I’ve just discovered Pixton after an Ollie Bray tweet. It’s a comic strip creator and instantly addictive. Showing it to several groups of kids today resulted in plenty of OMG – type expressions of enthusiasm.
Super-quick to learn, and complete with all the necessary Web 2.0 collaboration and sharing tools, Pixton amply fulfils the reusability test mentioned by Theo Kuechel in his thought-provoking post on educational content. I’ve created the start of a comic strip below:
I’ve had to remove the embedded comic as it was breaking the blog in IE6.
I’m hoping that my year 10s will remix and extend it to show what they’ve learned about the Common Agricultural Policy topic (that unfortunately crops up in the GCSE syllabus like a dead albatross, threatening to stifle any remaining interest the kids might have in food issues.) All they have to do is create their own account and follow this link to add to the comic strip above.
The next stage is to investigate the school-specific part of the site yet, and consider whether this resource is just too good to share I can envisage students being over-exposed to Pixton very quickly!
EarthBrowser is now even faster and offers some new features including real-time satellites. An online API is just around the corner which will extend the application even further.
EarthBrowser Version 3.11
There are many schools which haven’t been able to install Google Earth across a network (mine included) and I view the two applications as being broadly complementary. Google Earth is great for spatial decision-making that requires high resolution imagery, while EarthBrowser is a better alternative when using global data sets such as webcams, volcanoes earthquakes and storms – which are all available within a single click from the main screen, as opposed to the increasingly complex Layers within Google Earth.
If you haven’t looked at EarthBrowser recently, do give it a try. It’s a free, super-fast download, and a site license is available.
Arch-collaborator Tom Barrett has initiated a Google Docs presentation on classroom uses for pocket video cameras, such as the Flip. It’s rapidly developed into a really useful collection of ideas.
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Tom welcomes further additions – his contact details are found on the last slide.
By an extraordinary Twitter related twist of events, I have discovered an application that I’ve been hoping to see for a while. Here’s my Thursday 22nd Jan tweet:
Urgently looking for an Open Source interactive blank world map similar to http://is.gd/gOPsÂ
By the end of the day I’d been contacted by Mike from Aneki.com with news of exactly such an application (disappointingly not as a result of the tweet though!) and discovered a whole collection of really useful resources based around world rankings.
The custom map generator is utterly simple to use – select a country from a table, choose from 5 pre-set and customizable colours, and build your map. The result is easily saved.
Map generator
Here’s a map showing my limited direct experience of the world:
Where I've been
This is a super-helpful application for geography teachers. I must confess to spending a little time with the Google Maps API trying to create something similar, and then giving up. I’d like the option to have the results pop-up in a larger window, complete with the usual Google Map tools and view options. Perhaps one day My Maps will allow countries to be highlighted using this method.Â
I am delighted to report that the content on the rest of the site is equally useful to geography teachers needing a quick list of superlatives. Visit the lists page to jump right in. I picked up on the list of top 10 tsunami-prone countries as a resource for a GCSE class next week. Albania is in the top 10 – who’d have thought it?
Here’s a sampler of some new ideas I’ve been developing as part of an online resource to support the new GCSE AQA syllabus A.
Students are presented with an actual brownfield site in Google Earth, together with an imaginary development plan, represented as extruded polygons. They can demolish the buildings and create their own versions, or just edit the exemplar files.
Brownfield redevelopment - what would you do?
To demonstrate their understanding of the principles of sustainable urban redevelopment, students edit the KML with ideas on how the buildings can be used. More able students will refer specifically to the socio-economic geography and environment of Shoreditch to justify their ideas.
The actual resource contains a detailed KML file and lots of supporting files including images, panoramas and video, as well as an extended webquest style teaching activity. I hope to be able to publish a couple of exemplars here in due course.
The aim is to create an alternative to standard textbook-type questions, while promoting independent enquiry, creativity and spatial thinking.
In the meantime, Digital Geography is in a minor hiatus while I endeavour to meet the deadlines!
I can envisage students being over-exposed to Pixton very quickly!
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