Focus groups at ITSVA

A main objective of our trip was to meet with individual areas at ITSVA to determine ways we could work together. These areas are our Small Business Center, Nursing, Network Technology and Geospatial Technologies. We came out of these focus groups with some great ideas, goals and objectives.



Below you can see a short slide show of my part of the presentation to the ITSVA faculty, staff and students outlining how we will collaborate in the GIS area in the future.

Dzitnup Elementary School

Yesterday, we visited a rural elementary school in Dzitnup and donated several bags of school supplies. The kids were happy and excited about having visitors. They recited poems and stories and we all had a great time. Thanks to Pam Silvers and Sarah Nie for helping with the supplies we were able to bring down for the school.



More information coming soon about the agreement signed yesterday between ITSVA and ABTech!

Day 3 at ITSVA

On Monday, Pete Kennedy and Russ Yelton gave presentations to the ITSVA faculty, staff, and students. Afterwards, we split into small focus groups to discuss ways our colleges would work together. These groups focused on Network Technologies, the Small Business Center, English as a second language, and Geographic Information Systems.

In my GIS focus group, I met with Mario Rosado Balam and Renaw De Jesus Arleo Vivas from the state of the Yucatan Agriculture Department and Vicente Chimal Couoh from the City of Valladolid. The folks from the Agriculture department are using GPS in a program called Procampo where they are working with local farmers to keep them farming and not move to the cities. The city of Valladolid hopes to use GIS and GPS to map the infrastructure of the city - which is sorely needed. Through these projects we hope to offer students with international work experience through internships in Mexico and working online with our counterparts in Mexico. There will also be grade opportunities for training local people in using these technologies uing online and traditional classes through faculty exchanges.

Yucatan Travels

We've been busy... check out where we've gone so far ...


View Larger Map

Arrival in Valladolid, Mexico

The Asheville Sister Cities and Asheville - Buncombe Technical Community College delegates arrivied in Valladolid, Mexico last night and were greeted with open arms from our friends at ITSVA - Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Valladolid. We spent last night relaxing and enjoying each others company before visitng ITSVA today.


Ver mapa más grande

While at ITSVA today, we learned a lot of general information about the school and toured the campus including seeing 2 new buildings not yet in service. Dr. Young also addressed the ITSVA faculty, staff and students with a short presentation about AB Tec. Monday we will start more focused discussion groups on how we can grow the relationship between our schools. I will be leading a discussion / demonstration /workshop on GIS with a group of students and faculty studying computer science. It should be lots of fun!

Happy Valentines Day Map Projection

Coordinate System Information
World_Bonne
Projection: Bonne
False_Easting: 0.000000
False_Northing: 0.000000
Central_Meridian: 0.000000
Standard_Parallel_1: 60.000000
Linear Unit: Meter

GCS_WGS_1984
Datum: D_WGS_1984