Today I participated in the RGS Google Earth training workshop remotely via Glow, and I am now the first person to have completed a CPD course in this way.  The workshop run by Jamie creator of the digital explorer website was excellent and had a great mix of hands on activities in the computer suite and beyond using GPS equipment and digital cameras.

Jamie started with the basics of navigating around google earth and using layers and I picked up a few tips and tricks.  He quickly progressed on to the more ‘advanced’ session where we were using html tags and colour codes and inserting photographs – at that point my internet connection went down but the good old Jurassic park unplug and restart did the trick and I was up and running again and catching up with the rest of the participants located in Glasgow. 

Martin Brown from the Glow team and a host of friendly technically minded folk facilitated Glow Meet, the camera and the sound equipment for myself and the other Glow users that popped in and out of the sessions remotely.  I had one laptop set up to display the video conference (using Marratech software) while I worked on another computer on Google Earth.

In the afternoon we were outside doing fieldwork.  The Glasgow based participants were given GPS and camera equipment and sent out onto Glasgow streets to do some ‘fieldwork’.  I made use of my – Christmas present – GPS data-logger.  I got my wellies on and braved the sleet and snow and took photos of my local area while recording my location with the GPS.

Back to the computer screen and I was uploading my photographs to google earth and creating a virtual tour of the village.  Once finished I uploaded this to the Glow social subjects national group and had a quick chat with Martin in Glasgow.  He was then able to download and open my google earth file on the big screen and the participants in Glasgow could see what I had been doing.

Overall I had a great but exhausting day, trouble shooting the technology at my end at speed, while flicking between screens and learning lots of new skills for using google earth in the classroom.  My eyes were frazzled from being glued to the multiple screens but worth it.

Here is the .kmz file with my virtual tour which will work if you have google earth installed.
village-resized