Since the earthquake, buildings, roads, and natural places have changed—in some cases dramatically. This new imagery helps provide a digital archive of Christchurch that allows us to remember the past and document the ongoing regeneration of the the city.
Kiwis can now go back in time to see how their streets and neighbourhoods are changing with the help of historical Street View imagery, a new feature of Google Maps

 For many parts of Christchurch, Google’s Street View cars have gathered street-level imagery since the February 2011 earthquake, which means that you can now see how different parts of Christchurch looked before and after.


 Since the earthquake, buildings, roads, and natural places have changed—in some cases dramatically. This new imagery helps provide a digital archive of Christchurch that allows us to remember the past and document the ongoing regeneration of the the city.

Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament

Street View Historical Imagery appears on the new Google Maps as a small clock in the top left hand corner of each Street View image that has historical Street View imagery.  You can click on it and, using a slider, move back and forth between different dates.

Main Road, Clifton

We will continue to add new images to historical Street View imagery over time, to help provide a more complete resource for the city. You can help us create a more complete digital mirror of Christchurch by uploading your own images using Google’s Photosphere feature. You can also update any outdated information by clicking on ‘Report a Problem’ on Google Maps - or by simply shaking your smartphone when you’re outside a point you want to update.


We’ve had many requests for these images since the earthquake and we’re so glad that we can now make them available. We hope that these powerful images are useful to help people remember, plan, and rebuild.

Posted by Anthony Baxter, Google Crisis Response, Google New Zealand

We’re pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Computer Science for High Schools grants in Australia and New Zealand. This annual program promotes computer science education by helping to equip educators with the skills and resources they need to teach computer science and computational thinking concepts in fun and relevant ways. Globally, this program has already trained more than 12,000 teachers and reached over 600,000 students.

Closer to home, we are supporting 20 organisations across Australia and New Zealand who will provide this important training to school teachers.

2014 recipients
Australia

New Zealand

In Australia, this year’s recipients will be expanding their workshops to focus on the implementation of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum being rolled out to classrooms across the country and include primary school and pre-service teachers in their workshops.  

In addition to the CS4HS workshops, we’ll continue to support the rollout of the new curriculum with a partnerships with Adelaide University to deliver free online professional teacher development in teaching computational thinking.  If you’ve not started yet it’s not too late to join in. There are also some great classroom resources on our K-12 educators page.

We know that an early introduction to computational thinking and coding is a great foundation for students in any career they choose, whether it’s medicine, engineering or the movies.  We hope that these practical, hands on workshops will inspire teachers across Australia as they bring new material to their classrooms.
  
Posted by Sally-Ann Williams, Engineering Community & Outreach  Manager, Google Australia & New Zealand

The web is a great place for teens to explore, learn, connect and make new friends. But just like in the real world, there are sometimes people in the online world that behave badly and make that experience less fun. That’s why starting today, we’re asking Kiwi teens to sign up to become Web Rangers in New Zealand.

Web Rangers care about keeping the Internet a place where everyone can explore freely and confidently. They help stamp out bad behavior online by creatively spreading the word about safer and smarter Internet use. Best of all, they will do all of this while having fun, and exchanging ideas with other Web Rangers from across New Zealand during these Easter holidays.

Becoming one of NZ’s first ever Web Rangers is easy. You need to be between 14 and 17 years old to sign up, and be ready to take part in a workshop where you’ll learn about online safety and get practical tips from experts at Netsafe and Google to help you create your own safety campaign. Workshops will take place in Wellington on Tuesday, April 29, Christchurch on Wednesday, April 30, and Auckland on Thursday, May 1. You’ll then have six weeks to put together your own campaign on staying safe online. It can take any form -- a video, a game, an interactive classroom session. You name it!

The creators of the top Internet safety campaigns from each city will be flown to Sydney to present their campaign to the Google team. There are also other cool prizes up for grabs, including Chromebooks and Android smartphones.

We’re happy to have Jamie Curry from Jamie’s World throw her support behind this initiative. She’s uploaded a video on her YouTube channel on why cyber-bullying is serious and why we all need to do something about it.


What are you waiting for? Head to netsafe.org.nz/webrangers before April 14, 2014 and tell us why you think you’d make a great Web Ranger!

Posted by Annie Baxter, Google New Zealand

The Internet could have been purpose-built for New Zealand. As a small country, we can now have our voices heard on a global stage, and our ‘micro-multinationals’ can operate from here and sell to markets all around the world.
The Internet could have been purpose-built for New Zealand. As a small country, we can now have our voices heard on a global stage, and our ‘micro-multinationals’ can operate from here and sell to markets all around the world.

But the Internet is much more than a great way of connecting us with the rest of the world. It can also fundamentally transform how business is done in New Zealand, in industries from retail to tourism to farming.

Research released yesterday by the Innovation Partnership* shows that everyday Kiwi businesses that extensively use Internet services are six per cent more productive than average businesses in their industry. To put this in perspective, average productivity growth in New Zealand has been around 1.5% in recent years - meaning these Internet power users are four years ahead of their competitors.

The research – funded by Partnership members Internet New Zealand and Google, and conducted by Sapere Research Group – also showed that if all our businesses made more use of the Internet, it could add $34 billion to the New Zealand economy.

You can download the full report here.

It’s all very well to talk about making more use of the web, but it’s sometimes tough to know where to start. The report also takes a close look at how businesses in tourism, retail, agriculture and business services are getting on - and has put together four case studies that might give small business owners a few ideas on how to get started. From retailers Crane Brothers, to tourism operators Martinborough Top 10 Holiday Park,to the Livestock Improvement Corporation in the agricultural sector, to services business Cloud Accountants, these Kiwi businesses are showing the way.

Another tool launched this week to help businesses make the most of the Internet is Digital Journey.  Developed by the Digital Office with funding from Internet New Zealand and Google. In the time it takes to make a cup of tea, a small business owner can do a ‘digital health check’ of their own business. Digital Journey then provides a digital action plan with clear steps to take to harness the potential of the Internet, and once the assessment is completed, businesses can check back in to update where they are at and look for the next actions in their plan.

We hope that the research, case studies, and tools, will help more Kiwi businesses take their next steps in growing their own—and New Zealand’s—Internet-driven productivity.

Posted by Ross Young, Public Policy Manager, Google New Zealand

*The Innovation Partnership is a group of organisations dedicated to New Zealand becoming a world-leader in using the Internet to drive business growth, public sector excellence, and educational achievement. Google is a founding member.