Blog feedGoogle Earth with Glow
September 15th, 2008I took part in some very interesting discussions, hosted by Tina Ornduff, in the Google offices in London, on Friday. I was there for Glow, as an experienced Geography teacher with a handful of other geo ‘experts’ to talk about emerging practice with Google Earth. Discussions were based on the idea that ‘Google Earth (GE) is much more than a digital atlas’. A common wish is to enhance teaching and learning by making it more active and more relevant, with google.
Noel Jenkins described his Juicy Geography; Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop described his social enterprise and outreach programs; Richard Treves shared his experience of lecturing with and about GE at The University of Southampton. Ollie Brae made useful comments based on his long experience of presenting about GE and I spoke about sharing resources and collaborating in the National Parks and Social Studies, National Glow groups.
I also made some suggestions for using and developing GE, for the social and the local by describing a sense of place. It is wonderful how pupils can develop their ablity to appreciate strangeness and different cultures, but GE is also a powerful tool for exploring local communities. I would like to see teachers from all subject areas share their experiences of using GE files in Glow? To encourage this, I have uploaded some resources, kindly given to me by Tina Ornduff, to the Social Studies National Glow group.
If you would like to learn more about GE look at our Social Subjects National Glow group. Ollie Brae and I will be taking questions in Glow meet, once the Scottish Learning Festival is over, where we are both using GE in our presentations.