The Next Best Thing To Being There
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The Next Best Thing to Being There
This hands-on workshop explores some of the many options for exploring the world using Mapping and Streetview technology. We’ll look at how Streetview works, where you can use it, how you can contribute to it, and some of the amazing geo-exploration options it opens up for our schools. We’ll delve into Maps, Expeditions, and the Google Cultural Institute to see how these amazing tools can be used to add depth to our curriculums and literally be the next best thing to being there. Bring a computer and prepare to explore your world!
Cardboard and Google Expeditions
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
A lot of the world's information is not text based. Places, people, events, things... these all contribute to "the world's information". In order to truly organise the world's information It becomes necessary to capture non-text information as well.
A lot of these services are based on Google's Streetview technology.
Google Maps and My Maps
One obvious way to explore the world from the comfort of your classroom is with Google Maps and My Maps. With Points of Interest, Photos, Information overlays and of course Streetview, Maps can be included as a core part of ANY classroom learning experience.
Great Sphinx at Giza | Taj Mahal | Sydney Opera House | Angkor Wat | South Pole
Times Square NYC | CERN LHCb | El Capitan | Heron Island | Lan Kwai Fong HK
Are YOU using maps to explore the world in your classroom? If not, why not?
Make your own Streetview
Want to contribute to the collection of Streetview imagery on Maps? You can do it easily using the free Streetview app for Android or iOS.
If you want a simpler (but more expensive solution) you could use a camera like the Ricoh Theta, Giroptic 360 Cam, Panono, Sphericam2, BublCam, or the high end Iris360. The growth in hardware for recording 360 video is astounding right now!
And if you have an idea for mapping a special part of the world that hasn't yet been "streetviewed" you could always ask to borrow the Trekker and do it in style.
Cardboard and Google Expeditions
Using a simple and inexpensive VR viewer called Cardboard and your smartphone, you can visit immersive 3D panoramic locations.
Currently in beta, Expeditions is a special curated collection of Streetview imagery delivered to a class set of Cardboard viewers and managed by the teacher. When released it will provide a way for teachers to take their students on immersive virtual field trips to locations all over the globe. Each expedition comes with a detailed set of notes in order to guide students through the experience.
More info on Expeditions - https://www.google.com/edu/expeditions/
YouTube 360º Videos
Some of the special 360 cameras mentioned above can also shoot 360º video. And YouTube can play back this 360º video on the web or in the YouTube app on mobile. Devices use the accelerometer to let you look around in a video.
Check out some of these to get started. Or just add “360 video” to your search in YouTube.
The Google Cultural Institute
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/home
Google has partnered with hundreds of museums, cultural institutions, and archives to host the world’s cultural treasures online. With a team of dedicated Googlers, we are building tools that allow the cultural sector to display more of its diverse heritage online, making it accessible to all.
Here you can find artworks, landmarks and world heritage sites, as well as digital exhibitions that tell the stories behind the archives of cultural institutions across the globe.
The Google Art Project
http://www.googleartproject.com/
Over 850 museum partners large and small, classic and modern, world-renowned and community-based have contributed more than 4.7 Million high-resolution images of works ranging from oil on canvas to sculpture and furniture. Some paintings are available in ‘gigapixel’ format, allowing you to zoom in at brushstroke level to examine the work in incredible detail.
Use Google Street View to explore the interiors of landmarks such as the Palace of Versailles and The White House. Or, build and share your own virtual art gallery.
World Wonders
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/
World Wonders brings modern and ancient world heritage sites online using Streetview, 3D modelling and other Google technologies. Explore historic sites including Stonehenge, the archaeological areas of Pompeii and the Great Barrier Reef as if you were there.
Learn about the history and background of each location with information provided through a partnership with UNESCO.
Historic Moments
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/historic-moments
Many cultural institutions have extensive archives of information, much of which cannot always be put on public display. Partner museums and curators have created exhibitions to bring these archives to life and make them available online.
Explore Historic Moments, Cultural Figures, Science & Technology, and other categories to browse through photos, videos, manuscripts and documents on a wide range of topics – from Nelson Mandela’s handwritten prison letters, to the ‘La Dolce Vita’ era in Italy.
Check out some of the other Cultural Institute sub-sites such as Cultural Figures or the Nelson Mandela Center of Memory and lots more.
The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls
http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/
The Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project allows users to examine and explore these most ancient manuscripts from Second Temple times at a level of detail never before possible. Developed in partnership with Google, the new website gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history.
The Constitute Project
https://www.constituteproject.org
Not technically part of the Cultural Institute, Google Ideas supported the Comparative Constitutions Project to build Constitute, a new site that digitizes and makes searchable the world’s constitutions. Constitute enables people to browse and search constitutions via curated and tagged topics, as well as by country and year. The Comparative Constitutions Project cataloged and tagged nearly 350 themes, so people can easily find and compare specific constitutional material. This ranges from the fairly general, such as “Citizenship” and “Foreign Policy,” to the very specific, such as “Suffrage and turnouts” and “Judicial Autonomy and Power.”
Chris Betcher, Creative Commons BY-SA
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