Turning the Supertanker

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I was out and about in Judges Bay today and a car not unlike the one above, I think that it was a VW Polo, drove past.  It was a Google Streets survey car.  So when the Auckland Google Streets images are released and you happen to be using the tool on the Judges Bay section, it was me standing by a red car in Judges Bay Road with my back to Dove-Myer Robinson Park and my face all fuzzed out for privacy!

I commented on Allanah’s blog last week that I am looking forward to creating virtual ‘Amazing Journeys‘ with this tool when the Auckland streets are finally released, now I will be in one of them.  I suspect that the car was out surveying today because of the fine weather and the quiet streets.  So if you happen to see a car with an odd looking aerial sticking out of the top of it over the coming weeks and months it will most likely be a Goolgle Streets survey car.  It is not hard to miss it has Google Streets on the side as an additional clue!

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I have been giving some thought recently on how to use Google Earth in the classroom. I have come up with an idea that could be applied to many different situations. It kind of follows on from my Amazing Journeys initiative. Why not I reasoned, use Google Earth to record the amazing journey? Now those of you who have yet to strap a camera to your bike, car or head can create your journey to work from the comfort of your computer screen!

The latest version of Google Earth (4.3) has some new cool features, principal amongst these is the fact that the terrain is now bumpy, so that you can create virtual tours of physical features in simulated 3D. What the developers have done is to overlay the 2D satellite image onto a 3D mesh. I made some very convincing fly pasts and fly-arounds of some of the volcanoes in the Auckland caldera yesterday; a potentially very useful tool for the classroom, especially when recorded and saved offline for future use and band width preservation! Imagine doing the same with Ruapehu, or some other such feature that is otherwise difficult to get to or impractical to organise. The fly pasts come into their own when used in conjunction with the angle of view tool. I can see a video tutorial coming up…

In addition, I could also see applications for incorporating Google Sketch Up projects. I did a fly around of our school and it was kind of cool, but flat, however if you fly into the centre of most cities some individuals have gone to the effort of creating and sharing 3D models made in Sketch Up of their building. I think that individual classes could take on the project of creating their own block or class and adding the resultant 3D models to Google and adding to the 3D virtual world that Google Earth is encouraging and enabling its users to create. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to use Sketch Up and crucially, how to apply photos to the surfaces to paint the buildings with images in the same way that the satellite images of Google Earth have been painted onto the bumpy terrain of Google Earth 4.3.

The video below is a chronology of locations that I have lived in, using Google Earth and Placemarks to create the video. I reasoned that this task could be applied to many different situations and curriculum areas. It could be applied to places of work, to schools attended, even to historical events, especially when combined with Panoramio. Google Earth is rapidly becoming an indespensible tool in my armoury.

The quality of this video is low, but the original full screen version shows all the details, but you will get the idea…

I now have four submitted videos to add to my own amazing journey video.  I have therefore created a wiki on which to share them.  I am hoping that the rest of you will follow suit fairly shortly.  I know that most of you are in the midst of reports and other such end of year nasties!  In the meantime, take some time out to see the wonders that we pass as we do the daily grind to work.  You can view the complete and growing set of amazing journeys here. Feel free to send me the link to your uploaded video.  I am off down to the sounds at Christmas and will be trying very hard to get lost in the wilderness, my aim is to get up to ship cove, if the kids can stand it!  I will do the same trick again and publish that, so don’t stop once you start!