Those who know me well, know I've been teaching a Location-based Services masters topic at the University of London since I graduated there in 2001. When I joined the University as a student, the GISc distance learning course was the first correspondence MS in GISc program in the world. Today, I help students located all over the world two days per year. It occupies little time to contribute, I'm happy to do it, and proud of the now ten-year affiliation I have with the college.
When I was enrolled as a student, the Internet and tools & tricks of the Web made it possible for me to learn. Today, those tools are even more powerful, helping anyone with the will, a computer, and broadband to pursue a world class education from the comfort of their home or office with flexible study hours. It's a wonderful thing.
A few weeks ago, Google posted an invitation to Geo educators on their Lat/Long blog.
This July, Google is hosting the first Google Geo Teachers Institute. This event is a FREE professional development experience designed to help educators get the most from Google's Geo products and technologies. The Geo Teachers Institute is an intensive, two-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's Geo products: Google Earth, Google Maps, and SketchUp, including a focus on features like Mars, Moon and Sky in Google Earth. Attendees will learn about innovative instructional strategies and receive resources to share with colleagues. The Google Geo Education team hopes this event will empower educators to bring the world's geographic information to students in a
compelling, fresh, and fun way.
I applied as soon as I saw the above. Today I received an acceptance email from Google to join them and 200 other educators from all over the world for two days at the Googleplex. I can't wait to get my hands on more Geo tools and learn more tricks to help others learn the same way I did. Thanks Google. My hope is to take away new skills and ideas to inspire other students to continue outstanding location-based services research work such as this.
[Updated 9/14/2011] - check out this video of Clayton Christensen explaining why online learning is the future...