I’ve written up a short investigation on Juicy Geography’s Google Earth blog
Archive for the 'GPS' Category
I was reminded earlier this week about Open StreetMap.
This is a wiki-style project that aims to create free geographic data for everyone to use. I took a look at the area around my school and was delighted to discover that the coverage is very patchy, raising the prospects of a nice school project based on my favourite maxim, Chris Durbin’s ‘Real Geography, Real Outcomes’
To get going requires a little more than a GPS and a web browser. The Open StreetMap wiki provides a very good Beginners Guide. Start by creating an account and locating your home area. You then go out and collect data with a GPS. This as straightforward as walking, cycling or driving around an area while recording a tracklog. The next stage is to extract data from your GPS, save it as a GPX file, (I use Easy GPS for this) and upload it to the OSM server. Don’t forget that GPS Visualizer offers a range of options for viewing your GPX data in the classroom.
The next stage is to edit the GPX file to create OSM data. There are a few options for this, the simplest by far is to use the online Flash editor provided, that allows you to edit map data in your web browser. Finally the map is rendered and changes can be seen in OSM, (although this doesn’t happen immediately.)
I started contributing data for my local area this morning.
When I’ve done a little more experimenting, I think that this could be a really excellent way of teaching mapping to quite young students.
Here’s an outline of a primary transition project that I’ve been delivering recently. The project was planned and delivered with the aid of several of my finest Year 7 students! I wrote it very quickly, in reponse to a colleague’s request, so there will be a few spellling mistakes etc.
The objective of the 2 1/2 hour lesson was to address the question “Where am I?” Drawing on elements of History ICT and Geography, the lesson aimed to provide an enjoyable and instructive experience, that would allow the Year 6 students to improve their spatial knowledge and understanding.
After an introduction consisting of a “get to know you” game involving an inflatable globe, the students were introduced to the concept of latitude and longitude. Google Earth was used to teach the basics. Hint - to display the grid as shown in the screenshot below select View and Grid:
To help the students remember the difference, we played the “Latitude Longitude Gratitude Attitude” game first invented by my former colleague Tim Bown. It’s a version of Simon Says but with a “do as I say not as I do” twist - and special actions of course.
Next, the students were invited to say how they thought that latitude could be worked out in the event that they had been kidnapped, blindfolded and taken far from their current location. Lots of excellent answers were given, ranging from observations of the weather, animals and plants, height of the sun, length of the day etc.
To consider the problems of measuring longitude, the students were subjected to a dramatic interpretation of the foundering of the English fleet under Admiral Clowdisley in 1707. The story comes from the book Longitude by Dava Sobel and was presented with a PowerPoint and plenty of sound effects. The upshot of this , and the countless other maritime disasters, was the passing of the Longitude Act in 1714. At this point the students were invited to consider how longitude might be established.
To explain the relationship between time and longitude I used Earth Browser on my interactive whiteboard (it rotates better than the Google Earth globe) I shone a torch at the globe to represent the sun and to make the point that 12.00 midday is the time when the sun is at it’s zenith. Watching the rotating globe meant that students were able to infer the reasons why clocks in the US are behind those in the UK. A quick bit of mental maths revealed that the earth rotates 15 degrees every hour and the class was then able to understand that the calculation of longitude is simple, providing one knows the local time, and time at another location, for example Greenwich in London.
Following the historical part of the lesson, students were introduced to Google Earth and the Space Navigator. I have a class set of these devices, kindly donated by 3d Connexion. The answer to the question “where am I” had to be answered by using the Space Navigators to fly to the location of the school.
Space Navigators are extremely popular with students, (although some report a sense of nausea after longer periods of use!) The students were very keen on exploring other locations, particularly the 3D model of Big Ben, and because of the season, Wimbledon. I demonstrated how GPS could be used to answer the “where am I” question by plugging one of my Garmin Gekos into my laptop running Google Earth Plus and importing a waypoint marking the school. (In the past I have been able to demonstrate live tracking of a moving student, using the procedure I describe here.)
The final activity involved a geocaching adventure around the school. The Year 7 students had devised a riddle, which, when solved, revealed the location of some sweets. The riddle was broken up and hidden around the school grounds and marked with GPS waypoints.
The speed with which they solved the puzzle, after the briefest instructions, is a testament to how user friendly the Geko 201 is. I had to create a couple more challenges for them, simply done by dropping pencils around the playing fields and getting the students to discover them. To do this kind of an activity with a class requires a set of GPS units (one between two is best) a PC with Easy GPS installed, and a usb/serial interface cable. It’s also really handy to have one PC running Google Earth Plus, so that the GPS waypoints can be viewed from the classroom. Once a series of waypoints have been collected, marking for example the locations of dropped pencils, the coordinates can be easily transfered in seconds to the class set of GPS’s using Easy GPS. I also hid a student in the school gounds to play a GPS version of find and seek.
More on teaching with GPS and buying equipment here.
A virtual globe for your phone..
I’ve just downloaded Wayfinder Earth to my mobile phone. It’s a beta version, mapping application that zooms from a globe overview down to city street level, and links to a GPS to provide a phone-based satellite navigation system.
The globe is nicely rendered and pans smoothly. I was quite impressed. Providing that you have an internet connection, the transition from globe to the maps (provided by Tele Atlas) is seamless and rapid. The maps themselves are hardly beautiful, but are nevertheless functional and detailed. It can be a little disorientating at certain zoom levels with a lcak of named locations with which to get your bearings. The maps are rendered very quickly, especially by phone standards, and they take up very little memory.
If Wayfinder Earth remains free to use, then I’d say it’s an essential mobile application. I noticed that when I tried to link Wayfinder Earth to my GPS it wanted to go to an internet shop and upgrade. At this point you are buying into the existing Wayfinder Navigator sat-nav system. I’ve used Wayfinder Navigator for a while and really like it. It’s has just been improved with a nice visual makeover. As a sat-nav program it’s quite easy to use, has a postcode look up, gives very good directions and clear visual instructions and even warns of some (but not all) speed cameras. The Wayfinder website gives more information, and there’s a generous free trial period. You need a suitable phone and a bluetooth GPS.
What WayFinder Earth is not, is any kind of mobile Google Earth. As a mapping program for your phone, it’s brilliant and will work all over Europe and North America. You will want to buy a GPS and upgrade once you’ve tried it! I don’t know how much it is to purchase and use as a fully featured sat nav program , however I’m guessing it will be the same as Wayfinder Navigator, (99 Euros).
Thanks to Ogle Earth for spotting the release of Wayfinder Earth today
I have written an article about teaching with GPS, which can be found at Juicy Geography. The page includes links to some Google Maps I prepared that show how GPS Visualizer can be used to plot fieldwork data.
GPS Visualizer seems to grow new features each week and is a brilliant application for displaying yourGPS data.. The other essential utility featured is Easy GPS. I hadn’t realized until recently that it now manages GPS tracks as well as routes and waypoints. Both these programs are free.
I have added the first of my Yellow Arrows to two locations in North Devon that are important to me. The others will be used in a Geography/Art collaboration
project.
This is the very first arrow:
There are lots of surf shops in North Devon, the arrow is placed on the window of the only shop manufacturing surfboards locally. If you’re in Braunton, text the code on the arrow to the SMS number provided, for a personal message!
This arrow has been placed somewhere on a beach. I’m not saying which beach, or where the arrow is located, but it’s not hard to find!
There’s a message for weekend / London surfers to be discovered.
Tomorrow I will be moblogging directly from a GCSE fieldtrip on Exmoor, (providing there’s an Orange signal!) I will also be testing some handheld GPS units and Phone2GEarth as well. The idea is to use the the phone to locate and photograph the fieldwork sites. The phone images will be geotagged in the evening.
The handheld GPS units will be used in conjunction with a traditional gun clinometer to measure the gradient of the river bed and the valley sides. The results will be available on this site in .gpx format so that they can be viewed in GPS Visualizer. It will be interesting to evaluate the accuracy of the traditional method compared to the modern.
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