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!