indeed let it pass them by. My Dad worked in insolvency for many years, times of tape dictaphones and typists. His business offices were all about paper information and it was physically organised. I remember book keeping – spreadsheets must have been a sight for sore eyes.
Dad lives in South Australia for most of the year now and enjoys writing letters to us about all of his adventures. His penmanship is fantastic and I always enjoy reading them. It almost feels strange to hold a personal message for me, handwritten with a fountain pen. Usually his missives are two or three pages of A4. We may have learned to communicate via 140 characters (or less) but what has that restriction done to old fashioned letter writing? What have we given up?
I was lucky enough to have Google Voice Search demonstrated to me by the mobile Product Manager at the Teacher Academy in London. It works really well and with the new Froyo 2.2 update will allow you to control much of your phone with just your voice. I showed Dad and tried it with the search term “Best restaurants in Adelaide”. As the phone recognised what I had said and immediately displayed a map with the eateries he was pretty impressed. Then he went through the list and said, “Eaten there, yes and that one, and that one, enjoyed the starters there…” He hadn’t done such a search but had probably visited these places in his own journey to find out the restaurants he enjoys. Perhaps they were recommended, but I can safely say he wasn’t swayed by a single online review. What experiences he must have enjoyed exploring those places. His opinion probably contradicted that of some reviews – good that he hadn’t run that search after all, perhaps he would have missed out. How much do we truly make up our own mind these days?
If we so choose, we can control a deluge of information and news to come to us, on our mobiles, on our televisions. A constant feed or stream. Every day Dad heads to the shops to buy the newspaper. That is his way of gathering the daily news, from the printed press. The obvious criticism is of course that it is from one source, but what must he gain everyday from his journey to gather it? Would you walk somewhere to pick up a blog update? The physical act of collecting it is an investment, everything is a click away for us, we don’t invest in the gathering of information in the same way – we can pick it up and drop it just as quickly. It is the impact of this on the information sources themselves that is the most intriguing.
Every evening/morning he listens to the radio, well he calls it the “wireless” – my “wireless” is no less important to me.
The crossword he does is the cryptic one, you know the really tricky one. He doesn’t jump on Google at the first sign of trouble but puts it to one side and gets a cup of tea. He lets the information brew as well and slowly he forms connections with something he read here, a past crossword clue there or a fact he knew. It might take a few moments or a few hours but suddenly he would let out a victorious serendipitous yelp as he figures it out. Not a search query in sight other than his own synaptic workout. Sometimes he finished the puzzle, sometimes not, but he has probably on average 18-24 moments of serendipitous victory a day. That can only be good for your brain.
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It has been interesting to make these comparisons in internet and non-internet use, however I wouldn’t change the way I interact with it now. It offers me a great perspective on my self and my work. It allows me to connect to others both near and far. I can find out stuff without really trying, I don’t even need to type.
But my behaviours raise questions too – do we have a stronger sense of self nowadays or are we too reliant on our networks, connections to others and “you may also like”? Can we form genuinely unbiased opinions of products and services, restaurants and experiences with the internet? Do we need to? Will the good in life always rise to the top of the web? There are things we don’t consider important anymore because we can Google it – surely the journey to the papershop can be just as important as what we collect.
Thanks Dad for causing me to think this through.
I say more yelps of serendipity please.
Bringing the Google Teacher Academy to the UK
Aug 6th
Did you not hear it back in April? It would have been about 7.15 in the morning on April the 15th. It would have sounded like someone whooping with delight (and yes perhaps the sound of feet doing a little jig) as I found out that Google were going ahead with a UK based edition of their Teacher Academy.
There was some serious grinning on the way to work that day.
On July 29th 2010 the first ever Google Teacher Academy outside of the US took place in London, it was the culmination of over 2 years of perseverance and “mild harassment” as Cristin Frodella, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Apps for Education, put it.
Ever since 2007/2008 when I began seeing US teachers sharing their ideas and experiences at teacher academies I began my mini campaign to bring it here. After all there was a huge community of teachers in UK and Europe who were busy innovating with Google tools in the classroom. I felt that it was only right that we had the same opportunity to celebrate and champion our successes.
Sadly taking the GTA outside of the US wasn’t possible back then and as I have realised more recently Cristin has had to show her own perseverance to continue to run the event for teachers in the US. Nevertheless I continued to send the emails.
Samantha Peter who works in London for the Ed Apps Marketing Team was the main target and she has been fantastic in helping me to continue to push for the event here. She helped to setup a meeting with Cristin at BETT 2010 and they were able to put a face to all of the emails. To cut a long story short Cristin later emailed me on April 15th with the good news.
On a personal level it was amazing to help bring the Teacher Academy to the UK and to be part of the planning team that did it. But I was a participant too – the GTA was new to me, and the event was special in its own right. Different than anything I have worked on or attended before.
We all feel we want to make a contribution to the communities we work in and I consider this to be one of my most important.
The cohort was truly international and was also made up of a large UK contingent who never stopped innovating or making learning exciting for kids in their classes just because the Teacher Academy wasn’t coming to our shores. Some of them will no doubt be part of the next event.
The style was one of positive urgency – that we were going to use every valuable moment to learn something new. Not a second was wasted. This was clearly a very different professional development event, of which UK teachers had never likely seen before.
I am sure it will be the first of many more to come. If not then “Compose Mail” is only a click away.
Google Maps Session at #GTAUK
Aug 1st
During the Google Teacher Academy UK I ran a 30 minute session on Google Maps. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a training session but hopefully allowed the participants the chance to briefly play with Maps and also to think about how we could use Maps in a different way.
Here are some of the highlights:
Overview
10 minutes
- San Francisco map from 1915 – mapping has come a long way. 95 years of progress.
- Classroom ideas – Google Streetview, seeing Tom teaching PE, exploring Whitby Harbour and Abbey during work on Dracula with Year 6.
- Classroom ideas – James and the Giant Peach, using the map to tell a story.
10 minutes
- Activity time – add a placemark and continue the story in the Story Map
10 minutes
- Practical thoughts about classroom use
- Mashup Magic – some examples of the API use
Presentation
Google Maps GTAUK Page
One of the strongest elements of the Google Teacher Academy is the huge resource that has been accumulated on the GTAUK wiki. Each presenter has had a page that they have populated with a vast amount of links and all sorts of resources for people to explore further. Here are a few of mine and be sure to explore the rest on my Google Maps page.
Mashup Magic:
- Geotag your Pictures - http://www.panoramio.com
- Geotag your old Pictures - History Pin
- Over 120 historical maps in the Google Maps Rumsey Historical Maps
- Scribbling + Maps = ScribbleMaps
- RadarVirtuel – real time European air traffic
Google Maps in Other Languages:
- Chinese Maps - http://ditu.google.cn/
- French Maps - http://maps.google.fr/
- German Maps - http://maps.google.de/
- Spanish Maps - http://maps.google.es/
- Italian Maps - http://maps.google.it/
- Russian Maps - http://maps.google.ru/
Google Maps beyond Earth:
Activity: Story Maps
On the wiki I have outlined two different activities for the participants to look at but with little time to explain them we used the Story Map idea. I gave a simple story starter in a placemark on Westminster Bridge in London:
It was exactly where they said it would be. The Thames swirled below me from a passing barge as I lifted it too my chest.
The bridge seemed quieter than usual, and yet I could feel eyes watching. Which way now? I needed to get moving. I had already spent too long.
I turned and pressed on.
The participants would then choose from a number of story paths I had drawn on the map using the line tool, adding placemarks and continuing the story. It was a simple idea that showed the collaborative potential of maps that is often overlooked. You can see our efforts below.
View GTAUK – Story Map in a larger map
Mashups
One of the last things that I showed was the amazing Kinomap that allows users the ability to map a video route such as a bike ride or a run. I showed a cyclist doing a tour of the Googleplex – well worth a look. (It also has a mobile app you can download)
An amusing diversion
If I could do it again?
There are a couple of features of Google Maps I wanted to emphasise and demonstrate more clearly, time was a little tight and I probably didn’t do them justice.
Distance Measurement Tool – can be added from the Labs link at the top and appears in your maps “Created by Others”. It is really useful as a comparison of units of measurement. It even has Smoots, which the GTAUK planning team spent a bit of time talking about the day before the event.
URL Shortener – the links provided for Maps is always really long. Again from Labs there is the URL Shortener. But the trade off is that you lose the option to grab the embed code.
Place Pages – recently added to the mobile version of Maps, it is really handy to have a single page of information about landmarks and search results. From a search result placemark look for the More Info link – it is a single web page summary about that place pulling in photos and information from other sources. Useful for classes when they are doing any type of research.
Collaborate - each map gives you options to collaborate with others. From the top of your map find the Collaborate button on the left, opposite the Edit button.
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I hope that those of you who were with me in the sessions enjoyed them and took away something you could use in the classroom – and for those who weren’t, that there is something in this blog post or in the wiki to instigate some ideas. Please let me know.
Google Teacher Academy :: London, UK :: 29th July 2010
May 20th
London to NYC: Swim the Atlantic…
I am so excited to finally be writing about this! Just as the English school Summer holidays are beginning, teachers and educators in Europe will have the opportunity to share their great ideas and exceptional implementation of Google Tools in the classroom.
For almost 3 years I have been running my own mini campaign to bring the Google Teacher Academy (GTA) to these shores. I recall sending numerous tweets, emails and messages to organisers, certified teachers and attendees at US teacher academies, urging them to ask about a UK event. They asked on my behalf and I thank them for raising the flag for me so many times, and putting up with my pestering.
I took every opportunity to press the need for something in the UK as I was experiencing and reading about so much good practice that centred on the use of Google tools. And I have done for the last 3-4 years.
Unfortunately my wishes seemed to be falling on ears that were unable to help:
“We have many requests for Google Teacher Academies to be held in other countries, however we are unable…”
However my determination was reinforced with the GTA UK Google Group and the support shown for it. I was fortunate enough to meet with Google at BETT this year and took the idea of a GTA UK on another step, which has eventually led to this announcement.
Back in November 2008 I wrote about some of my frustrations, and why a GTA in the UK was (is) a good idea,
50 certified trainers in the UK and Europe taking innovative ideas with them back to their schools, districts and counties would help other teachers to begin to better understand Google tools and the potential they have. Admittedly Google tools are not the only thing available, but in my opinion used in the right way they hold a strong place in any classroom toolkit.
I cannot wait to see you all on July 29th at the Google offices in London to share your stories, innovations and ideas. Let’s make it a great one. Good luck with your applications.
3 Educational Web Applications I’d Like to Make
Feb 19th
I am sure you have had moments when you discover your inner inventor too. Here are three web based applications I have much pondered and if I had more time, money, expertise would probably have made by now.
The old Story – A2 by h.koppdelaney
Attribution-NoDerivs License
StoryBook Earth
Inspired by my work on storytelling using Google Earth and WeTellStories, StoryBook Earth would be a place to share, develop and create geotagged stories. When we write or tell stories we are picturing a location, a setting. In combining the imagery of Google Earth, the ability to add text, audio and even further media to specific places, you have a powerful storytelling form.
StoryBook Earth would develop the idea of “story” and “narrative” and to connect students in different parts of the world. It would also be an attempt to explore how the local becomes the global: to provide an appreciation of students in other parts of the world. It would provide an alternative way of “seeing” and “reading” the world, and possibly introduce students to young people who have experienced:
- Very different lives and personal circumstances
- Conflict
- Natural hazards
- Different climates and natural environments
- Alternative cultures and traditions
I remember watching a 9 year old in my class tell a story to a friend whilst looking at his street in Google Earth, there is something very immediate about such narratives – similar in part to historical walks that explain a story in the places they occurred.
In partnership with the Geographical Association, StoryBook Earth was entered into the Google GeoChallenge grant application process but unfortunately was rejected.
(Thanks to Alan Parkinson at the GA for all his help developing this idea.)
On the platform, reading by moriza
Attribution License
My Reading Diary
In our school the children use little paper reading diaries, similar I am sure to many other primary schools. In it they record the books they are reading, their progress and there is a place for pupils, teachers and parents to make written comments too
So for this one think: Shelfari for kids. A learner centred online tool that would allow children to do all they could with a paper diary – without the worry of losing it! But it would also have a database behind it that would allow children to tap into further reading recommendations. Children could read reviews from other users and discover new genres or books they may not normally.
I would imagine that My Reading Diary would have the potential to integrate with library management systems, so children could read a review or see a recommendation and immediately know if it is in school – and if it is available to read or someone else has it out already!
A further unique feature of My Reading Diary would be as a reading portfolio for children as they progress through school. With simple book profiling it would allow teachers and parents to see the types of books any child is reading and make future suggestions.
I think there is huge potential in this to not only provide a manageable online system to track reading progress throughout school but to also engage children with reading and a social, smart, personalised reading diary.
This idea was sadly rejected by Channel 4’s 4iP which is an innovation fund to stimulate public service digital media (beyond television) across the UK.
Firespeed by kwerfeldein
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Connect Collaborate Content
I don’t know what I would call this application but I think it could be very important in the way teachers work in the next 5-10 years.
I would propose a single online place for teachers to find curriculum resources and ideas, connect with colleagues teaching the same topics and a platform for collaboration.
Ian Yorston quite rightly said that this place is the web. It perhaps is a matter of pulling streams of different information together, but I just don’t think there has been a purpose built online space that does all of these.
I am doing some work on the Victorians next half term – with my proposed web idea I want to be able to do a single search for “Victorians” and see a multitude of things that we regularly look for and seek out in further web queries elsewhere.
- Resources - planning, images, video, notebook files, PPTs, worksheets, that sort of thing.
- Ideas - the resources found on the web do not often come with the narrative behind it, I want to be able to read blog posts and summaries of experiences from those who have taught my topic already. My search results would draw in comments from Twitter and other platforms too.
- Connections - so many schools, teachers and pupils are working on the same topics, I want to know who is actively doing them too.
- Collaborate - once I have discovered that XYZ are doing the same topic, I want to have the means to collaborate and work with them.
We have a myriad of educational blogs to cover the ideas, places like Gareth Pitchford’s Primary Resources, Classroom 2.0 that does much to connect teachers and then there is simple tools like Teachers Connecting from Ben Hazzard that is a platform to connect and work together.
But we need one place to do all of this from a single search query, that would be the unique feature. You enter a single topic key word and your search results provide everything.
Another aspect that is important is what happens as we share our current classroom work. From blogging about my topics at school this year, for the first time my network has brought resources and ideas to me. Not as a result of me asking, but because they “read a post a few weeks back that I was doing sealife”. If we are all more aware of what topics colleagues are doing in their classes our sharing of ideas and resources can be more purposeful.
It will be intriguing to see what develops with mycurriculum.com from the QCDA and whether it will be able to build the critical mass of users to make it truly worthwhile – and also if it is smart enough to do some of the things I have outlined.
It has been an interesting process getting these ideas down in a post – let me know what you think of them and if they would have value in the educational world we work in. The ideas are there, feel free to go ahead and make them, just let me know you have so I can use them.
Class Blogging – Joining Up the Dots
Jan 23rd
When I first began my own blog nearly four years ago I also had set up a class site too. We had a year of great fun and connections. The experience made me realise how easy it is for classrooms to have a global dimension through the power of this technology. No doubt many of you with class blogs experienced this realisation too.
I have had a fantastic week returning to classroom blogging and starting our new class blog >> Priestsic5. Before Christmas I wrote a post asking for teachers to share their experiences with class blogs. To explain what platform they were using and to share some reasons behind it’s use. As you can see from the link I have decided to use Blogger as our platform.
Why Blogger?
The two main reasons are ease of use and sustainability, and I think that the former directly effects the latter. I want the blog to be a well established feature of the classroom and for it to be sustained into the future. Blogger is extremely easy to setup especially if you have some blogging experience of your own – but even if you have not.
One big plus is the associated services and tools that can be utilised alongside your Blogger (Google) account. The most important is perhaps image hosting in the form of Picasa Web Albums. Used alongside the desktop Picasa 3 application it is a good solution. Amongst other things I can blog directly from Picasa, synchronise local image folders to the web automatically and upload photo videos directly to YouTube.
Synchronise
Just to unpick the image folder synchronisation a little further – on our blog I have created an Art Gallery slideshow in the sidebar. I want this to be a collection of all that the class create and so I will be regularly updating the set of images. Currently all I have to do to add another image to this slideshow is add it to a local folder on my class computer – that’s it. I think this is a really useful feature as we are often managing lots of images from a whole class set of work. Using the Art Gallery example here’s how to do it:
- Upload you images to your computer, Picasa should automatically pick these up and display them for upload.
- Create an Art Gallery folder for the images (usually done during upload process)
- In Picasa next to the folder, on the right hand side of the screen, click the Sync to Web button.
- Sign in to your Google account.
- Your images will be uploaded to a web album.
- Click on the newly created online album – click on “Link to this Album” in the right sidebar.
- Select “Embed Slideshow” and copy the code.
- Paste this code in your blog. For ours I used “Add Gadget” (HTML/Javascript type) from the Layout settings.
- Save and refresh your blog to check it is working OK – you can manually change the size in the code.
- Now every time you add an image to the original local folder (on your computer) it will automatically update to the web and consequently update your slideshow too.
In the remainder of the post I will be explaining a few additions and changes I have made to our class blog that I consider to be important.
Next Blog Link
One of the features of a blog with Blogger is the top navigation bar that appears. This has a “Next Blog” link button which takes you to a random blog. Naturally this is not ideal for a class blog as you have no control over what you are linking to.
The first thing I did was find out how to remove it. It is a pretty simple case of adding a small piece of CSS code to the Template code. I found this site’s explanation exactly what I needed. Here is a short screencast from the same website illustrating the process:
Remove Blogger Navbar – More free videos are here
How Many Visitors?
By simply tracking the number of visitors you are able to illustrate to your class that we have an audience. There are people out their in the world reading what we post. These numbers are important in helping you establish rules for writing posts and comments. Children have a better appreciation that their work is going to be viewed by more than just “us”. A visible visitor counter like StatCounter provides some useful analytics for your blog that you could use in maths further down the line
Dots on a Map
In my experience one of the greatest ways to hook your class into the use of the class blog is to display a map of your visitors. In the past and in the last week I have found this to be a great focal point for the class when they are looking at the blog. I have used ClustrMaps for years on my own blog and with classblogs.
There is something so powerful and yet so simple and wonderful in allowing your class to realise that those little dots are people who have just visited your blog and read about work you do in your classroom. They begin to realise the connections we can make and begin to develop an awareness of things beyond their own community.
I know it is only a little map, but it really is a powerful aspect of class blogs and I would strongly recommend you display something too. Can you think of any other way that your class would willingly look at a world map every day and ask questions about where places are? Have your class blog displayed when the children come in first thing and leave room for their geographical curiosity to shine through. What you do with that natural curiosity afterwards is up to you!
Is a Google Teacher Academy Really Such a Good Idea?
Jan 2nd
Over a year ago I began writing about how disappointing it is that in the UK and Europe there isn’t a version of the US Google Teacher Academy (GTA).
Since then we have started a UK group, with over 120 members and much discussion has taken place. It is that discussion and debate that I want to focus here in this blog post.
Some consider Google to be a heavy handed corporation, riding rough shod over it’s competitors and assimilating those it can’t compete with. José Picardo wrote about the way the Etherpad situation was handled and points out that:
Google makes its living by offering free services with the only aim of attracting huge amounts of users to whom Google can then show their customers’ adverts and sell their premium services.
My dad used to tell me stories of free cigarettes being given away by tobacco companies outside the school gates to pupils on the way home. Google’s strategy surrounding free web apps for education is very similar: hook’em while they’re young.
He goes on to qualify such a comparison by saying that,
the desired outcome is the same: to get young people conditioned to using a product from an early age.
Marketing Google Apps for Education is a long term strategy to bring in younger users of Google tools, to create habits in work and life so that eventually more ads can be clicked, maybe years later. That’s surely the bottom line.
So is it right that we are using Google tools at all in the classroom? I rarely get into this sort of territory but we have been using Google tools in a myriad of ways in the classroom and I think it is worth debating.
Google logo render – Mark Knol by mark knol
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Many people have questioned whether a GTA is a good thing as we may just be perpetuating the “Googlisation of Education“, as Josie Fraser puts it. Is it right to hold a professional development event purely based on one company’s products, especially one that reaps a huge proportion of it’s revenue through adverts?
On the other hand Google has produced some of the most powerful learning tools currently available in the classroom. A GTA in the UK would be a great opportunity for teachers to learn from each other and find out about best practices.
The event should be clearly focused on learning and the ways that Google tools can enhance that. But it would also be a good opportunity to further debate the title of this blog post and the privacy issues surrounding Google in education and the ways young learners use their products.
I would focus on the ideas and the learning at such an event and not get too bogged down with whether or not it is right or wrong. Are you going to stop using Google products in the classroom altogether based on your moral objections? I would prefer to see Google tools and services just one part of a broad and balanced approach to web products in the classroom. Perhaps the event should be similarly balanced – but then it wouldn’t be a GTA it would be just another conference and could be about thousands of web related products.
What do you think? Is a Google Teacher Academy a morally flawed concept or a long overdue professional development event for UK teachers?
