Getting ready for the GA Conference in Manchester

I've just about completed my presentation for the Geographical Association Conference in Manchester (17th - 18th April).

I'm running a session called `Mapping Images the Digital Way' as an introduction for teachers to the use of online image galleries and online mapping. The central aim is to create a `My Walks' map using Google `My Maps' and to introduce the Northumbria University website called My Walks.

I'm currently experimenting with the integration of the Google suite of programmes and this post is a result of `clicking on' the Blog link at the bottom of the Picasa 3 editing page. I think Picasa is one of the best of the free photo-editing tool and it now comes with some great new features, for example a simple tool to create a video from still images. Because it is so straightforward to use I will be recommending it for simple editing projects in the classroom.

As the focus of the session is on creating digital maps to display the location of photographs I will be demonstrating how easy it is to drag images from the online gallery onto the online Google Map. I intend to use my Dartmouth collection to demonstrate how easy this is.

Seahouses Harbour - Collage created using Picasa

Click here or on the image to be taken to the Seahouses website

I've recently begun to use the Picasa photo-gallery from Google and am very taken with. It has many very useful features, including a time-line that lets you find images according to the date they were stored on the computer. It also has some very useful image editing tools (my only issue with the programme is that there is no re-sizing tool). Web-galleries can be created and shared with contacts via e-mail. The whole package is interlinked to both Google Earth and to Blogger, which makes linking into the Google suite of programmes very easy. I particularly like how both Picasa images and Quickmaps can be viewed in Google Earth.