CAST 2010: A Picture's Worth a 1000 Lessons

We'll be in Houston, TX for the Texas Science Teachers' Convention CAST!  The presentation is Friday.

Code:  WS2184

Today's cameras are truly tying more data together in rich and meaningful ways. When combined with GPS locations these tools can really be powerful data collection devices to do investigations. We will cover how to get your pictures position information, how to store this information, what to do with geotagged images once taken and finally how to best use them as class room tools in many different sciences. It won't even have to come out of your science budget!

Audience:  Teacher / Pre-Service

Grade Level:  Middle School

Content:  Earth / Space Science / Life Science

Start Time:                    4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Scheduled Room:         362 AD

Updated 11/15/2010: Session PowerPoint now available for viewing or download via Google Docs.

NCGE Live Webinar: GeoTagging Media

Please join NCGE for our next live webinar on Tuesday September 14, 2010.

Webinar: GeoTagging Media

Date: September 14, 2010, 11AM Central

Description: This webinar is an introduction to geotagging digital photos and other media using ArcGIS Explorer Online, ArcGIS Explorer Desktop, and other free tools. GeoTagging is the process of assigning geographic information to digital media for mapping and visualization purposes.  GeoTagging is great for class field trips, outdoor field experiences, storytelling, and travel.

Presenter: Dr Tom Baker, Esri Education Manager

Visit http://ncge.org for more information.

Geotagging at the National Conference on Science Ed - NSTA 2010 Philly

Taking a bit of advice from this very blog, I decided to geotag my trip to the 2010 National Conference on Science Education in Philadelphia, PA. To help me keep up with it all, Anita Palmer also contributed several images

I'm using an iPhone and PixelPipe and occasionally, a Nikon P6000 (with built-in GPS) to record my images and post to Google's Picasa Web Albums. The iPhone can use either its GPS or cellular triangulation.  As many of these photos are being taken indoors, it seems that most of the positioning info is coming from the cellular triangulation.  I seem to keep "clumps" of pictures that are pretty close, but not spot-on.  As a result, I'm tweaking the position of many of these pictures, using Picasa Web Albums.

Since I'm geotagging and posting these images in (mostly) real time, each time you visit the gallery you should see new pics.  Granted, the conference itself may not provide a wealth of geography across which my pictures can post, but hopefully I'll see a few sites while in Philly and add those to the map as well.

• 2010 National Conference on Science Education geotagging project [ images | map-based ]

If you would like to contribute to this gallery, email your geotagged photos to:  trbaker.nsta2010@picasaweb.com by Sunday, March 21 (6pm EDT). Include your name and description.

Questioning and exploring with geotagged images using Flickr

The popular photo-sharing site Flickr (owned by Yahoo!) allows you to upload, organize, and map your favorite images.  Flickr allows users to geotag their images and has about 100 million geotagged at the moment.  That collection of photos is a massive database, waiting for you and your students to explore - and question.

The ability to use the map search to find certain images in a geographic area (or to see how  a phenomena varies across geography) is certainly one of the most instructionally relevant parts of this site.

For earth science and physical geography teachers, there are questions and photos, a plenty!

• How does volcano shape vary geographically?  [map]
• What factors might affect damage from earthquakes? [map]
• What can be learned about the structure and composition of rock around the world? [map]

Social studies, history, and anthropology learners have equally intriguing options:

• Does culture and geography effect the shape of our cities? [map]
• What does our clothing say about who we are and where we live? [map]
• Do our monuments say more about our past or our present? [map]

What questions can you ask that can be (at least in part) answered by exploring others' geotagged images?  Share your ideas by commenting to this post.