We have been using ArcGIS Online in school for several years now, and ESRI UK have kindly given us a free subscription for the last few years so that we can share our work.
At the end of the Awards presentation at this week's GA Conference Stuart Bonthrone, the MD of Esri UK stood up and made an announcement which was in some ways inevitable after events previously in the USA, and also very welcome.
Stuart announced that from immediate effect, ArcGIS Online will be free to all UK schools.
Under the heading of "The Science of Where", Stuart then played a short video featuring the inspirational work of Thierry Torres and colleagues at Dover Grammar School.
I also had the chance to meet Steve Richardson, who is being employed to produce new resources and materials for teachers to encourage more use of the tool in classes.
There are already over 60 resources available, with plenty more to come.
For the last few months now, we've had a school subscription to ArcGIS Online, and we'll be starting to use this more often in the new school year.
We'll have a new StoryMap showing the school site ready for the new school year, and this will be something we'll be using in as many year groups as possible.
You can check it out for yourself free of charge. Visit the website above and click MAKE A MAP.
There's plenty of guidance online.
At King's Ely, the Geography department now has a subscription to ArcGIS Online.
GIS is a special type of digital mapping, which connects a base map with data to start to map it, and look for patterns within it.
This means that we are going to be able to use it across the school to map data related to topics we are teaching, but also to ask (and answer) questions about the world.
This is a very new mapping tool, and the supporting website for teachers has just launched. Mr. Parkinson worked on some materials for this tool earlier in the year, and we'll be developing more in school between now and the end of the year.
This will also be useful for Controlled Assessments at GCSE, and 'A' level work too... If you'd like a login and further details to be one of our King's Ely GIS Pioneers, find Mr. Parkinson in N2 and ask him for more details...
