Mapping Geotagged Images from Flickr in Less than 10 Seconds

This video is a quick tutorial for streaming geotagged images into the map viewer at ArcGIS.com.  The map viewer was recently updated and now has a great utility for KML files, among many other great new features.

Geotagged Images in ArcGIS Explorer with GeoRSS

ESRI's ArcGIS Explorer is a free digital globe for Windows - a two and three dimensional mapping tool with several base maps and supported data types.  It will load and display all kinds of GIS data (shapefiles, geodatabases, rasters, connects to ArcGIS, etc) and also data like KML and GeoRSS.

If you have already created a gallery of geotagged images in one of the many photo sharing websites (e.g. Flickr, Picasa Web), you can easily ingest a feed (or data stream) of you photos with the geography intact. This feed is in the form of a GeoRSS file and is created each time it is called by ArcGIS Explorer - meaning your images are always up to date.  The power in this approach is that you can select images from different galleries and different websites, displayed against a variety of base maps and other geography.  You can see my ArcGIS Explorer GeoRSS Photo map at ArcGIS.com.

To create your ArcGIS Explorer GeoRSS photo map

1. For Flickr users, scroll to the bottom of your Photostream page and find the "geoFeed" link.  You'll want to copy this URL and use it in ArcGIS Explorer. Be sure you have relevant location sharing options turned on.
2. For Picasa Web Albums users, select a gallery, select an Album and find the "RSS" link.  You'll need to copy this URL and use it later in ArcGIS Explorer. Note that you must have created an "Album Map" in order for the RSS feed to contain geographic data.
3. Open ArcGIS Explorer and press "Add Content".  Select "GIS Services".
4. Press "New Server Connection".
5. Change Server Type to "GeoRSS" and paste your geoFeed or RSS URL from Flickr or Picasa Web Albums. 
6. If you receive an error, the first and most likely problem is that all proper location sharing options in Flickr or Picasa Web Albums are not enabled.  Revisit and try again.

You can repeat the above process until you've added all the geotagged photos you want. Change your base maps and add more geo data to make it yours.

Lastly, if you want to share your ArcGIS Explorer file, save your work as an .nmf (file) and upload to ArcGIS.com.  The accounts are free and take only a second to set up.

GeoTagging with student iPhones and Picasa Web Album

GeoTagging with an Apple iPhone 3GS is an absolute snap!  With a camera and GPS built-in, you just point-and-shoot.  The challenge can be transfering these geotagged images to an online service that maps your pics. However, using the "email feature" in Picasa Web Album resolves this issue quite handily.

Why an iPhone?
Apple iPhones have gained rapid and dramatic market share in consumer mobile devices.  This trend may be the most evident among kids and young adults.  My own informal polling of students, teachers, and principals leads me to suspect that anywhere from 25% to 50% of middle schools students are carrying one of these devices.  While many of these students have pages of apps and the Apple data plan, few of them can buy an app.  For teachers, this means that potentially 50% of students in your class are carrying their own data collecting device that will geotag images.  Students can email the geotagged images directly from the iPhone to Picasa Web Albums, after making a few tweaks in Picasa.

Setting up your classroom Picasa Web Album

1. If you don't already have a Google account your use for the classroom, create one.
2. Login to your classroom account and head to Picasa Web Albums
3. Click on "Settings" in the upper-right corner.
4. On the "General" tab, check the box next to "Upload photos by email" and note the special email address you're given. after entering a secret word (usually an @picasaweb.com address).
5. Now, when your students take a geotagged photo, they just email it to this address. 
6. These emailed photos will appear in a "Drop Box" folder and will need to be moved to another public folding of your choice.

Steps for classroom activities

1. Students use the built-in iPhone camera app to take a geotagged photo.
2. Students share the photo by emailing it to the address, provided by Picasa.
3. You (teachers) will need to move the photos to a new album.
4. Students can then comment on their photos, contributing any other attribute information collected during the study.

What a great way to empower students, engaging them with their tools and tech, while extending classroom and collaborative data collection!  Share your thoughts or experience below.