Stacey Maples, GIS specialist in the Map Library, introduced the concept of geocoding. Geocoding assigns spatial coordinates to features in the landscape.

The method of recording line data was invented by Don Cook in New Haven in the 1970s for the New Haven census. GSP is a system of satellites maintained by the U.S. Department of Defense for navigational and security purposes. The satellites are atomic clocks with radios that send a message about position and the exact time the message was sent. The position is determined by trianaterlation.

Garmin units are used by the Map Library for most of their field work. The units collect coordinates as you move through space and record a time date stamp. You can take photographs with a time date stamp that can be geo-referenced to the Garmin units.

Colleen Murphy-Dunning, Director of Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, approached the Map Library with data from 2001 of all the street trees in New Haven. The original database needed to be written into ArcPad to be able to 2001 update records. The Map Library created custom forms for the units allowing the surveyor to revisit all the sites and verify old data and update any new data. A group of high school students, using Trimble units, discovered areas were trees should be planted and they planted the trees when approved.

Colleen explained the pedagogical advantages of using the GPS units. The student participants in the Forestry school learned how to manage data sets and develop community outreach skills. High school students were also involved as interns and worked in their own neighorhoods developing both technology skills and pride in their surroundings. The interns helped educate the city of New Haven staff about the use of these technologies.

Richard Brooks, from the Law School, used the Trimble Juno units to record beach-goers to examine issues of racial integration and notions of personal property. They chose beaches since there is no artificial boundaries on a beach…the beach-goers determine what space belongs to them. The Map Library developed a database for data collection and loaded the database onto the Trimble Junos so surveyors could record race, age, gender, cluster information, and proximity to those around them on the beach. This data collection made it possible to aggregate attributes of the beach-goers. There were 13,000 observations over 2 weeks.

Rick is an economist with a law degree and does econometric modeling. This project was initiated after Rick read an article in the New York Times by Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone. The article posited that when communities become more diverse, there is more isolation. Rick didn’t agree with this idea and the method by which Putnam arrived at his conclusions. This study grows out of the desire to utilize data collection and technology to develop a study that collects more accurate data. The data is being used to write an NSF grant.

Stacey finished by discussing the future of spatial data capture comparing it to the notion of cloud computing…GPS data and capture will be ubiquitous as more and more of us carry phones, cameras, and other portable devices.

Use this link to view Stace’s presentation slides (.pps file, 34MB).

12/03/08 A recent article on Facebook, http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/digital-youth/.

Facebook, http://www.facebook.com, is an online social networking website that was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg.

Robin Ladouceur, Instructional Design Specialist, introduced Facebook. Robin began by polling the audience about their use of Facebook. Results linked here. She also shared the 7 things you need to know about Facebook document. Facebook, was originally only available at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Yale and then expanded to everyone. It is the 4th largest trafficked site on internet. There are over 100 million users worldwide and available in many languages. Robin showed campaign pages in Facebook for each candidate.

Barack Obama Facebook Page
John McCain Facebook Page
Facebook Politics?

Robin took users through the registration process. Users can have multiple accounts in Facebook if they have multiple email accounts. Registering with your Yale email will automatically include you in the Yale Facebook network. She took us on a tour of the anatomy of the Facebook page including the newsfeed, the profile, photos, the wall, virtual bookshelf and groups.

She suggests creating a separate account for teaching and telling students to give access to a limited profile, i.e. not having access to the student’s wall and photos. Also, creating a group for students is a good idea to keep the teaching aspect of Facebook separate.

Highlighted education sites for teaching uses for Facebook:

Educause Review: Facebook 2.0 by Tracy Mitrano
Teaching and Learning with Facebook
Course Connector
My Courses
Blackboard Sync for Facebook

No Sakai (i.e. Classesv2) sync for Facebook as of yet, so we are not able utilize

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy
Yes, even college English teachers fall for Facebook

Robin will be available Wednesday and Thursday, September 17 & 18, 2:00 – 3:00 pm at the Collaborative Learning Center service desk.

Michael Farina of the Italian Department has been teaching with Facebook for four years. He uses it to teach a language and he admits that language study is about developing relationships and therefore Facebook is a great tool to connect personally with students.

He started by having students write on their wall in Italian and now sees students updating their status in Italian. He recently arranged an entire conference on his wall in Facebook and now has people attending the conference based on seeing that information on his Facebook page.

He uses Facebook groups for students to embed images and video. Students would post assignments to Facebook so both the instructor and students can see the assignments. He wants to break down the barrier between in-class and out of class. He never friends students, he has students join groups instead. He also creates events to highlight department films, lectures, scrabble night in Italian. It is a great way to broadcast events to students where they spend a lot of time.

Facebook applications
Issuu application in Facebook allows you to upload documents within Facebook to share documents with students.

widgetbox.com helps you create an application and embed it in Facebook, such as a blog or other online application.

Facebook Connect will take over the login service for every site you use. Verifies identity and then connects all the sites. Video can be commented on via newsfeed in Facebook to get conversations around the content going among your students.

Geoffrey Little, Communications Coordinator in the Library, announced a YDN article that was written today about the new look of Facebook. University Library created a fan site in Facebook 6 weeks ago. Less formal and more extroverted presence for the University Library. Just search for Yale University Library within Facebook. Use events application for upcoming events such as Teaching w/ Technology Tuesdays. Created Library site as a fan site which means users have to become fans, rather than the Library entering their social space. Applications on the fan site include a JSTOR search, a Worldcat Search, and CiteMe, an application that creates citations for users in style format they choose. Thinking about using Facebook for Banned Books week to engage users around issues of censorship and other issues.

Copyright issues arose in the questions and answer period. The library can help sort out the issues of copyright and fair use.

When working with a class, is it better to create a group or fan site? African American Studies professor would like use in a class. Facebook becomes a bucket for posting assignments, documents, videos, etc.