Tag Archive for ‘Live-Local’ at Digital Geography

Tag Archive for 'Live-Local'

Updates to Google Maps and Live Local

Published by Noel Jenkins on April 5, 2007 in GIS, Google Earth, Google Maps and Teaching resources. 0 Comments

New developments to the leading online mapping applications are widely reported today. Geography teachers should be aware that some of these features are going to be really useful for writing up fieldwork notes and coursework projects, especially as some form of GIS experience is required by the new Key Stage Three proposals.

Mapperz highlights the new version of Live Local, which is an essential resource for teachers who work in an area deprived of acceptable Google Earth imagery. One of the best new features is the opportunity to subscribe to collections via RSS. At some stage I’m going to repost my own Live Local Collections with the feed link in case anyone would be interested.

Ogle Earth has compared the relative merits of the drawing tools in Live Local and Google Maps in a useful article. I’ve pleased that a number of my students seem to have enhanced their GCSE projects this year with quite good annotation of map and photo data.

Finally, Google Earth Blog is one of several blogs to comment on the new My Maps feature of Google Maps. What’s really exciting is that you can create a My Map and then see the results in Google Earth.

New resource for teaching about flooding

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 14, 2007 in Teaching resources. 0 Comments

Rich Allaway has created another mini-site, this time comparing the flooding events at Boscastle and Lynmouth. Targetted at KS3 and also AS level, the resource makes great use of technologies such as Live Local, Google Earth and a new Site Pal character, “Walter Falls”

Rich has included a long and varied collection of resources, as well as pupil and teacher notes. Excellent effort!

Live Local in 3D

Published by Noel Jenkins on November 12, 2006 in 3D visualization. 0 Comments

I forgot to mention the news from earlier this week of an important update to Live Local (or is it Virtual Earth?) Downloading a small plug-in brings 3D enhancement, and in my part of the UK at least, the images are of far higher quality than Google Earth. Unsuprisingly, the plug-in only works with Internet Explorer 6/7. The interface is now remarkably similar to Google Earth:

click to enlarge

This is a view of my house:

The site is fast and very easy to use, and sharing placemarks is very easy. I see this being used a lot in the classroom, where Google Earth is not available, or where the resolution is inadequate. Stefan Geens has posted a very helpful summary of the merits of Live Local / Virtual Earth 3D.

Live Local case studies

Published by Noel Jenkins on October 8, 2006 in Teaching resources. 0 Comments

Here are a couple of new Live Local Collections I’ve added to my extremely unpopular Live Local database to be found here on Juicy Geography The password is durbin if anyone would like to add to the database!

Darlington land use
Link to Live Local Collection

This is an attempt to create a land use map by drawing polygons. The example will be familiar to anyone who uses the Geog.1 textbook - students attempting the tasks on pages 36 - 39 will find that Live Local supplies excellent imagery to distinguish between the different land use zones.

Longshore Drift
Link to Live Local Collection

Here I’ve added lines as placemarks to show the relationship between coastal process and landforms in the Bournemouth area.

Windows Live Writer demo

Published by Noel Jenkins on August 15, 2006 in Asides. 2 Comments

Apparently if I install Windows Live Writer (which I’ve just done), and configure it to post to my WordPress blog (yup) I should be able to add Live Local maps as part of the post.

OK so here goes the first attempt. There should be a map of my favourite fishing spot appearing below:

Right, I’m clicking Publish now - can’t wait to see how badly mangled my WordPress page is…

Update (moments later…)

Gosh it’s worked really well. Clicking the image above takes you to the actual Live Local map. My customized WordPress theme seems to have remained intact, however I notice that the page no longer validates. For some reason this has always been quite important to me, however I’ll leave the offending code in for now.

I like this feature. Several colleagues have started geography classroom blogs, my favourite being Val Vannets’ production Geography: My Place and Yours I can see Live Writer being used a lot for this kind of teacher blog.

Thanks to Doug Belshaw’s microblog for the heads-up.

Live Local Collection / Geograph mashup for Malham Cove

Published by Noel Jenkins on June 10, 2006 in Google Earth, Photographs and Teaching resources. 0 Comments

I’ve added a few Collections to my Live Local database.
This one on limestone landforms around Malham Cove features Geograph photographs in the information window for certain pushpins.

click to enlarge

The Geograph site is an excellent source of Creative Commons images, and is now backed by the Ordnance Survey. A kml feed allows Geograph images to be viewed in Google Earth; one of several improvements to the site since it’s launch.

UK geography Live Local Collections database

Published by Noel Jenkins on May 30, 2006 in Teaching resources. 0 Comments

I’ve just completed a web database for people to add their Live Local Collections. The aim is to build a useful resource of aerial photographs that will save time in lessons.