Week 5 Reflection 5

Technologies for ICT

 

Introduction. This week I have written very briefly on all the suggested optional activities to demonstrate I have done them and am fully participating in this ICT course.  I will focus on Google Earth as my choice of technology.  On this occasion I will not try and sell Google Earth to the reader.

Interactive learning objects.  Appears to be a recycling of others material.  Wonder if it is worth it because the search would take a long time and if that search found no results, one could have been spending time developing the resource.  I can see some application for it.  The Gapfinder technology, added to the moodle interactive learning objects page, is a very interesting tool and I can see it would have some applications in my subject areas.

Adobe flash.  Interesting tool.  The old ‘chestnut’ that I don’t have time to learn it would probably fit here.  It is a tool for the computer savvy and I am not sure of its applications in high school and in the subjects I teach.

	*GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogleEarthEarthEarthEarth*

Google Earth (my focus for this reflection). The Google Earth provides a service which is almost fantastic to me.  I have been in the business of sourcing aerial photographs since 1998.  Back in those days, if you lived in Brisbane, you could visit the Department of Primary Industries near the Gabba and view aerial photographs for free in their office.  If you wanted a copy of the photograph it costed about $60.  In later years I worked for Councils (2001) and these aerial photographs were beginning to appear as overlays on the computer with GIS systems (a similar thing to Google Earth); and when job seeking one had to be able to put on their resume that you could operate GIS (something primary school kids are doing today).  The fact that Google Earth, although limited as I mention below, is available for free on the internet is amazing.

So how can Google be used in the classroom?  The Google web-site describing the features for Google Earth to students, ‘Google Earth for Educators’(click for link), is reproduced, in part, below.  I found the formulation of words concise and descriptive, therefore I have cut and pasted this section from the web-page...

Students can use Google Earth to explore topics like the progress of human civilization, the growth of cities, the impact of civilization on the natural environment, and the impact of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Teachers can use Google Earth demos to get their students excited about geography beyond the static map, or use different Google Earth layers to study transportation, demographics, economics, and in specific local or exotic contexts.

Below is a list of several other ways students and teachers can use Google Earth.

Students can use Google Earth to:

• Explore the animal kingdom and endangered species with the National Geographic layer and other content. Easy
• Create annotated place markers indicating location of school and points of interest in their town such as the local fire and police stations, the city library, local parks, and museums. Easy
• Study climate change and the effects of global warming.Average
• Create tours of their school or community. Average
• Track earthquakes in real-timeAdvanced

Sourced from http://sitescontent.google.com/google-earth-for-educators/

Google Earth is relevant in geography in that the Australian Curriculum for Geography, years 7 - 10 course planner, states that "identify, explain and evaluate trends, patterns and relationships using topographic maps, satellite images, aerial photographs and other graphic representation of data." Google Earth clearly has some of these features.

The Google Earth for Educators also contains lesson plans.  Looking at these plans, they seem very good and would be able to be adapted for Queensland school lesson plans (they appear to be for American schools).

When exploring one of the features (that I was able to get working), historical aerial photo, I noticed the historical photos of Rockhampton and Brisbane only go back to 2001; the historical photos of New York (U.S.A.) go back to 1974.  This feature, of watching cities and landscapes change, does not seem to be as useful as purported.

On separate web pages there are layers available on a Google Earth tool; this page is called Google Earth Gallery (click for link). There are many layers available to choose from a menu. Not every country has the same layers available; for example, Sumatra has several layers for de-forestation and habitat loss, Mexico has a layer for percent tree cover, and the Arctic Tern migration. Regarding the Arctic Tern migration, I was unable to find any Arctic Tern routes after a quick circumnavigation of the globe; therefore not all these items workout the way you want them to. Also, there is a large amount of information for Sumatra's ecology, however, there is not a key to tell you what the different colloured layers mean: a very bad oversight. Although these layers are limited in scope one must be appreciative that they are on the web for free. They can be a good resource for educational purposes.

Google Earth, while having the purported good functions mentioned above, does not have all the functions of a primary school atlas, such as...

• The trails of Australian explorers
• Historical maps of the States of Australia
• Demographic data
• Average rainfall
• Floral emblems
• Past Prime Ministers.

It is therefore not an adequate substitute for an Atlas, especially a primary school atlas.  Also, having worked for Shire Councils, the photographs are not as detailed as those available on Council GIS systems: these are able to be zoomed-in with much more detail.  The Council photos are taken by aerial photography and I believe that many of the zoomed-in photos on Google Earth must be aerial photos as well.  The Council aerial photographs also go back further than those on Google Earth, to about the 1940s for Rockhampton.

Below is a photo from Google Earth of my first country town posting when an Environmental Health Officer.  I chose this photo because it was more simple than a photo of Rockhampton, which would have shown no detail.

Picture 1. Map of Barcaldine, geographic center of Queensland.

Table 1. Google Earth SAMR Chart.

Substitute	Draws and draws of paper maps Draws and draws of paper photographs
Augmentation	Information with layers presentation with being able to shift the screen instead of joining to another map
Modification	Road maps are able to be modified with routes being shown
Redefinition	GIS systems like those used in Shire Councils Open to the public for easy viewing instead of physically visiting a government office.

Google Maps.  While I consider Google Maps a very useful feature, and have used them for mapping my personal journeys in car trips, I do not see them as very useful in Geography studies or Biology studies (my two special teaching areas).  One is benefited by knowing something about the route beforehand: on several occasions I have shown my Google Maps route to an experienced traveler and found the road mapped was rough and unsealed.  Google maps, while taking you the shortest route, does not consider road surface, closures, tortuous routes, etc.  A feature that may be useful is placing photographs and notes on a Google Maps route.  Say, for example, a school bus tour, a student could place notes and photos along the map for later revision.  Shown is an example of a car route that I have fixed up by re-routing the streets with a drag and drop feature (the little circle on the route can be dragged and dropped with the mouse).  It still has wrong information in the written directions (not shown) by asking you to make a U-turn at the beginning of the journey - I am unsure why this is.  Google maps appears to have floors.

Picture 2. Route from CQ University to Customs House, Rockhampton.

Online Timelines. The Dipity site shows a very useful tool for educators.  I can see a use for this in areas such as biology when studying the history of DNA, for example.  Similarly, it could be used in Geography for mapping events like floods and landslides and actions taken after them (a branch of physical geography).  One of our text books, Dimensions of Learning, recommends the learning tool of timelines. I like it.

Zooburst.  An interesting program.  I fail to see the good use of it in high school, but it may captivate and hold interest for the younger primary school students.

MuseumBox.  This seems to be a tool used for a simple presentation to the student at a self paced style.  One can view the sides of the box in the order that interests the viewer rather than the linear way slides are presented in, say, PowerPoint.  It does appear to be limited in the amount of information that can be described.


References

Australian Curiculum: Geography years 7-10 Course Planner. (2012) ACARA.  (as seen on moodle for Central Queensland University) (http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/folder/view.php?id=235029)