Quick AAG review

by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on April 28, 2010 • game geoweb google earth review web2.0 • 1 COMMENT

I was fortunate enough to attend and present at the AAG conference (and meet Kumiko’s new iPad) in Washington DC earlier this month. The AAG is always a great time to be introduced to new ideas, reconnect with old friends and put faces with names. The problem with the AAG is that it is sooooooo BIG! I never feel like I have been to enough talks. I am only going to blog about a few here.

In no particular order, I will first report on the session titled: Geovisualization, Geovisual Analytics, Cognition, Behavior and Representation I: Navigation and Spatial Cognition organized by Kirk Goldsberry and Sara Fabrikant (note: I got here late, it started at 8am). I was really interested in Sandra Metoyer’s talk. In short, she did a study testing interactions among geovisualization tools to measure spatial thinking and student learning. She found that interactive web based maps really helped students learn about complex spatial issues. Horray!

Another session that I found very stimulating was: Global Dialogues for Emerging Science & Technology Africa: Results of two years of collaboration between US Department of State, AAG, and EIS-AFRICA

This panel was chaired by Lee R. Schwartz – who holds the title THE GEOGRAPHER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! What a title! He is the head geographer for the U.S. Department of State. I was interested in attending this talk because it seems that Mr. Schwatz has his finger on the pulse of Neogeography and Web 2.0 and is trying to think of new ways that these tools can be used to help in the developing world. At the AAG last year I was fortunate enough to talk to him about his interests in incorporating new geospatial tools and software for a more inclusive process with state department work. Therefore when I saw this panel I was very excited to see what Mr. Schwartz has been doing! It seems like he is teaming with key players and they were all there to present their initiatives.

Panelists included:

Nathan Heard – U.S. Department of State
Charles Sebukeera – United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
Rebecca Moore – Google Earth Outreach (my personal hero! Read more about her and Google Earth Outreach to see why)
Carrie Stokes – USAID
Carmelle J. Terborgh – Federal/Global Affairs Team Lead, ESRI
Discussant(s):
Robert Swap – University of Virginia

I understand that panelists had a very limited time to present, but it seemed each shared a laundry list of projects that they were working on without actually explaining any of them in detail. They made it clear that they were “training the trainers” and not simply putting expats in Africa to do the job. Each speaker announced the need for a working organized Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) but they did not address how they were developing one and if Africans were involved in this the process. I did ask at the end and I was told they were going to discuss that in the next panel and made reference to the UN. This to me sounds like a top down approach to SDI development and participatory GIS. No one used the term public participatory GIS. There were very few academics in the room (I know this because they passed around a sign in sheet). Despite these minor let downs it was still great to see ESRI, Google Earth and the government working together to use their expertise and valuable tools to help Africa with issues such as public health, sustainable development, water resources management and a host of other vital challenges facing the African content.

Finally, my session was titled: Participatory Governance via Web 2.0 II and was organized by Dr. Renee Sieber of McGill University. There were several exciting panelist sharing their work harnessing the Geoweb for community engagement. All of the presenters were associated with the Participatory Geoweb research group funded by GEOIDE and the Canadian Government. My talk was titled: The potential for location-based services and serious gaming to enhance participatory governance and education. See my slides here.