Google Earth Fans...

[gijsbert]

Hey, i've a question.
My geography teacher loves google earth, everyone at my school does. what is the best way to learn them that GE isn't the best programme ever made?
i've start a topic about this at the dutch forum of my form: http://klasc.messageboard.nl/viewtopic.php?t=91 and there's just one boy that likes WW a bit now.

[TomServo]

Maybe read my blog post I am finishing up right now. It is a wrapup on a virtual globes symposium I spoke at yesterday. A few people that presented on using GE said in their presentations that it was not the best tool to be doing something like this.

This was to high education type people.

http://www.earthissquare.com/

Should have the post done soon.. it is a long one.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Originally Posted by gijsbert

My geography teacher loves google earth, everyone at my school does. what is the best way to learn them that GE isn't the best programme ever made?

Geography. Hmm, how about the Flags of the World or Waving Flags (in 1.4RC3) add-ons, the social studies teachers at my school really found the information interesting. Also the whole free open-source aspect is nice (the prinicpal of my school likes that part).

[gijsbert]

at the moment we're talking about tectonic plates, i think my geo teacher would like the paleomaps for WW. TomServos powerpoints are also useful.
i hope his computer is WW compatible.
i use WW in almost every geo-sciption, i really like it

[llecaroz]

As user of Google Earth & NASA WW, let me give my point of view... I hope that my arguments could help you....

Yes, Google Earth appears to be more user friendly & maybe having a better usability... Yes, you can see on some geographic zone/square more details... For example, I can see my home in Google Earth but not in NASA WW...

Yes, sure Google Earth provides (only at this time) maybe more user information... From my point lot of these informations are not for scientific usage & so finally for school usage... but more for marketing...

Ok, so let's just talk about NASA WW... & Why I am using finally everytime NASA WW instead of Google Earth even If I have the two products on my computer...

-There is multiple vesion of Google Earth, only one of them is public & free. Nasa WW is totally free
-Google Earth is not opened source, so I cannot contribute. Nasa WW is opened source, everybody can access the sourcecode & modify it
-Google Earth is not opened for developers. Nasa WW is totally opened with a plugin sdk allowing developers to write extensions...
-Who wrote Google Earth ? are they scientific guys like NASA WW ?
-You have maybe at this time more datas in Google, but lot of them are not scientifics or for school usages. In Nasa WW you have only at this time maybe less datas, but because Nasa WW is totally opened, the quantity of datas/plugins, depends on the contribution of EVERYBODY in this community
-NASA WW can be also used by schools to learn C# development for their studiants & also to use them after this with their geography teachers !

So, I don't like the NASA WW community, I looooooooooove it !

There lot of other args... For example, someone deliver some data files for NASA WW on the avian flue..... your have also the earthquake plugins.... You can also writes a module requesting in wikipedia the cities populations & displaying it with circles on the corresponding cities & countries... You can write some data files on the propogation of virus for example or of some wars/historical events.... You also have another module for displaying 3D clouds which is called "Globalclouds"...

If I remember well, withak (one of the developer), is also preparing a new measurement tool which will display in a graphic dialog box, each ground deep on all the distance you tried to meseaure; s), so you will have the ground level being displayed for all the mesured distance !

It is really a great tool, I personnaly re-wrote & add enhancement in a tool to display computer traceroutes...

&, sure that lof of future plugins will be delivered in the future (I hope ). You have for example a GPS trakcing plugins....

I hope that by giving my personal point of views it will help you to construct a list of reason to convaince your teacher to use NASA WW.... I know that my point of view is totally personal, but obtaining different/multiple personal point of view could help you to convaince your teacher...

Imagine.... Your geographic teacher needs a specific info or plugins, He talks with your computer teacher about his need, & so, The computer teacher decides with your classroom to write this plugin... By the way, it will be really great! you will see your geographic teacher using the plugin you wrote with your computer teacher ! Really interresting contribution sitution !

Best regards,
Louis

[llecaroz]

& to quickly answer, what will your teacher think about this addon : http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki...S_Golden_Pearl.
It could be an interresting plugin to convaince your teacher....

Look in the plugin page of the worldwindcentral, you will maybe find other plugins convaincing your teacher to use NASA WW

[TomServo]

Here is an interesting read: http://earthissquare.com/2007/01/20/...es-conference/

That is the recap of the Virtual Globes symposium that I presented at on Friday (took a few hours to remember and write it all down). It was me for World Wind and three peopel presenting that use GE and one person from ESRI presenting using their virtual globe.

The one thing I noticed was that all the GE related presentators didn't really go all for GE. In fact, a lot of peopel mainly called GE the "Adobe Acrobat Reader" of GIS.. yes it can display.. but you can't really do anything meaningful with it easily.

The market of GE is to make Google money. That /is/ the bottom line, not bring your house to the masses.

You really have to look at WHAT you want to do or learn and go from there. If you work with a lot of ESRI data, ArcGIS Explorer is the way you should go.. it brings all that data together seamlessly.

If you want to do a lot of stuff code wise to work with data, World Wind is the best choice. If you want to show basic information to people, GE is good there.

[woodse]

The two programs are different in there focus. I find that WW is more flexible in the education al setting.

GE big advantages in my opinion are
-Higher resolution and newer data sets in some areas (Asia in particular)
-Greater public knowledge and acceptance, it is easier to get somebody to try Google earth than NASA WW.
-An interface integrated with other Google tools, particularly useful for finding buildings, restaurants etc.

Of these, the first two effect education.

The first one will probably always be true and I think for an application like urban planning, GE may be the better tool (at least right now) but if you are looking at things at more of a regional or global scale, it does not really matter.

The second one is I think Google’s main advantage, Google can market and you can get to more people through it because everybody has heard of GE. This means if you make something for educational use, you will probably have more people check it out if you use GE.

The third really pertains to information that in most educational subjects are not important. I do wonder if in economics or some social sciences, some of Google earth's connections to the rest of the Google world could be very very powerful.


Strength's of NASA WW in my opinion
- Larger variety of control over data sets
- Large collection of global data sets
- Ability to take distance and elevation measurements (not available in free GE still I think)
- Free with no copy write on images or code (except for VE which is still OK to use in educational setting)
- Open source allows for flexibility with plug ins and add-ons
- Active support community
- Better graphical engine

These features make it much more useful in an educational setting. First its data sets are designed more with research, science (social and physical) and education in mind. When I started putting together the computer labs for my class this year, WW had several capabilities that I needed that GE did not (specifically, measuring distance, measuring bearing of a line, Mars and moon data, ocean floor age, paleo-maps etc). The open source aspect allows you both to freely use the images and install it on all computers at a school without a site license. The open source community allows it to be customized to fit your needs.

I think the biggest thing WW needs in the educational setting right now is more curricula out there for teachers who are not experts in technology can quickly pick up and implement in there classrooms.

[gijsbert]

I've written an email to my teacher with a lot of info and pics about WW, I hope he reads it. Would be fantastic if we use WW at school

[dwilhelmCSC]

I am a geographer and a climatologist who has been a teacher and now a contractor for the federal government. Because I technically work for the EPA and for a federal contractor GE is not a free product. In fact, anyone working in a business is required to purchase a license for GE pro. That right there is enough for me to never use GE. I agree that GE has some higher resolution imagery and some newer features, but I am currently working on a contract with the EPA to introduce some new datasets and tools for WW that GE will (*most likely) never be able to get a hold of. Thanks to the freedom of information act those tools and data will also be available to everyone (That is, of course, assuming that my programming skills can handle this). Once the EPA and other government agencies start picking up WW I think it will become far more powerful and thanks to the wonderful support of the WW community I think it will likely have way more flexibility. So tell your teacher that WW will ultimately be the way to go and to get on board now and help build it!