Question About the Availability of Google Earth Workshops

I gave a talk at the American Association of Geographers meeting last week on the use of Google Earth in higher education, and following the talk there was no time for questions. I did get one question emailed to me, and because I think it's a good one, I'd like to answer it here. I'm posting the question(s) and my response in case someone reads this and wants to add to the discussion. I won't include the professor's name and school.

April 21, 2007

Hi Meg,

I greatly enjoyed your presentation yesterday at AAG in SF. In terms of my current interests, it was the best presentation of the day. Thank you. (I wanted to talk to you afterwards but unfortunately had to dash to meet up with one of my students before the Lopez/Solnit session).

I am writing because I have a full sabbatical in the Fall to work on developing improved graphic teaching tools for my geography courses. Part of the sabbatical project involves learning to use the more advanced features of Google Earth. I would greatly appreciate it if you could suggest the best way to quickly get up to speed on making my own KML/KMZ files, uploading images, and creating movies/fly-throughs. Are there any workshops on these topics that you're aware of? Any especially good books or online tutorials? Any advice or help you may be able to offer will be greatly appreciated!

Warm regards,
Professor of Geography

My response:

Dear Professor of Geography,

Thank you for your kind words on the Google Earth presentation and your interest in some Google Earth sabbatical ideas.

First off, I don't know of any workshops or training sessions available for Google Earth. I'm self-taught. But as I said in the talk, it's pretty easy software to work with and you can't break anything when you're trying to figure things out. I think that Google Earth is new enough that there aren't any how-to books out there (that I know of) and that use is growing organically. Likewise, there are no resources available that talk about standards for use in a classroom setting.

Secondly, always get the most up-to-date version of Google Earth. I think I said that in my talk, but it should be restated. I find that I can do most everything I need to do with the free version of Google Earth. You mentioned making a movie; that would need to be done with the pay-for version (Google Earth Pro at $400/seat). There is a movie-making tutorial that you can follow.

When I give demos to faculty members on campus, I usually try to give them a copy of a Google Earth Users Guide is pretty useful, though I think it is very wordy. But all of the things that you mentioned that you'd like to learn are listed there.

Frank Taylor's Google Earth Blog has a nice short list of some things you can do with Google Earth, like describing the overview map and playing a tour, but also clarifying any confusion between a KML or a KMZ? I get that sometimes. And then the Google Earth Blog also points to tutorials.

And these seem to be video and audio podcasts Google Earth tutorials (I must admit I haven't tried these but they look useful).

Finally, there was a terrific KML that I stumbled upon and now cannot seem to dredge up. It was a great step-by-step on how to make a placemark with different types of text, with an embedded URL, and with an image that pops up in the placemark bubble. Where is that!? If I find that one, I'll send it along to you. Just keep in mind that the placemark "description" can be written in HTML. My guess is that I found that helpful KML back before I started the gisatvassar blog. Now when I find something useful, I stick it right on the links side (or post a note about it). So what I'll do with your email and my answer (leaving out your name, of course) is post it to the blog.

When you get into your 'free' time of your sabbatical, please get in touch with me if you have Google Earth questions.

Best regards,
Meg

Fifth Annual Teaching With Technology Forum

Another great year for Vassar's annual Teaching with Technology Forum, we had twelve interesting presenters showing posters and demonstrations of a variety of interesting uses of technologies in teaching. We also had a keynote speaker discussing the uses of visual images and (gasp!) getting presentation materials from Flickr. It was great.

As I mentioned in the Save the Date announcement awhile back, there were six posters given on geospatial topics. Five of the six had not presented at a Forum in the past. So, hurray for new users to GIS, mobile mapping and Google Earth!

Eventually, we in Academic Computing Services will put all of the lovely posters up on the web as we have done in 2006, 2005, and 2004. Please stay tuned. Until we get it together, please enjoy the posters that I helped put together. You'll notice one extra, non-geospatial poster, on the list. Yu Zhou talked about her use of Google Docs in class, a tool I love to use and love even more to promote. So check it out. Click on each for a larger jpeg to read. Here's the list in alphabetical order (with departmental affiliation):

Robert Fritz and Keri Van Camp (both in Biology), "Using Tablet PC Technology to Examine the Effect of an Invasive Species on Plant Diversity at the Vassar Farm"

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Brian Godfrey (Geography), "Making Maps with Census Data"

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David Jemiolo (Biology) and David Kennett (Economics), "Sugar, Rum and Squash: Going to Barbados with Google Earth"

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Lucille Johnson (Anthropology), "Field Archaeology: Tablet PCs and Digital Photography Enhance Research and Reporting"

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A. Marshall Pregnall (Biology), "Finding the Bathymetry of Sunset Lake and the Change Over Time Using Spatial Analyst"

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Jeff Walker (Earth Science) and Mary Ann Cunningham (Geography), "Analyzing Regional Agriculture Through GIS, On-Line Water Budget Mapping and Soil Nutrient Modeling"

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Yu Zhou (Geography), "Using Google Docs (aka Writely) as a Collaborative Writing Tool"

GIS in Higher Education


"Understanding Place: GIS and Mapping Across the Curriculum," an edited collection by Diana Stuart Sinton and Jennifer Lund, just came out and is now available on-line at Amazon. My thought is that this book will be useful for all the people that I created this blog for, people who use and teach with geospatial technologies in an academic setting. It is published by ESRI. Order a copy for your library today.

Here is a book description:

"This collection of case studies describes how experienced instructors have used GIS within the traditions of a classical undergraduate education, spanning subjects as varied as the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. These stories offer creative ways for teachers to help students analyze, manage, and visualize information by describing how instructors have integrated mapping software into their syllabi, pursued the learning goals of their discipline, and strived to create a realistic learning environment in which students practice inquiry in their fields."

American Association of Geographers Meeting - Virtual Globes Session Today

Just had the Virtual Globes session this afternoon in San Francisco for the AAG conference. Needless to say, all the virtual globe sessions (yesterday's as well) were very well attended.

So, as promised, here's the slide presentation from today's talk on using Google Earth in higher ed. I think it went pretty well.

Though I'm not going to post the text of our talk, here is the abstract; I would say that we stayed pretty true to the original message of the abstract.

Sharing Project Data Using Google Earth: Doing GIS Without Learning GIS

Author(s): Meg Stewart*, Mary Ann Cunningham, Kirsten Menking, and Ken Bolton - Vassar College

Abstract: Google Earth transformed the public's ability to visualize landscape features through imagery and is amplifying spatial literacy and geospatial awareness. Increasingly this program is serving as a platform for GIS data with more individual purposes. We have begun to use Google Earth to serve data to other users on campus, in order to facilitate communication about research projects, to support teaching, and to aid in community outreach. Beginning with a set of data for a collaborative stream monitoring project, we have used this approach to present our data to the public, as well as to provide cross-platform data access to participants of various projects. We have also used Google Earth with locally-produced data sets to support workshops and demonstrations in non-GIS classes and across disciplines. While this application is in early stages of development on campus, it has proven a useful tool for these communication purposes. The intuitive interface of Google Earth allows us to more quickly and easily produce maps and distribute them by way of the Google Earth community bulletin board than we can if we used an internet mapping service product or traditional GIS software. We present our progress here to show our methods, to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of this approach to data distribution, and to help initiate exchanges of ideas on these kinds of directed applications of this software.

Using ArcMap 9.2? Recover Your 9.1 ArcMap Document

From Lynn Carlson of the GIS At Brown (sound familiar?) blog came this helpful hint about dealing with two versions of ArcMap, 9.1 and 9.2. We have this situation as our GIS lab has 9.2 but our tablet PCs have 9.1, so be aware that you do not need to re-create your map nor curse ESRI (this time). Thanks, Lynn!

Did you open/create an ArcMap document (*.mxd) on a computer with version 9.2 installed, and now you cannot open the file on a computer that is still running version 9.1?
All is not lost.

In version 9.2, the "File -> Save A Copy As" pulldown menu allows you to select the older software version.

Simply choose "ArcMap 9.0/9.1 Document (*.mxd)" from the "Save As Type" selection options.

Remember to give this copy of your .mxd a different file name to indicate that this is your older version.

Continue your work on this copy in ArcMap 9.1.

Mid-Hudson GIS User's Group - Second Meeting

We had a second meeting of the Mid-Hudson GIS User's Group and what follows are the minutes of that meeting. The first one was held last October. This time we met at Bard College in the Henderson Lab, where Bard's terrific GIS lab is located. We were short about 5 or 8 people, but we were not deterred and stuck with the agenda.

Attendees:

Mark Becker, CIESIN and Bard College
Mitchell Bring, Graphic Intelligence
Craig Vogel, Winnakee Land Trust
Girk Cakmak, Bowne Management Systems, Inc.
Susan Winchell-Sweeney, Bard College
Christopher Lindner, Bard College
Mark Halsey, Bard College
Meg Stewart, Vassar College

The meeting opened with a presentation by Mark Becker. Mark is a faculty member for Bard's Center for Environmental Policy, where he has taught the GIS program for four years. He is also the Associate Director of Geospatial Applications at CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network). Mark talked about the GIS course in the graduate program and how he is able to bring real-world data from CIESIN into his teaching at BCEP. This semester the class has been opened up to 13 undergraduates, a new approach for Bard.

Christopher Lindner gave a presentation on his archaeological work in nearby Germantown and on the Bard campus. Using GIS, Lindner and his colleague Susan Winchell-Sweeney, georeferenced a 1740 map showing settlement in Germantown and discussed German immigration patterns in the Hudson Valley in the early 18th century, populating Rhinebeck, parts of Ulster County and then into Pennsylvania. Lindner also discussed work done by students in the Historical Archaeology class who have gathered both historical and pre-historic artifacts from the Bard campus (the Bard Lands Project). (The point shown above is NOT from Bard College land.) From these surface surveys and test pits, Lindner has helped identify sections of the campus worth further archaeological investigation and has advocated for modification of site plans. There's a rich historical record in the soil at Bard.

Susan Winchell-Sweeney, Bard GIS consultant, took us on a tour of the some of the areas discussed in Christopher's lecture. Bard College is located on a beautiful and large piece of property overlooking the Hudson River. Susan discussed her work as an archaeologist at Bard. She has coordinated the mapping efforts between Buildings and Grounds, the architects of new building projects, and the archaeologists by using GIS and AutoCAD for plotting accurate locations of underground conduits, building sites and historical and pre-historic findings. It's not easy to be able to speak all those languages plus be able to make a decent map!

We ate lunch and had some more informal discussion. We adjourned at about 1:00pm.

Teaching with Technology Forum – Save the Date


Vassar’s Academic Computing Services group will host the fifth annual Teaching With Technology Forum

Wednesday, April 25
4:00 – 6:45pm
in the Aula at Ely Hall

Vassar College

There will be thirteen faculty presenters on hand to demonstrate their classroom exercises and projects using computers and poster-style presentations. Many terrific geospatial projects will be presented. It is a fun, informal and interesting event that is not to be missed.

Here’s a list of the geospatial projects (as this is a GIS blog):

Lucy Johnson (Anthropology), “Field Archaeology: Tablet PCs and Digital Photography Enhance Research and Reporting”

Brian Godfrey (Geography), “Making Maps with Census Data”

David Jemiolo (Biology) and David Kennett (Economics), “Sugar, Rum and Squash: Going to Barbados with Google Earth”

Bob Fritz and Keri Van Camp (Biology), “Using Tablet PCs in a Field Ecology Course to Examine the Distribution of Garlic Mustard”

Jeff Walker (Geology), “Food and Farming - GIS in Agriculture”

Marshall Pregnall (Biology), “Finding the Bathymetry of Sunset Lake and the Change Over Time Using 3D Analyst”

This event is free and open, so feel welcome to come and see what your faculty colleagues are up to at Vassar. Here’s what past Forums looked like (2006, 2005, and 2004). If you have any questions, please contact me.

"How do you I there?" Then ask for directions to the Aula at the Main Gate.

GIS on the BBC - Bagdad Violence Over the Last Four Years


This is a very interesting BBC web page that shows the monthly figures for civilian casualties in Bagdad from 2003 to present. The data are from the Iraq Body Count which uses at least two media reports as the source for each death.

Mid-Hudson GIS Users Group Meeting

All mid-Hudson GIS users (preferably in academia), are invited to our second regional meeting on Monday, April 9th at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The meeting will begin in the GIS classroom at the Henderson Technology Laboratories building at 9 a.m.

PROGRAM

9 a.m. Introductions and Welcome

9:15-10:15 a.m. “GIS at Bard College: Now, and Possibilities for the Future”
-- Mark Becker, GIS Professor, Bard Center for Environmental Policy (BCEP) and Director of Geospatial Technologies, Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Earth Institute, Columbia University

10:15-12 p.m. Open Discussion
--To read the minutes from the first regional meeting, please visit
http://gisatvassar.blogspot.com/2006/10/mid-hudson-gis-users-group-first.html

12-1 p.m. Lunch at Ward Manor House Café*

1-2 p.m. “Bard Unearthed” Campus Tour – Egyptian temples? Mayan ruins? Discover the rich and hidden (and sometimes bizarre) history of the Bard Lands and how GIS helps reveal it.
-- Christopher Lindner, Archaeologist-in-Residence, Bard College

*Lunch will be provided for all participants. No registration fee is required, but pre-registration is recommended so we can have a head count for lunch. Contact Sharon Kopyc, Coordinator of Curriculum Support and Instructional Technology, Bard College, kopyc@bard.edu , (845) 758-7496.

For any additional questions, please contact Susan Winchell-Sweeney, BCEP teaching assistant and applied GIS consultant, Bard College, sweeney@bard.edu or susanwinchell@sbcgloba.net

If Only There Was Google Earth Way Back When

Ogle Earth pointed out a really great site for Utah geology. The Utah Geological Survey has available a really spectacular KML file of about 15 beautiful, geologic wonders in the geologically wondrous state of Utah. It's not to be missed. The placemarks are terrific, with lot's of information and photos and could be easily used in an earth science class. Look for the inverted topography (above photo) and the sand dunes. Keep the Panoramio photos turned on in Google Earth so you can see even more geologic splendor.

I did my geology field work back in 1993-4 in southwestern Utah using boots, a paper map, a Brunton, pencils and Rapidographs. Yeah, those were the days. Couldn't afford aerial photographs. Now you can get them for free. By the way, I mapped a section of the Hurricane fault, discussed on the Utah Survey's web page in a recent report. Wonder if my work is mentioned??

So, since I was taking a stroll down memory lane, I just had to go ahead and make a KML of my field area to share with the world. If you care to know where I spent a long, hot summer back in 1993, take a look at this KML file.

Recommended Article on Cybercartography

Thomas Hill, Vassar librarian and the Library Café host, mentioned a terrific piece in first monday, the "Peer-reviewed Journal on the Internet," called " Many, many maps: Empowerment and online participatory mapping, " by David L. Tulloch and I thought I'd pass it along to recommend it and make some comments.

In the article Tulloch talks about public participatory or community-generated mapping as he discusses three different on-line mapping applications that he is terming cybercartography. As a little aside we had Sébastein Caquard give a talk about cybercartography a few years back. Caquard is referenced, along with his colleague, D.R.Fraser taylor, as coining the term.

Tulloch uses three points of reference in his discussion - Google Earth and Google Maps API and their many fans, the CommonCensus Map project, and Second Life as a way of changing the environment. He argues that these free, online, web-based, utilities empower individuals and make accessible spatial information and will succeed at democratizing spatial data, through access and creation, especially for marginalized groups.

In discussing Google Earth and Google Maps , Tulloch talks about the robust on-line community of users who put up all their KMLs and KMZs that they find interesting. As a reflection of the web itself, some of these "maps" are very worthwhile but some are just silly. But we can all go to the bulletin board and search the files and see what's been done. I just took a look at the board and there are 755,041 registered users. That's a lot of geography going on and that doesn't include all the anonymous users of the site who just want to download KMLs. Tulloch says that the popularity of these web-based mapping tools is based on "their price and their exceptionally user-friendly design." Absolutely. He also gives props to the Keyhole Corporation, the original developer of Google Earth. Oh, and of course, there's the access to Google Maps API for anyone to make their own mash-ups.

Oddly, Tulloch does not mention other virtual globes out there, NASA World Wind, Celestia, Virtual Earth come to mind, but add those to the growing list of cheap and easy on-line access to geospatial information.

With the CommonCensus Map Project, an American expat living in Brazil without formal geospatial technological training has created a unique way of mapping the U.S. by having visitors to the site enter their zip code and choosing a metropolitan area that they closely identify with. As Tulloch writes:

"It is quite telling that an individual can single-handedly develop such an interface and collect these data from over 40,000 participants (while living thousands of miles away) without the imprimatur of a geography degree or the support of an NGO. Allowing this massive audience to actively participate in the collaborative mapping of boundaries for their landscapes is an act of empowerment."

And in his final example, Tulloch discusses the use of Second Life as a development space for creating a park using public participation. The architects of this park are all local Queens community residents who have been invited to join in with their avatars and teleport to Democracy Island.
By the way, with 4,352,860 "residents” Second Life has a considerably higher number of users than the Google Earth BBS. I'm not a Second Lifer (and it's not that I'm cynical like SOME people) but I am a huge Google Earth fan and my dream is to teleport an avatar in the "real" world of Google Earth. But it looks like I/we might be able to do that real soon with Unype.

One thing that Tulloch touches on throughout this article and I think is critical when using these web-based mapping tools or supporting their use, if you happen to be an academic computing type such as myself, is the aspect of using geospatial technologies without any standards in place. He states it nicely in his concluding remarks:

"...spatial technologies bring with them a more complex set of problems for which most Internet users are unprepared. Whether it is a problem with spatial map projections and coordinate systems or a misunderstanding of appropriate scales, it would be easy for a technologically enabled but spatially illiterate individual to assemble a disturbingly inappropriate application for public use."

It seems to me that public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) has evolved out of the earlier environmental justice work. Where researchers used GIS to look at locations of environmental hazards in communities and making assessments of their locations based on race, class, gender, age, income, etc., (a link to a PDF of a paper on GIS in Environmental Justice work ), we now see those same communities claiming the data as their own. Creating the data. Having a stake in the outcome of the research. Or being the one in control of the microscope. This is as it should be.

If you have good references on standards for use of Google Earth in teaching or the use of Second Life in teaching, I'd appreciate that.