the web 2.0

For anyone who doesn't yet believe or undertand how powerful the new world of the web 2.0 is (the world of blogs, wikis, mashups and more) - I have a great example for you.

Not long ago, Google was making statements about KML being the HTML of geographic content. Many people thought this was slightly (to say the least) arrogant and assuming of Google. One of my favorite GIS bloggers, James Fee over at SpatiallyAdjusted.com made a quick post about it here ==> Google you have got to be kidding, right?

James has 3744 people subscribed to his blog through an RSS feed (so his feedburner says) that are notified any time he makes a post about anything on the blog. This particular post about Google, KML and HTML prompted a lot of people to make comments about this post. This is where it gets good. The post above we are talking about has 43 comments made thus far. Scroll down and look at who wieghed in on the discussion with the 38th comment ... Michael Jones - the main in charge of Google Earth - official title - Chief Technology Advocate.

I think that shows how powerful a more interactive and collaborative world wide web can be ...

Monitoring Refugee movement with Google Maps

I thought this was an interesting article on CNN ... about 4 headlines down this afternoon.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/08/google.refugees.ap/index.html

Hightlights of the story ... note the last one. Very interesting ...

• Google, U.N. team up to help pinpoint refugee movement
• Maps will aid humanitarian operations, help inform about refugee crises
• Special maps help track, give information about crises in each area
• Google considering stand-alone version of its mapping software for field work
  

Map of 98 ABTech students

http://www.batchgeocode.com/map/?i=fa0f74e82a9b0af45ba1b5b9e1088927

This map utilizes BatchGeocode.com using the Yahoo maps API. I cut down the number of students for a trial run. Zoom in and click on some of the dots to get more information.

Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding

Last week in Valladolid ended with the official signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between AB Tech and ITSVA. It was an exciting time and we can't wait to move forward with our plans to more openly collaborate with ITSVA!

Below, you can see Asheville - Buncombe Technical Community College President Dr. Betty Young and C.P. Raúl Augusto Mendoza Alcocer Director General del ITSVA signing the MOU.
















To learn more about our new MOU with ITSVA, see below!

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.