Academic Appointed to Alabama Geographic Info Council and other Education GIS News

[Alabama]Gov. Robert Bentley has appointed Terry Winemiller, an associate professor of anthropology and geography at Auburn University at Montgomery, to the Alabama Geographic Information Advisory Committee. Winemiller is the only higher education representative on the board.

- Montgomery Advertiser

Google will host two Google Geo Teachers Institutes in Europe this summer: one in Dublin, Ireland, and another in London, England. The two-day events will be taking place in June at Google offices.

- LatLong Blog

Here's a free to read and use (via CC-BY-SA) World Regional Geography e-textbook: World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization by Royal Berglee. Extra materials (quizzes, PowerPoints, etc.) have a fee.

- Flatworld Knowledge via World History Teachers Blog

Google Endorses AAG Resolution on Geography Education and other GIS Education News

Remembe that resolution that the fomer secreteraries of state and other geographic bigwigs signed last summer (press release)? Google has signed on, too.

- AAG via @theAAG

Santa Barbara based Maps.com, a leading provider of mapping products and services; donated over fifty maps to schools in Tanzania, Africa as part of an effort to improve the country’s education system. 

This is a joint effort with the student-initiated non-profit organization One Heart Source (OHS), whose mission is to provide high quality education, specifically with regard to health issues such as HIV/AIDS, to rural areas in Tanzania.

- press release

WTS International, the association for women in transportation, has received a signed memorandum of understanding from the US Department of Transportation allowing their federal employees to participate in a mentorship program WTS has created for chapters across the country called "Transportation YOU." The MOU validates the call from all corners of the White House to get our nation's kids involved in STEM-related fields to serve them and the US as infrastructure needs continue to evolve.

- e-mail from WTS International sent with press release

GIS Algorithm Cup and other GIS Competition News

With the goal of encouraging innovation in a fun way, ACM SIGSPATIAL is hosting an algorithm contest with winners to be announced at the ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference in November 2012. Contest participants will submit original computer programs to be evaluated by the contest organizers on a common dataset. The first place team will receive US$ 500 plus one NVIDIA Quadro 6000 (or similar) graphics card. Second place will receive US$ 400 plus one NVIDIA TEGRA tablet device. Third place will receive US$ 300 and one NVIDIA TEGRA tablet.

The 2012 contest will be about map matching, which is the problem of correctly matching a sequence of location measurements to roads. 

- contest page via @michael_d_gould

How about a game based learning contest? Ideas for teaching spatial literacy and/or geography would be valid!

In an effort to circulate innovative ideas about integrating electronic gaming in the classroom, the NEA Foundation, in a partnership with Microsoft U.S. Partners in Learning, is hosting a competition for the best ideas on "how interactive technology and game-based learning can improve teaching and learning," according to the Foundation's website. Game-based learning can mean anything from understanding physics through the popular Angry Birds app to delving into the structure of society in the computer game Minecraft.

The Challenge to Innovate (C2i) competition is open to educators, students, parents, or anyone who has an idea and has registered for free as a member of the U.S. Department of Education's Open Innovation Portal, which acts as a public forum for improving education. Participants post their gaming idea to the portal, and other registered members—most of whom are educators and parents—award points to the ideas they think are most innovative and helpful.

- US News

Aim: The main aim of the OneGeology Best Application competition is to demonstrate the wide range of potential applied uses and applications that the OneGeology Portal, and geological data/services that it provides, can offer for easy discoverability, access and use.

...

The registration of the applications developed for this competition will be accepted until the end of May 2012.

...

The winner of the competition will receive a free registration for the 34th International Geological Congress, Brisbane, Australia (August 2012) and will also have the opportunity to present the new innovative application during the Geoinformation Symposium/ OneGeology Session at the conference.

You must be under 35 to enter.

- website via @jeffharrison

Through their Google+ page, Google Maps announced the inaugural Map Your University competition for all students in the U.S. and Canada. Through the use of Google’s Map Maker, Google is asking current students to create detailed maps of their campuses that will be viewable on Google Maps and Google Earth. Winners of the competition will be award fun Google-y prizes such as Android tablets, phones, GPS devices, and more.

- Web Pro News

New York City kicked off voting today in its third annual BigApps competition, which rewards apps that use some of the city’s open data sets to build apps. But one of the most popular resources appears to be Foursquare, which is in use in more than half of the top apps in early voting.

- GigaOm

What Colleges are Using and other Education GIS News

Among the geo tools you can learn about (for use in reserach/classes in any discipline) at Duke:

GeoCommons

Google Earth Pro

ArcGIS

and Tableau Public but that's not noted as a GIS tool.

- Duke GIS and Data Blog

Dr. Seidu Mohammed, Director General, National Space Research and Development Agency [Nigeria] said deployment of satellite technology remained Nigeria's antidote to tackle the various environmental challenges facing the country.

Nigerian scientists are working with the University of Missouri to use imagery to do  environmental assessment of oil spill damages in the Niger Delta as well as an assessment of the Lake Chad.

- All Africa

A review of educational standards in the UK have led to the recommnedation, among others,. that geography be studied between ages 14-16.

It recommended that all pupils in England should study geography, history and a foreign language between the ages of 14 and 16, in some form, even if their courses did not lead to full GCSEs.

New standards are expected in 2014.

- Telegraph

The Casper Mountain Science School, Wyoming (CMSS) teaches K-12 students at Eadsville, a mining camp on Casper Moutain. The log schoolhouse and the town around the camp shut down a century ago and current students explore the history and geography of the area. And, local college students help enhance the K-12 program.

A group from Casper College’s advanced GIS (geographic information system) class created a layer of digital, interactive maps complete with pictures and historical information about Eadsville for those students.

- Casper Journal

Five Month Full Time GIS Certificate and other Education GIS News

The Salmon Arm Campus of Okanagan College (British Columbia) is offering the five-month, full-time certificate program in Vernon for the first time starting in January. The requirements are high school graduation or equivalent, or mature student status, and basic computer skills. The school has found significant demand for its other GIS programs which produce candidates ready for the job market. The program website also refers to the certificate as an ArcInfo Certificate.

- BC Local News

Esri has changed the name of the next Education User Conference to the 2012 Esri Education GIS Conference.

via @michael_d_gould

Maui officials adding to the state's list of enterprise software solutions for its students. First Esri, now Google.

Maui Economic Development Board’s Women in Technology (WIT) just negotiated another major software coup for the state’s K-12 schools.

Similar to its unprecedented agreement with ESRI that made the latest Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software available to every public, private and charter school in the state, WIT negotiated a deal with Google to bring its celebrated Sketchup Pro application to local classrooms.

- Maui Now

Lahore [Pakistan] - Government College University, Lahore (GCU) Department of Geography and University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) in collaboration with Penn State University, US conducted a five-day training workshop on “The Application of GIS and GPS Technologies in Public Health Significance”.

- Pakistan Today