Nature article on GIS and Google Earth

There's a nice (if a little too upbeat) article in last weeks Nature about Google Earth and geographic information systems (GIS) software. It focusses on their potential value for scientists, particularly in relation to environmental monitoring but this is exactly where computing based networked information systems can really have an impact in education too. A picture paints a thousand words and if we start tapping into the real possibilities for explaining abtract concepts through the kind of visual representation that these kinds of tools make possible, then even the skeptics like teacher Peter Berger, may begin to realise we have not even scratched the surface of their (and our) potential.

Thanks to my colleague Dick Morris for the link.