Slides to set the context of a training session on Google Earth for GIS style activities...

1. Google Earth &
Beyond
Alan Parkinson
Freelance Geographer & Author
GA Curriculum Maker

2. E. Yorkshire coast: 1967

3. "GIS is a form of digital
mapping technology. Kind of
like Google Earth, but better."
Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Government Technolog y
Conference 2008

4. Google Earth
• Version 6.2
• Free
• Huge user community

5. AGX
ArcGIS Explorer Online
• 2 versions
• Free & subscription

6. Google’s own
description
• “Google Earth is a powerful tool that
enables you to fly anywhere on Earth to
view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D
buildings, from galaxies in outer space to
the canyons of the ocean.”
• Doesn’t say ‘this is a GIS’....

7. Answers or questions ?
• “In a time where answers are as
ubiquitous as they are, the
value is now defined by the
ability to ask a better question”
• Stephen Wolfram

8. Is Google Earth a GIS ?
• OFSTED Subject Report for Geography
2011
• ‘Learning to make a world of difference’
• Gave an example of a good GIS lesson
which made use of ‘Google Earth’...

9. So what is a GIS ?

10. Map
Data
Software that links
them

11. "Knowing where things are, and
why, is essential to rational
decision making"
Jack Dangermond, Environmental Systems
Research Institute (ESRI)

12. The importance of
location....
• A video & news story to use with students:
• http://vimeo.com/49866713 - Train into
space
• http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/
2012/08/06/after-3-years-lost-in-forest-a-
camera-reveals-secrets-to-its-home/

13. GIS has data that can
be queried...

14. Query = questioning...
Questions relate to
content & context

15. Geographical Enquiry...
• Start with a hook, and a question and
identify the appropriate information and
mapping that might help answer it....
• Provide students with a range of resources
which they can make use of in different
ways...

17. GIS has layers
Layers can be created

18. Visualisation

19. Visualisations are
common
• FACEBOOK STORIES
• http://www.facebookstories.com/stories/
1574/interactive-mapping-the-world-s-
friendships#color=continent&story=1&cou
ntry=DK

20. New Street View with
scroll-wheel....
• ‘U’ takes the view back to vertical
• ‘N’ orients to North...
• ‘R’ = both...
• Keyboard shortcuts document in Dropbox

21. Images need to be hosted or in a
fixed location...
• http://www.posterous.com

22. BRAZIL
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/oct/
19/michael-palin-brazil-bbc-series

23. Tour with highlights...