WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
Continuing my series on 20 ideas for using educational technology in the classroom, this time I’m looking at how the results of field trips can be shared with others around the world. Not only can this be done when students return to school, but in some instances whilst they’re still on the trip! It’s another case of students having a real audience to which they can present their work… 
The traditional way that field trips usually work is that students and teachers go off to a designated place, collect some information, return, and then use that information for a given purpose. Often this is coursework-related, in which case such trips and their results can become somewhat formulaic. What would be better if these trips could somehow contribute to a wider body of knowledge which students in return could use towards their coursework.
To contribute to a wider text-based body of knowledge, students could use Wikipedia or similar to add their findings to established repositories of knowledge. They could blog about it (I recommend learnerblogs.org or wordpress.com) or create their own wiki (I recommend PBwiki, Wetpaint, or - as Google has just acquired it - Jotspot)
What I’m more interested here, however, is the sharing of photos taken on such field trips. Usually the largest audience these get is people who happen to pass by a display about the trip, or sometimes, the occasional photo on a school website to show that the some of its ‘out-of-school learning’. Instead, given appropriate permission from parents/guardians, etc. what about adding these to an interactive map of the place(s) visited? One such way to do so is through geotagging.
Geotagging, according to Wikipedia, is:
…the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as websites, RSS feeds, or images. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though it can also include altitude and place names.
Therefore adding geotags to photographs means adding details as to where they were taken. Geotagging didn’t really used to be an easy thing to do, but now even adding GPS data to Google Earth is fairly straightforward! In what follows we’re going to look at Flickr, Zooomr and TripperMap… 
Flickr is the standard by which all other photo-sharing websites measure themselves against. Its got a large user base, can be joined for free and has straightforward ways to do what you want. Zooomr is a relatively new kid on the block, does pretty much everything Flickr does, but is currently (rather generously) giving away ‘Pro’ accounts for free if you add a link to them on your blog. TripperMap leverages Flickr to show trip routes, enable photo viewing in Google Earth, and easily add a flash-based map to a blog/website.
The really useful version of this service currently costs $9.95/year which, although not free, isn’t too bad - especially for a educational institution to pay. What I really like, however, is Flickr’s (free) geotagging map-based interface…
I haven’t geotagged many of my photos on Flickr, in fact I only played about with this feature when it was launched upon returning from a trip to Scotland. I geotagged a few photos then, but haven’t been on any school trips or places other than round home really… The great thing is that you can join a group on Flickr (or set up your own) which then has a ‘pool’ of geotagged photos. Look at the Geotagging Group to get some ideas! 
And if all this sounds a like a bit too much effort or a bit confusing, just take the students into the ICT suite when they get back and either let them loose adding placemarks to Google Earth (which can then be shared with the Google Earth community), or just point them towards Wikimapia. Both methods should work well and make students feel that they are contributing something or producing for a real audience, rather than slavishly following the tracks of last years’ cohort!
(Photo credit: not enough satellites by allygirl520 at Flickr)
Popularity: 6% [?]
Doug,
This is excellent and actually just what we were talking about yesterday in school. You have just done a pile of work for me – thank you for sharing!
I like the idea of 20 ideas for using educational technology in the classroom. Now that I have discovered your blog I am going to go back and look at your other ideas. I am a strong believer that ‘ideas’ shared have a greater impact on the classroom experience than any large education imitative that I have some across. I recently gave a talk at the Scottish Association of Geography teachers Conference titled Geography for the 21st century: 50 Ideas in 50 Minutes. You can find a screen cast of the presentation here http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2006/11/geography_for_t.html on my blog. You might also be interested in the veo-tagged version here: http://www.veotag.com/player/?u=hjqckmorhk click on mobile phones in the right hand column and there might be a few simple ideas here that you could include in your list? Keep up the great work!
Ollie
PS: if you have not come across veotag before – it looks like a great tool for us to exploit in the classroom.
Ollie,
Thanks for that - I hadn’t come across veotag before, and your presentation looks great! I like the way you can skip to the section you want.
You might also want to have a look at this thread of the EffectiveICT Forum (of which I’m an administrator) which took your idea and ran with it a bit…