Quick AAG review
by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on April 28, 2010 • game geoweb google earth review web2.0 • 1 COMMENTI 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.
TED talks worth Watching
by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on March 30, 2010 • game geoweb visualization web2.0: mashups • COMMENTThere were a few TED talks over the past few weeks that were really interesting and informative. Really, what TED talks are not interesting and informative?
First…Tim Berners-Lee talks Mashups. Tim Berners-Lee gets excited about open data and resulting mashups. He shows us amazing visualizations of Volunteered Geographic Content popping up all over the digital globe. He also talks about the role of this resource for disaster management. You can see in our portfolio some of the cool mashups Kumiko has made with open data.
Second… Jane McGonigal tells us about the potential for collective online gaming to save the world…not just the world of war craft.
Third…Bing Maps using augmented reality and photo synth, oh my! Although we do not use Bing Maps here at Mapkist, that may change in the near future. Check out this video to see why.
Enjoy!!
Spatial Data Infrastructure: (aka) Dark Knight
by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on December 15, 2009 • web2.0 • COMMENTSpatial data infrastructure (SDI) or any sort of data and information infrastructure lurks in the background. Users rarely think about how the information they are viewing is organized behind the scenes until it is time to use it for their own purposes.
I recently went to a stimulating talk given by Prestige Makanga from the University of South Africa entitled “SDI and sustainable settlements in developing nations.” He really did an excellent job of explaining the role and importance of a well-planned SDI. He explained how different SDIs are necessary for different levels of government, different scales, and different projects.
His talk reminded me of how important data infrastructure really is. In this Web 2.0 world we are living in, we want our ideas not to stop at one website but to be passed on, embedded in Facebook, in blogs, in Google Maps mashups. Effective data infrastructure can help make that happen. SDIs typically go unnoticed, they lurk in the background, but when executed well they can throw quite a punch. For example look at data.gov, Vancouver open data and GeoCommons Finder. The information provided is organized so well that you can find traces of their information all over the web used in innovative yet unexpected ways. This is how the dark knight packs his punch too, thoughtfully well planned and unexpected!
Prestige was a visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University. I was fortunate enough to talk with him at length about the use of volunteered geographic information and the use of Web 2.0 in Africa. Prestige attentively recommended that a process of continuous learning and iterative communication with communities and community officials is needed for robust and effective data to be incorporated into the SDI.
SDI is only one tool on the dark knight’s geographic services utility belt!!!! Beware one-way data disseminators.
