Category: Google

Coastal Walks in the UK – Portsmouth and Southsea

Google Earth, MappingPublished on1 Comment on Coastal Walks in the UK – Portsmouth and Southsea

This resource utilises the excellent web based information and media available from the BBC about different coastal walks. (Unfortunately some content may be unavailable outside of the UK)
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Here I have added placemarks for each part of a walk around Portsmouth/Southsea. For each placemark is a link to a panoramic view of that spot, an audio guide giving a brief insight into the history surrounding that point and a link to further information on the BBC website.

After making this I thought that it will never take away from actually being there and smelling the salty sea and feeling the windy spray against your face but it may help some children to experience places that unfortunately perhaps they may never visit for real.

Download resource here:

google earth link Coastal Walks in the UK – Portsmouth and Southsea

Thankyou to Highwood Infant School

Google Earth, INSET, IWB, Mapping, My class, SMARTboardsPublished onLeave a Comment on Thankyou to Highwood Infant School

I spent most of today attending an INSET day at Highwood Player Infants School talking to them about using their IWBs which they have just had installed.

Many thanks to everyone at the school for inviting me and making me feel so welcome I hope that some of my ideas provide a springboard for your school’s IWB development.

Apart from the resources I planned to discuss we spoke about and used a range of other material. Below I have tried to record most of those thoughts from the morning:

  • Artrage 2 – a fantastic art package ideal for the use on the interactive whiteboard. Look out for more on this soon, here on my blog as I will be introducing the use at my school and planning some training.
  • Microsoft Local Live – we looked at the school and Highwood Player had really clear imagery from the “bird’s eye view” setting. Would be useful to look at before short walks or local area studies.
  • Quikmaps – Another mapping site that allows you to scribble and add placemarks. Again would be to look at before short walks or local area studies.
  • BBC Little Animal Activity Centre – we had a read of the animated books and phonic activities.
  • Google Earth – just mentioned this briefly but a wonderful tool that I am huge fan of. Read the rest of my blog for more information.
  • Topmarks Educational Website Search Engine – very handy when looking for something specifically aimed at schools.

Please follow the links above to the relevant sites.

Further down my blog, you will have to scroll a bit, there is the notes from the session with the links from the images. Please feel free to print these and use in school.

mswordNotes from session (handout)
mswordFerry Halim Guidance
vnd.ms powerpointPowerpoint of Year 2 Instructional writing work (ordering digital images)

I would really appreciate it you could take some time to leave me some feedback about the training session – scroll to the bottom of this post (or the one further down) and find the word “Comments” click on it and leave me your thoughts.

I really value your feedback and remarks so that in the future and can take them into account for other similar training sessions. Thanks again.

WIKI on Google Earth in the classroom

Google Earth, MappingPublished onLeave a Comment on WIKI on Google Earth in the classroom

Yesterday I started a Wikispace on the uses of Google Earth in the classroom – http://classroomgoogleearth.wikispaces.com

I have only just grabbed the name so there is nothing to look at yet but I will try and transfer some the ideas and kml/kmz files from the GE Forum – I only need 42 more views until I hit 13,000 total views of my GE stuff 🙂 still no contributions though 🙁  Make sure you check it soon.

Extension activity in Maths today

Google Earth, Literacy, Maths, My classPublished onLeave a Comment on Extension activity in Maths today

Further to our work on Mina’s journey using Google Earth – I asked some children who had completed the standard addition sums in their maths books to calculate the different distances of Mina’s travels. They used the measure tool in GE 4 to plot her journey from major city to major city – they then applied the addition strategies to work out her total approximate distance.