Wow wow wow, been playing around with the Google Earth program which you can download for free from here (your computer has to be powerful enough with a broadband connection to the Internet to use the program).
Seriously, this program is sooooo fun to play around with, you get to view satellite images of earth. Although not every country is mapped or is mapped to great detail, I can imagine how useful this program can be to students, especially to those who have never travelled. We can view the various urban settlement patterns, infrastructure planning, rivers, lakes, mountains, volcanoes...even your own home.
The main drawback I can see with this program so far is the fact that the images taken might not be updated. Additionally, since a satellite picture is taken almost directly overhead, there are the issues of angles and perspective which might make visualisation of certain features difficult. Plus, since the images are not labelled in great detail, I guess Geographical Imagination and having some background knowledge of the countries you want to explore through Google Earth will come in handy.
But overall, I believe it will come in handy...
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It could also be a security threat. While driving in to work tonight, I had my GPS unit turned on. As I approached Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, the maps went blank. However, on Google Earth, you can plainly see the Capitol Building.
Yup I agree, especially in light of our current geopolitical situation.
Maybe Google can play their part as corporate citizens and not use the "you can obtain these images from any commercial satellites anyway" argument and either blank out certain more strategic areas or at least, create those areas with very low resolution so that it will be difficult to pinpoint the sensitive areas/structures.
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