First up is Michael N .DeMers of New Mexico State University with a talk entitled: Using Second Life to Augment an Online GIS Course..

The use of the virtual world called Second Life as a platform to enhance a traditional WebCT-based online GIS class is examined. Second Life provides an ability to enhance the social presence often lacking from typical discussion-based online classes. The ability of students to get together builds community and promotes collaboration.

More than just providing opportunities for traditional delivery methods like slides and discussions, Second Life provides a powerful set of 3-D building tools that allow tactile learners an ability to express their knowledge in ways that are difficult to reproduce outside of such an environment.

While some students find virtual worlds very difficult to negotiate others, particularly gamers adapt very quickly. For non-gamers the use of Second Life is best used to provide ways for students to get together for in-world discussions and study. Second Life then, when used properly, and with the student learning style kept in mind, provides something for every type of learner.

Michael makes the point that Second Life is not a game, it is a free form virtual world which takes time to create and build things. It also takes time to learn which creates the barriers that many put up upon first entry. He creates a ‘lab in a box’ using wrapped up course materials, directions, maps etc included in a box that can be rezzed. Finally Michael notes that the impact on the learning cycle is notable as it provides the students with the ability to visualize, for example ‘map projections’ in three dimensions – something that is not possible via text book. It also encourages active experimentation

A really well presented and interesting talk

Second up is Merril Johnson of the University of New Orleans talking about:

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are emerging as intriguing windows into the future of technology. According to the Gartner Group, 3-D Web will become mainstream in the next two-to-five years as Internet users construct 3-dimensional personas in new virtual geographies. Many of these geographies are being populated by residents with identities not at all like those in the real world, who come together in communities dedicated to the exploration and development of constructed identities. In other cases, residents create identities and communities that reflect and augment the real world. In either instance, opportunities become available for students interested in the study of places and their inhabitants. The purpose of this presentation is to examine identity creation in virtual worlds, focusing on Second Life; how this phenomenon affects the “cultural” geography of virtual worlds; and how this new geography can be put to the service of geographical education.
Third is L.Jesse Rouse and Susan J.Bergeron of West Virginia University with a talk on ‘Building and Experiencing Virtual Worlds.

Third up is L Jesse Rouse and Susan Bergeron – of West Virginia University, – also known as those nice people from Very Spatial, Jesse is presenting.

Technologies that drive videogames have been adopted to build educational tools from early 8-bit game platforms to today’s high-end 3D graphics laden game environments. While videogames have been both lauded as the next step in education and condemned as frivolous, it is hard to argue against the prevalence of videogames in the lives of students outside of the classroom (or hidden out of sight of the teacher). In addition, there is a perceived disconnect between traditional teaching methods and those students, referred to as digital natives, who have grown up with access to digital technologies. It is important to look beyond VLE use, to all of the impacts that videogames can have in the classroom.

Staff and students in the Laboratory for Geographic Information Science and the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia University are involved in an ongoing project constructing a virtual world based on historic Morgantown, WV. The project began as a way to demonstrate the integration of GIS and Serious Games. The project became a way to not only create a reconstruction of an early 1900s town, but also to involve upper level students in GIS and Urban Geography in the construction of 2D and 3D data and learning about the historic development of the town. In addition, Computer Science student participants are able to apply their programming skills within a domain area. The creation of the virtual world supports not only outreach and introductory classes, but also provides technical experience for upper level students.

We are moving from the traditional classroom into the new digital classroom based on new media, serious games and virtual worlds etc. He uses a good term ‘Edutainment’ – a way to keep students interested and focused above and beyond the usual ‘powerpoint’ presentation.

Realworld data can be presented via ArcScene linked to SketchUp, the work has created over 400 buildings in which point ArcScene ‘falls over’. As such they have moved from ArcScene to create a ‘Spatial Experience Engine’ based on the XNA framework with a move away from polygons to represent architectural details towards textures to speed up the framerate. Information is embedded via the Census within the 3D space allowing the students to connect, learn and experience geographical information within the virtual space.

Again a really interesting and very well presented talk, the use of Second Life, games etc is starting to make notable inroads into geography and teaching. The game engine will be made available online soon as its complete.

Finally up Nicholas Hedley of Simon Fraser University, Spatial Interface Research Lab/Department of Geography.

Nick has another nice term – a ‘Geospatial Metaverse’, noting that T
there has been a quantum leap in the capabilities of MMORPG’s creating new spaces for social interaction and simulation. These virtual worlds are beginning to cross into the real world with financial trading etc.

Nicks abstract is as follows:

Over the past decade, major advances in distributed virtual environment architectures have resulted in a new generation of interactive, low-latency shared virtual spaces accessible by users with modest and high-specification systems alike. Increasingly, reality and virtuality are woven into our everyday lives. In only five years, Second Life has become one of the most widely-used 3D virtual spaces for mainstream collaborative social computing, and is used by over 15 million people. There has also been a quantum leap in the capabilities of MMOGs and MMORPGs, allowing real-time collaborative interaction with complex and dynamic 3D virtual spaces with real-time physics – resulting in physically persistent virtual spaces.

Second Life and contemporary MMORPGs have created new spaces for social interaction, revealing exciting new possibilities for geographic exploration, learning, and collaboration. These environments may be virtual,
but are a very real part of the lives of their user networks. They allow ever more seamless movement between real and virtual spaces. The boundary between the real and virtual in everyday spaces is quickly fading. Mixed reality interfaces take this to another level entirely, making it possible to create a virtually-enhanced 3D physical reality. This paper explores how the technologies of Second Life, serious games and mixed reality redefine the relationship between real and virtual spaces, and are evidence that a geospatial metaverse has emerged. Research examples by the author using each of these technologies will be used to demonstrate their potential in geographic education.

On show are some neat outputs using the CryEngine 2 –Virtual Ucluelet noting the ability to simply ‘paint’ geography within the game engine. Virtual environments are becoming part of peoples real lives and is this disconnecting us with the real geographic landscape. The level of work on show is notable, again really refreshing to see Crysis used for geography…

The talk ends with research examples of on-site Augmented Reality – Geospatial ‘XRay vision’, really excellent work.

A series of excellent talks, perhaps representing the cutting edge in geospatial visualization within the geography community. Our 3D Agent Based modeling work – ie 3D Max, Second Life, NetLogo etc work is this afternoon, presented by Andrew Crooks of gisagents.blogspot.com. The main session on Mapping for the Masses is tomorrow at 8am in the main conference centre.

We have also had the pleasure to record a podcast with Very Spatial, it should be online some point soon, it was great to meet and chat with the people behind it…

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Virtual Learning Environments and Geographic Education appeared first on Digital Urban.

First up is Michael N .DeMers of New Mexico State University with a talk entitled: Using Second Life to Augment an Online GIS Course..

The use of the virtual world called Second Life as a platform to enhance a traditional WebCT-based online GIS class is examined. Second Life provides an ability to enhance the social presence often lacking from typical discussion-based online classes. The ability of students to get together builds community and promotes collaboration.

More than just providing opportunities for traditional delivery methods like slides and discussions, Second Life provides a powerful set of 3-D building tools that allow tactile learners an ability to express their knowledge in ways that are difficult to reproduce outside of such an environment.

While some students find virtual worlds very difficult to negotiate others, particularly gamers adapt very quickly. For non-gamers the use of Second Life is best used to provide ways for students to get together for in-world discussions and study. Second Life then, when used properly, and with the student learning style kept in mind, provides something for every type of learner.

Michael makes the point that Second Life is not a game, it is a free form virtual world which takes time to create and build things. It also takes time to learn which creates the barriers that many put up upon first entry. He creates a ‘lab in a box’ using wrapped up course materials, directions, maps etc included in a box that can be rezzed. Finally Michael notes that the impact on the learning cycle is notable as it provides the students with the ability to visualize, for example ‘map projections’ in three dimensions – something that is not possible via text book. It also encourages active experimentation

A really well presented and interesting talk

Second up is Merril Johnson of the University of New Orleans talking about:

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are emerging as intriguing windows into the future of technology. According to the Gartner Group, 3-D Web will become mainstream in the next two-to-five years as Internet users construct 3-dimensional personas in new virtual geographies. Many of these geographies are being populated by residents with identities not at all like those in the real world, who come together in communities dedicated to the exploration and development of constructed identities. In other cases, residents create identities and communities that reflect and augment the real world. In either instance, opportunities become available for students interested in the study of places and their inhabitants. The purpose of this presentation is to examine identity creation in virtual worlds, focusing on Second Life; how this phenomenon affects the “cultural” geography of virtual worlds; and how this new geography can be put to the service of geographical education.
Third is L.Jesse Rouse and Susan J.Bergeron of West Virginia University with a talk on ‘Building and Experiencing Virtual Worlds.

Third up is L Jesse Rouse and Susan Bergeron – of West Virginia University, – also known as those nice people from Very Spatial, Jesse is presenting.

Technologies that drive videogames have been adopted to build educational tools from early 8-bit game platforms to today’s high-end 3D graphics laden game environments. While videogames have been both lauded as the next step in education and condemned as frivolous, it is hard to argue against the prevalence of videogames in the lives of students outside of the classroom (or hidden out of sight of the teacher). In addition, there is a perceived disconnect between traditional teaching methods and those students, referred to as digital natives, who have grown up with access to digital technologies. It is important to look beyond VLE use, to all of the impacts that videogames can have in the classroom.

Staff and students in the Laboratory for Geographic Information Science and the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia University are involved in an ongoing project constructing a virtual world based on historic Morgantown, WV. The project began as a way to demonstrate the integration of GIS and Serious Games. The project became a way to not only create a reconstruction of an early 1900s town, but also to involve upper level students in GIS and Urban Geography in the construction of 2D and 3D data and learning about the historic development of the town. In addition, Computer Science student participants are able to apply their programming skills within a domain area. The creation of the virtual world supports not only outreach and introductory classes, but also provides technical experience for upper level students.

We are moving from the traditional classroom into the new digital classroom based on new media, serious games and virtual worlds etc. He uses a good term ‘Edutainment’ – a way to keep students interested and focused above and beyond the usual ‘powerpoint’ presentation.

Realworld data can be presented via ArcScene linked to SketchUp, the work has created over 400 buildings in which point ArcScene ‘falls over’. As such they have moved from ArcScene to create a ‘Spatial Experience Engine’ based on the XNA framework with a move away from polygons to represent architectural details towards textures to speed up the framerate. Information is embedded via the Census within the 3D space allowing the students to connect, learn and experience geographical information within the virtual space.

Again a really interesting and very well presented talk, the use of Second Life, games etc is starting to make notable inroads into geography and teaching. The game engine will be made available online soon as its complete.

Finally up Nicholas Hedley of Simon Fraser University, Spatial Interface Research Lab/Department of Geography.

Nick has another nice term – a ‘Geospatial Metaverse’, noting that T
there has been a quantum leap in the capabilities of MMORPG’s creating new spaces for social interaction and simulation. These virtual worlds are beginning to cross into the real world with financial trading etc.

Nicks abstract is as follows:

Over the past decade, major advances in distributed virtual environment architectures have resulted in a new generation of interactive, low-latency shared virtual spaces accessible by users with modest and high-specification systems alike. Increasingly, reality and virtuality are woven into our everyday lives. In only five years, Second Life has become one of the most widely-used 3D virtual spaces for mainstream collaborative social computing, and is used by over 15 million people. There has also been a quantum leap in the capabilities of MMOGs and MMORPGs, allowing real-time collaborative interaction with complex and dynamic 3D virtual spaces with real-time physics – resulting in physically persistent virtual spaces.

Second Life and contemporary MMORPGs have created new spaces for social interaction, revealing exciting new possibilities for geographic exploration, learning, and collaboration. These environments may be virtual,
but are a very real part of the lives of their user networks. They allow ever more seamless movement between real and virtual spaces. The boundary between the real and virtual in everyday spaces is quickly fading. Mixed reality interfaces take this to another level entirely, making it possible to create a virtually-enhanced 3D physical reality. This paper explores how the technologies of Second Life, serious games and mixed reality redefine the relationship between real and virtual spaces, and are evidence that a geospatial metaverse has emerged. Research examples by the author using each of these technologies will be used to demonstrate their potential in geographic education.

On show are some neat outputs using the CryEngine 2 –Virtual Ucluelet noting the ability to simply ‘paint’ geography within the game engine. Virtual environments are becoming part of peoples real lives and is this disconnecting us with the real geographic landscape. The level of work on show is notable, again really refreshing to see Crysis used for geography…

The talk ends with research examples of on-site Augmented Reality – Geospatial ‘XRay vision’, really excellent work.

A series of excellent talks, perhaps representing the cutting edge in geospatial visualization within the geography community. Our 3D Agent Based modeling work – ie 3D Max, Second Life, NetLogo etc work is this afternoon, presented by Andrew Crooks of gisagents.blogspot.com. The main session on Mapping for the Masses is tomorrow at 8am in the main conference centre.

We have also had the pleasure to record a podcast with Very Spatial, it should be online some point soon, it was great to meet and chat with the people behind it…

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Virtual Learning Environments and Geographic Education appeared first on Digital Urban.

The Panelists are:

Renee Sieber – McGill University
Martin Dodge – Manchester University (and former CASA)
Andrew Turner – FortiusOne
Sean Gorman – FortiusOne
André Skupin – San Diego State University

Session Description: The Geoweb has revolutionized digital cartography and GIScience. The revolutionaries are neogeographers. According to Turner (2006), “Neogeography is about people using and creating their own maps, on their own terms and by combining elements of an existing toolset”. Toolsets involve user-generated geospatial content (aka volunteered geographic information): geotagged Flickr photographs, Google Maps Mashups, Open Street maps, and loopt. It’s more than software or Internet apps, “The geoaware Web isn’t a product we buy; it’s an environment we colonize” (Udall 2005).

Neogeography is posited as antithetical to traditional geography. To neos, GIScience appears fixated on data accuracy, vetting and documentation. Critical GIS makes dire pronouncements for geospatial gadgetry. Neogeographers call for flexible and playful artistic engagement with place (a “dissident cartographic aesthetic”, {Holmes 2006}). Birthed in wikipedia ideologies of egalitarianism and disdain for expertise, they believe in “radical openness” (Udall 2005). GIScience is seen as a closed (and, coincidentally, insufficiently computational) enterprise, relying on clubbiness and on proprietary software. With this characterization, can neo and paleo ever be reconciled?

The panelists come from both camps, consider four questions. 1. What is the landscape of neo and UGGC and what do they reveal about the Geoweb’s deeper socio-political implications? 2. What can each camp offer the other and what barriers impede communication? 3. What role does expertise hold in colonizing the Geoweb? 4. If neo is the current thing then what is post-neo? Panelists will seek linkages among paleo, neo, and geo.

Andy Turner notes that traditional geographers are finding it hard to keep up – Neogeography is simply about the user and about getting information online that is geotagged – ie outside the realm of traditional GIS. Of course, as Andrew Skupin, states a lot of geography is not GIS based in the first place so most geography is and always has been outside the realm of GIS. Andrew recommended the term ‘Naive geography’ over Neogeography. In some ways we see the term Naïve Geography as slightly patronizing to people who geo tag their photos, user Google Earth etc.

Martin is interestingly sitting on the bridge between the two – noting one of Martins students view that user generated content is ‘a bit rubbish’ – we would note that it is very early days and the spread of systems such a OpenStreet Map has been phenomenal in terms of time vs coverage. User generated content opens up the process of map making to the masses and not just a finished ‘product’ ala National Mapping Agencies.

Renee notes that traditional geographers has been dealing with the issues that Neogeographers are asking about for decades in the form of GIS. The difference is as Andy notes is that Neogeographers don’t need to sit through a semester of mapping projections etc to display, map and analyze their data. We would agree, the traditional GIS course is out of date, sure there is a place for it but if education is about preparing students for the future and the job market then perhaps a stronger emphasis on Web 2.0 toolkits is needed.

Perhaps the real problem is with ‘traditional geographers’ they are not generally out in the world communicating and sharing via blogs, forums, instead quietly publishing in journals etc. While there is nothing wrong with the traditional academic viewpoint, new tools are opening up the creation of data to the masses and with that there is a need for up to date knowledge via systems such as blogs.

Our view? Perhaps traditional geography is the rabbit in the head lights, the next five years are going to be very interesting in terms of geography, its traditions, its methods and techniques.

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Neogeographers meet Paleogeographers appeared first on Digital Urban.

The Panelists are:

Renee Sieber – McGill University
Martin Dodge – Manchester University (and former CASA)
Andrew Turner – FortiusOne
Sean Gorman – FortiusOne
André Skupin – San Diego State University

Session Description: The Geoweb has revolutionized digital cartography and GIScience. The revolutionaries are neogeographers. According to Turner (2006), “Neogeography is about people using and creating their own maps, on their own terms and by combining elements of an existing toolset”. Toolsets involve user-generated geospatial content (aka volunteered geographic information): geotagged Flickr photographs, Google Maps Mashups, Open Street maps, and loopt. It’s more than software or Internet apps, “The geoaware Web isn’t a product we buy; it’s an environment we colonize” (Udall 2005).

Neogeography is posited as antithetical to traditional geography. To neos, GIScience appears fixated on data accuracy, vetting and documentation. Critical GIS makes dire pronouncements for geospatial gadgetry. Neogeographers call for flexible and playful artistic engagement with place (a “dissident cartographic aesthetic”, {Holmes 2006}). Birthed in wikipedia ideologies of egalitarianism and disdain for expertise, they believe in “radical openness” (Udall 2005). GIScience is seen as a closed (and, coincidentally, insufficiently computational) enterprise, relying on clubbiness and on proprietary software. With this characterization, can neo and paleo ever be reconciled?

The panelists come from both camps, consider four questions. 1. What is the landscape of neo and UGGC and what do they reveal about the Geoweb’s deeper socio-political implications? 2. What can each camp offer the other and what barriers impede communication? 3. What role does expertise hold in colonizing the Geoweb? 4. If neo is the current thing then what is post-neo? Panelists will seek linkages among paleo, neo, and geo.

Andy Turner notes that traditional geographers are finding it hard to keep up – Neogeography is simply about the user and about getting information online that is geotagged – ie outside the realm of traditional GIS. Of course, as Andrew Skupin, states a lot of geography is not GIS based in the first place so most geography is and always has been outside the realm of GIS. Andrew recommended the term ‘Naive geography’ over Neogeography. In some ways we see the term Naïve Geography as slightly patronizing to people who geo tag their photos, user Google Earth etc.

Martin is interestingly sitting on the bridge between the two – noting one of Martins students view that user generated content is ‘a bit rubbish’ – we would note that it is very early days and the spread of systems such a OpenStreet Map has been phenomenal in terms of time vs coverage. User generated content opens up the process of map making to the masses and not just a finished ‘product’ ala National Mapping Agencies.

Renee notes that traditional geographers has been dealing with the issues that Neogeographers are asking about for decades in the form of GIS. The difference is as Andy notes is that Neogeographers don’t need to sit through a semester of mapping projections etc to display, map and analyze their data. We would agree, the traditional GIS course is out of date, sure there is a place for it but if education is about preparing students for the future and the job market then perhaps a stronger emphasis on Web 2.0 toolkits is needed.

Perhaps the real problem is with ‘traditional geographers’ they are not generally out in the world communicating and sharing via blogs, forums, instead quietly publishing in journals etc. While there is nothing wrong with the traditional academic viewpoint, new tools are opening up the creation of data to the masses and with that there is a need for up to date knowledge via systems such as blogs.

Our view? Perhaps traditional geography is the rabbit in the head lights, the next five years are going to be very interesting in terms of geography, its traditions, its methods and techniques.

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Neogeographers meet Paleogeographers appeared first on Digital Urban.

A couple of interesting papers in this session, firstly a paper entitled Who is in your neighborhood? New approaches to define neighborhood context by Iris Hue of UC Berkeley and Weimin Li from Cal Poly Pomona.

Neighborhoods can be defined via various means according to scale and dimension, these factors can be summarized as being: Geo-Spatial, Personal, Social Network, Functional District, Political Community and Economic Entity.

In short, social and behavioral studies have established the importance of neighborhood context in shaping individual behaviors, attitudes, and health outcomes. Although scholars have developed well-theorized definitions of neighborhood, the empirical measurement remains arbitrary and unsatisfactory. On the one hand, Census geographies are often used as proxies for residential neighborhood without considering the exact location of an individual. This approach brings huge uncertainty to the matching of sampled individuals to their neighborhood. On the other hand, many social and behavioral studies employ neighborhood measures at different scale level, e.g., Census block group or tract or city. As a result, these studies sometimes arrive at contradictory results. Better approaches to measure neighborhood context are required to solve these problems.

The paper addresses the limitations and disadvantages of some commonly used measurements, subsequently applying advanced GIS technologies, e.g. geo-processing and geo-statistics, to develop spatially continuous neighborhood from data measured at various scales.

Their approach allows users to explore beyond the conventional definition of residential neighborhood and generate contextual measures beyond what current public data sources can provide. By mapping traffic networks and geo-coding major community amenities and commercial clusters, users can also examine neighborhood context based on activity-space. The approach also takes physical barriers, such as highway or river, as well as varying population density into consideration to develop more precise contextual measures.

Secondly a presentation by Alan G. Phipps from the University of Windsor (that’s not the UK Windsor, in case you were wondering…) with the notable title of: Three Computer-Programmed Applications of Google Maps

Alan notes that computer-programmers have been able for several years to code and display their own data on Google maps via the internet. Google’s JavaScript map application is accessible with a personal key for free non-commercial use from its server. He has programmed three different types of Google map applications, and used them in teaching and research:

(1) Point maps of crime and disorder offences, house sales, or exterior house qualities in two Windsor neighbourhoods, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/bquant/uhq2006maps.html#Uhqmap.

(2) Polygon maps of enumeration and dissemination area data from the Canadian census for the same two Windsor neighbourhoods, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/stats/windea01maps.html#Windsormap

(3) Locational maps for automatically geocoding and displaying points of interest, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/plan/haa1.html#AA00.

In demonstrating these types of maps, Alan notes firstly the requirement for pre-analyzed data due to lags in calls to the server from within a programmed application. Secondly, he notes a limitation in the number of displayed data-points before warnings pop up about a slow-running script.

For the last four years attending the AAG we have been amazed at how low profile Google Maps, Google Earth, Microsoft Earth etc systems are. We always feel like going to the AAG we would be at the heart of the it all, instead digital geography, neogeography and Google Maps hacks etc are still reasonably niche topics….

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Urban Applications appeared first on Digital Urban.

A couple of interesting papers in this session, firstly a paper entitled Who is in your neighborhood? New approaches to define neighborhood context by Iris Hue of UC Berkeley and Weimin Li from Cal Poly Pomona.

Neighborhoods can be defined via various means according to scale and dimension, these factors can be summarized as being: Geo-Spatial, Personal, Social Network, Functional District, Political Community and Economic Entity.

In short, social and behavioral studies have established the importance of neighborhood context in shaping individual behaviors, attitudes, and health outcomes. Although scholars have developed well-theorized definitions of neighborhood, the empirical measurement remains arbitrary and unsatisfactory. On the one hand, Census geographies are often used as proxies for residential neighborhood without considering the exact location of an individual. This approach brings huge uncertainty to the matching of sampled individuals to their neighborhood. On the other hand, many social and behavioral studies employ neighborhood measures at different scale level, e.g., Census block group or tract or city. As a result, these studies sometimes arrive at contradictory results. Better approaches to measure neighborhood context are required to solve these problems.

The paper addresses the limitations and disadvantages of some commonly used measurements, subsequently applying advanced GIS technologies, e.g. geo-processing and geo-statistics, to develop spatially continuous neighborhood from data measured at various scales.

Their approach allows users to explore beyond the conventional definition of residential neighborhood and generate contextual measures beyond what current public data sources can provide. By mapping traffic networks and geo-coding major community amenities and commercial clusters, users can also examine neighborhood context based on activity-space. The approach also takes physical barriers, such as highway or river, as well as varying population density into consideration to develop more precise contextual measures.

Secondly a presentation by Alan G. Phipps from the University of Windsor (that’s not the UK Windsor, in case you were wondering…) with the notable title of: Three Computer-Programmed Applications of Google Maps

Alan notes that computer-programmers have been able for several years to code and display their own data on Google maps via the internet. Google’s JavaScript map application is accessible with a personal key for free non-commercial use from its server. He has programmed three different types of Google map applications, and used them in teaching and research:

(1) Point maps of crime and disorder offences, house sales, or exterior house qualities in two Windsor neighbourhoods, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/bquant/uhq2006maps.html#Uhqmap.

(2) Polygon maps of enumeration and dissemination area data from the Canadian census for the same two Windsor neighbourhoods, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/stats/windea01maps.html#Windsormap

(3) Locational maps for automatically geocoding and displaying points of interest, for example, at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/courses/plan/haa1.html#AA00.

In demonstrating these types of maps, Alan notes firstly the requirement for pre-analyzed data due to lags in calls to the server from within a programmed application. Secondly, he notes a limitation in the number of displayed data-points before warnings pop up about a slow-running script.

For the last four years attending the AAG we have been amazed at how low profile Google Maps, Google Earth, Microsoft Earth etc systems are. We always feel like going to the AAG we would be at the heart of the it all, instead digital geography, neogeography and Google Maps hacks etc are still reasonably niche topics….

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Urban Applications appeared first on Digital Urban.

First up is John Osth and Thomas Niedomysl, Exploring Human Interaction in Cyberspace, the Geography of YouTube.

Since the start in 2005, the website YouTube has grown immensely from being a garage-company to become one of the world’s most visited websites. An important reason behind the success is the built in ability for users to participate in the creation of the website by watching, ranking, commenting and by uploading material to be watched, ranked and commented by others.

Though the users’ WebPages may be designed differently, certain user information such as age and location but also links to interacting users is presented similarly, making collecting and analyzing possible. In this article, the geography of a sample of over 15 thousand different YouTube users and their interaction with other users is analyzed and visualized. The results show that despite the fact that the Internet annul the friction of distance, the interacting on the WebPages approximately follows the logics of real world geography.

John’s study aims to map the distribution of YouTube users, previous network theory literature predicts that a rich country domination is expected. Data has been mined from YouTube using a custom written program to retrive information from YouTube, including a users channel, country, city, friends, subscribers etc – Johns notes that into today’s increasingly digital world, user data is free and abundant.

15,101 channel owners were retrieved for the paper with over 70,000 connections. In terms of channel owners USA dominates followed by UK, Taiwan, Canada and HK, and Israel.

In conclusion – YouTube is predominately a rich world phenomena with interaction determined my language and cultural barriers.

Its always tricky to present research within a 15 minute timeframe, it was a well presented, interesting paper and one of those titles you wish you had thought of yourself….

***

Second on is C. Alex de Freitas with a talk entitled: At the intersection of Digital and Physical Public Space: Free Wi-fi and the Changing Geographies of the City and Its Public. A paper from the first year of his PhD studies. Interest in the public spaces of the city in terms of Information Communication.

Wi-Fi presence can be difficult to discern in an urban setting. It can slip by largely unnoticed because of an apparent lack of infrastructure and the tendency for it to be used from indoors in a typically ‘private’ setting. Much of the existing research on Wi-Fi in public has focused specifically on the social interactions that it facilitates and its effects on the social interactions of co-present others. Other research has specifically addressed mapping signal strengths, Wi-Fi infrastructure and examining the business opportunities it may present.

Although some evidence from recent studies has suggested that Wi-Fi might reinforce or alter socio-spatial interactions, very few, if any studies have considered the possibilities of changes to spatial behaviour and what its existence in the urban environment means for people’s movements within and experiences of everyday city spaces.

Through an adaption of a photo-diary approach tracing the daily lives of twenty participants spread across four North American cities, this research questions how we may be beginning to know ourselves and our worlds differently by virtue of Wi-Fi. Conceptions of space and time have been radically altered by the new forms of accessibility and connectivity that are afforded by ICTs such as Wi-Fi. There is a need to (re)conceptualise public space as less restrained by physical boundaries and more complexly intertwined and converging with changing digital spaces. The result of this is a new urban public spatial realm that is neither physical nor digital, but an intricate and relational combination of the two.

Technologies is new to literature, especially in terms of geography. Wi-Fi does not conform to traditional spatial boundaries, exiting in Hertzian Space, although difficult to visually detect, Wi-Fi now blankets our urban areas. In the popular media Wifi is often labeled as ‘ubiquitous’, conceptions of space and time have been radically altered by the new forms of accessibility and connectivity that are afforded by ICTs.

In short, are we beginning to know our cities and ourselves differently by virtue of Wi-Fi? It does seem that Wi-Fi is contributing to changing geographical understandings of everyday urban experiences, adding new dimensions to urban life that are deserving of further attention.

As a side note, free Wi-Fi is a rare commodity in Las Vegas, we are currently paying $12 a day for Wi-Fi in our hotel room to write these posts, conference Wi-Fi use is limited to 30 minutes within a 24 hour period.

***

Third up is Place-Based Narratives and Participatory Digital Story Telling by Matt Kelly, University of Washington. The paper details an embryonic community outreach project (The Narrative Community – TNC) that will provide individuals with the capacity to produce spatial data and multi-media narratives about the places in which they live. Drawing on anecdotal evidence from StoryCorps and This American Life, I provide context for TNC by exploring the preponderance of place in contemporary digital settings. TNC will rely heavily on a participatory framework – from providing data production and story telling tools to individuals via sharing stations at public libraries, to aggregating spatial data and personal narratives via an interactive website – and the framework is possible by virtue of recent advancements in digital technologies. Participatory community data sharing and production sites, such as Neighborhood Knowledge California (NKCA), are used in this paper to illustrate the increasingly interactive nature of Internet technologies in general, and web-based geospatial technologies in particular.

***

Finally fourth is Robert Ramsay, University of Toronto with a paper entitled Wireless/Boundless, the Urban Imaginary of Wireless Industry Practitioners. We like the term ‘Boundless’ it’s a neat way to refer to ICT’s in terms of geography. Primary drivers for municipal Wi-Fi is digital inclusion, public safety, city services and economic development. Slightly tricky to make notes on this one, but another good talk, we really did expect more people to attend this session, its always difficult to present to a large almost empty room but all the speakers have been great.

Talking of which, we have two papers here at the AAG with our main session on Friday, the last day of the conference, at 8.30 am – not the best of times to be allocated…

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Geography of the Digital appeared first on Digital Urban.

First up is John Osth and Thomas Niedomysl, Exploring Human Interaction in Cyberspace, the Geography of YouTube.

Since the start in 2005, the website YouTube has grown immensely from being a garage-company to become one of the world’s most visited websites. An important reason behind the success is the built in ability for users to participate in the creation of the website by watching, ranking, commenting and by uploading material to be watched, ranked and commented by others.

Though the users’ WebPages may be designed differently, certain user information such as age and location but also links to interacting users is presented similarly, making collecting and analyzing possible. In this article, the geography of a sample of over 15 thousand different YouTube users and their interaction with other users is analyzed and visualized. The results show that despite the fact that the Internet annul the friction of distance, the interacting on the WebPages approximately follows the logics of real world geography.

John’s study aims to map the distribution of YouTube users, previous network theory literature predicts that a rich country domination is expected. Data has been mined from YouTube using a custom written program to retrive information from YouTube, including a users channel, country, city, friends, subscribers etc – Johns notes that into today’s increasingly digital world, user data is free and abundant.

15,101 channel owners were retrieved for the paper with over 70,000 connections. In terms of channel owners USA dominates followed by UK, Taiwan, Canada and HK, and Israel.

In conclusion – YouTube is predominately a rich world phenomena with interaction determined my language and cultural barriers.

Its always tricky to present research within a 15 minute timeframe, it was a well presented, interesting paper and one of those titles you wish you had thought of yourself….

***

Second on is C. Alex de Freitas with a talk entitled: At the intersection of Digital and Physical Public Space: Free Wi-fi and the Changing Geographies of the City and Its Public. A paper from the first year of his PhD studies. Interest in the public spaces of the city in terms of Information Communication.

Wi-Fi presence can be difficult to discern in an urban setting. It can slip by largely unnoticed because of an apparent lack of infrastructure and the tendency for it to be used from indoors in a typically ‘private’ setting. Much of the existing research on Wi-Fi in public has focused specifically on the social interactions that it facilitates and its effects on the social interactions of co-present others. Other research has specifically addressed mapping signal strengths, Wi-Fi infrastructure and examining the business opportunities it may present.

Although some evidence from recent studies has suggested that Wi-Fi might reinforce or alter socio-spatial interactions, very few, if any studies have considered the possibilities of changes to spatial behaviour and what its existence in the urban environment means for people’s movements within and experiences of everyday city spaces.

Through an adaption of a photo-diary approach tracing the daily lives of twenty participants spread across four North American cities, this research questions how we may be beginning to know ourselves and our worlds differently by virtue of Wi-Fi. Conceptions of space and time have been radically altered by the new forms of accessibility and connectivity that are afforded by ICTs such as Wi-Fi. There is a need to (re)conceptualise public space as less restrained by physical boundaries and more complexly intertwined and converging with changing digital spaces. The result of this is a new urban public spatial realm that is neither physical nor digital, but an intricate and relational combination of the two.

Technologies is new to literature, especially in terms of geography. Wi-Fi does not conform to traditional spatial boundaries, exiting in Hertzian Space, although difficult to visually detect, Wi-Fi now blankets our urban areas. In the popular media Wifi is often labeled as ‘ubiquitous’, conceptions of space and time have been radically altered by the new forms of accessibility and connectivity that are afforded by ICTs.

In short, are we beginning to know our cities and ourselves differently by virtue of Wi-Fi? It does seem that Wi-Fi is contributing to changing geographical understandings of everyday urban experiences, adding new dimensions to urban life that are deserving of further attention.

As a side note, free Wi-Fi is a rare commodity in Las Vegas, we are currently paying $12 a day for Wi-Fi in our hotel room to write these posts, conference Wi-Fi use is limited to 30 minutes within a 24 hour period.

***

Third up is Place-Based Narratives and Participatory Digital Story Telling by Matt Kelly, University of Washington. The paper details an embryonic community outreach project (The Narrative Community – TNC) that will provide individuals with the capacity to produce spatial data and multi-media narratives about the places in which they live. Drawing on anecdotal evidence from StoryCorps and This American Life, I provide context for TNC by exploring the preponderance of place in contemporary digital settings. TNC will rely heavily on a participatory framework – from providing data production and story telling tools to individuals via sharing stations at public libraries, to aggregating spatial data and personal narratives via an interactive website – and the framework is possible by virtue of recent advancements in digital technologies. Participatory community data sharing and production sites, such as Neighborhood Knowledge California (NKCA), are used in this paper to illustrate the increasingly interactive nature of Internet technologies in general, and web-based geospatial technologies in particular.

***

Finally fourth is Robert Ramsay, University of Toronto with a paper entitled Wireless/Boundless, the Urban Imaginary of Wireless Industry Practitioners. We like the term ‘Boundless’ it’s a neat way to refer to ICT’s in terms of geography. Primary drivers for municipal Wi-Fi is digital inclusion, public safety, city services and economic development. Slightly tricky to make notes on this one, but another good talk, we really did expect more people to attend this session, its always difficult to present to a large almost empty room but all the speakers have been great.

Talking of which, we have two papers here at the AAG with our main session on Friday, the last day of the conference, at 8.30 am – not the best of times to be allocated…

The post Thoughts, Reports and Rambles from the AAG: Geography of the Digital appeared first on Digital Urban.

If any readers are attending the AAG next week in Las Vegas, then us here at digital urban along with gisagents.blogspot.com have organised a session entitled “Concepts, Tools and Applications: The Rise of Neogeography.” The session discusses the concepts, tools, applications and challenges arising when collecting, sharing and communicating data for the Neogeographer, exploring a wide range of topics from Digital Earths, Volunteered Geographic Information and through to Virtual Worlds.

The program is as follows:

• Verity Vlodovic (University of Nottingham) “Making your mind up: Second Life bucks the trend as the fizz goes out of GIS“
• Alex Singleton – University College London, “Virtual Geodemographics“
• Andrew Hudson-Smith, CASA, “Neogeography: Crowdsourcing and Mapping for Masses“
• Paul Longley University College London, “Geovisualisation of the 2011 UK Census. Bringing the decennial Census to the Google generation“
• Donald Cooke – Tele Atlas “Neogeography and Crowdsourcing: the View from a Walled Garden“

Hope to see you there…

The post AAG Session: The Rise of Neogeography appeared first on Digital Urban.

Below is an extended abstract for the session:

The world of Geographic Information (GI) Science has changed. It has experienced expeditious growth over the last few years leading to fundamental changes to the field. Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Crowd Sourcing are revolutionising the way in which we gather, present, share and analyse geographic data. This renaissance in the importance of geography in the Web 2.0 world is becoming known as ‘Neogeography’.

Neogeography is geography for the general public using Web 2.0 techniques to create and overlay their own locational and related information on and into systems that mirror the real world. Location and space now represents a key part of the Web 2.0 revolution. Tagging not only the type of information but where such information is produced, who uses it and at what time, is fast becoming the killer application that roots information about interactivity generated across the web to systems that users can easily access and use in their own communication with others.

The aim of this session is twofold; first to bring together practitioners to discuss concepts and challenges that the field of Neogeography faces. Secondly, to provide an opportunity for researchers and developers to present recent tools and applications for collecting, sharing and communicating spatial data for the Neogeographer. We are actively seeking topics ranging across the entire spectrum of Neogeography, from Crowdsourcing, Digital Earths, Neogeography, Web Mashups, Volunteered Geographic Information, Virtual Worlds (e.g. Second Life) and associated Web 2.0 technologies.

Anyone who wishes to presents a paper must first register for the annual meeting, submit an abstract (no more than 250 words that describes the presentation’s purpose, methods, and conclusions). Once this has been done, you need to contact us with your program identification number (PIN), which we will use to add you to the session.

We look forward to hearing from you

Andy and Andrew

Further details on the paper requirements and cost of registration for the AAG meeting can be found at http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2009/index.htm

The post Concepts, Tools and Applications: The Rise of Neogeography – Call for Abstracts appeared first on Digital Urban.