Category: Google

Dracula – shared writing in Google Earth

Google Earth, My classPublished onLeave a Comment on Dracula – shared writing in Google Earth

To model the writing process in the literacy lesson we do something called shared writing and this week we used Google Earth as a platform for this. We are currently studying Dracula and we looked at Mina Murray’s journey to track Jonathan Harker her fiance. She travelled from Hull to Hamburg and through Europe to Budapest, there are obvious geographic uses of GE but we also used the placemarks to write her diary entries as she left England behind and ventured into the wilds of Transylania.

The children were enthralled and it just gave the writing that little bit more purpose – they then went off and wrote some similar emotions as she travelled.

Google Earth – Where are we today?

Google Earth, Mapping, My classPublished on7 Comments on Google Earth – Where are we today?

I came up with this activity at about 8.55am this morning as my class was coming in. So I decided to do it with them. I chose a city and zoomed down to street level, but so you could see a few miles worth of the city.

I then asked them to guess where we were. I then realised we could play a 10 questions type game – where they have only 10 questions to guess the name of the city. It was great fun and soon they were firing away with the questions.

  1. Is it in the UK?
  2. Is it in Australia?
  3. Is it Athens?
  4. Does the city have any famous buildings?

Wow! This last question blew me away for about 9.00am in the morning – so I answered, “Yes it has some very famous historic buildings you might know.” Well it didn’t take long for a couple of children to guess it was Rome.

I then zoomed out a little and switched on the 3D Buildings network link (only in Google Earth 4) and we looked at the Collosseum. The children were enthralled as we panned and zoomed into the ancient structure. We even navigated so we were standing on one of the terraces of the great amphitheatre. Well the “wows” soon spread through the room – personally this sort of technology should be doing that.

There is nothing quite like starting the day with a “WOW”

We have to remember we are just looking at our planet, but it is Google Earth that allows us such easy and unique access to these wonders.
258541478 bf343a0e5c

So I got to thinkin’ as you do…how can I extend this game a little. So how about if the children were able to exchange a question for a certain amount of zoomed altitude! So the children only have 9 questions to figure out the answer and I zoom further our by say 2000ft Will it help or will they lose the detail they need? Risky…

What about exchanging 5 questions for a 3D model of a building in the city somwhere? Will they know the building? Will it help? Can they then ask questions about the building? (Will I even know the answers at 9.00am in the morning!!)

We posted to our blog where we had been and I must say we all had a great start to our Monday.

So where will we go tomorrow…?

Maths in Las Vegas

Google Earth, My classPublished on5 Comments on Maths in Las Vegas

I used Google Earth and a resource I had made about a year ago in my numeracy lesson today. It was just so much fun and the children were really responsive! Maths Vegas is basically a set of placemarks detailing some maths activities in and around the city. I remember that when I made it I sort of realised there was a great deal of maths available in real life it just needed unlocking. And the spyglass that is GE is a great way in.

255107050 466d7b4179
So we have been looking at the area of compound shapes and generally exploring 2D and 3D shapes again. So I zoomed into the city of Las Vegas with the 3D buildings layer switched on and looked closely at some of the buildings we could see. Identifying a cylinder and other cuboids. We then explored the area and perimeter of a car park that I had added. The children loved it and were really engaged with the work. One thing that was useful was the ability to use objects they know to help them estimate – so we estimated the breadth of the car park and looked at what units of measurement would be most appropriate and the size of one of the cars parked in the car park. This helped them realise the scale of their estimates.

The Maths in Las Vegas kml resource was posted last year on my part of the GE Forum

Article for Google

Google, Google Earth, Mapping, My classPublished onLeave a Comment on Article for Google

Esther from Google Maps has been in touch after reading my post about the local history work (see below). She has asked if I could write an article about how we use the mapping service in the classroom. It will coincide with some current work I am doing with my class about our local history. I am hoping to use Quikmaps (a mashup of Google Maps) to locate some old photographs on a current map. Should be fun.

This idea popped into my head in the middle of the night…

Google Earth, MappingPublished on1 Comment on This idea popped into my head in the middle of the night…

They seem to do that a lot. I can’t help but think over a few ideas as I drift off to sleep and I was mulling over the use of old and new photographs that we have been doing in our local history. I wanted to explore the use of GPS and geotagging to help us locate some of the old pictures. Well basically what I have come up with is a conceivable set of Geography/History/ICT based activities that would be great to do.

You would need.

  • GPS Receivers – hand held X 5 (one per group)
  • Network copy of Robogeo (geotagging software)
  • Digital cameras – X 5 (one per group)
  • Copies of old photos laminated to be taken out with you
  • Optional: portable mp3 recording equipment; iPod, iRiver

Prior to taking the children out you would need to locate whereabouts the old photographs have been taken and add these as placemarks into all 5 GPS devices – or you could just record the placemarks and ask the children to enter the lat and long as part of the task. (This task is assuming there has been some prior work using GPS devices within the school grounds for example)
So what would the task involve? I will break it into different steps. Essentially the main learning objective are

  • To understand and recognise the changes that have occured over time to different locations in your local area.
  • Use GPS and geotagging software to accurately locate the old photographs onto a modern day map.

The activities would be in this order:

  1. Locate each GPS placemark and match it to one of the old photographs the children have with them.
  2. At the exact location take an identical phtotgraph using the cameras – take time to frame the photograph exactly as the older one was taken.
  3. (After completing all of the photographs) Return to an ICT suite connect both GPS device and camera to computer and load Robogeo software. Match up each placemark (lat and long) from GPS to the photographs. [This can be done for the new set of photographs as well as the older set.]
  4. Export the finished work into many different formats: Google Earth, Google Maps, to flickr. Embed the map into a class wikispace.
  5. An added feature of RoboGEO is the ability to associate an audio file with the image. The audio files could be recorded using an iPod or other mp3 device and loaded onto the PC as well.

The activities might need a bit of support but they are certainly not out of reach for upper KS2 children.I am not sure how many primary schools own there own GPS devices though!