Five For Friday: Halloween Edition

Unicef05
1) Kids: Do you love maps
AND have an artistic eye? If so, the 2009 Barbara Petechenik International
Map Competition
is for you! Organized by the
International Cartographic
Association
(ICA),
the competition is a showcase of maps created by kids around the world. Each member country of the ICA
is allowed to submit five entries, from
which a handful of winners will be selected. Winners will have their maps distributed to organizations like UNICEF and
ESRI Children’s Books for use in greeting card designs, book covers, and calendars. This year’s theme: “Living in a Globalized
World.”
 

2)
Geography is being written back into the cause and effect of world affairs with
help from Paul Krugman, a recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Through
his work in the “new economic geography,” an economic discipline that places
geographical analysis at the center of its study,  Krugman provides a refreshing look into how
place affects the world economy. He is
also a blogger
for the New York Times, and in his most recent post breaks down his work for ”laymen”
readers.

3)
With the election fast-approaching, our eyes and ears are overwhelmed with
images of maps and debates about place. But what happens when the “experts” on electoral mapping get it wrong? Well
Steven Colbert, a political commentator for Comedy Central, makes fun of them. Watch this funny clip
(approximately 3:30 minutes into the full episode) on The Colbert Report about how NBC’s electoral map mistakenly
identified North Carolina as Virginia…OOPS!

Continue reading “Five For Friday: Halloween Edition”

The iPhone Goes Global–Beyond Sales!

 

Iphone

If you’ve been watching T.V. lately, you’ve probably noticed a
slew of iPhone commercials sandwiched in-between campaign ads. Apple and
AT&T have been running frequent commercials for the latest version of the
iPhone that double as “how-to” videos. In addition to convincing wary costumers of the simplicity of the
iPhone’s technology, the ads also showcase the phone’s ability to act as a work calendar, mp3 player, or even a map.

But some educators are taking these functions one step
further and incorporating the iPhone’s diverse technology into the classroom. Ollie Bray, the head teacher at Musselburg Grammar
School in East Lothian, Scotland,
writes a blog
about his teaching experiences. His latest series is a set of posts on how to
use the iPhone while “on location” in the field.

Continue reading “The iPhone Goes Global–Beyond Sales!”

José the Bear Travels to Latin America

Latinamerica

Those of you who have been with us for a few months will
remember guestblogger Silvia Tolisano, technology integration facilitator at
San Jose Episcopal Day School (SJEDS) in Jacksonville, Florida. In a series of three
posts Silvia described her work using web 2.0 technologies, maps (both the
traditional sort and new generation tools), and a teddy bear named José to
bring the world—and 21st century learning—to her students.

Silvia’s been busy this fall exploring new sites and sharing her adventures with the
students at SJEDS and the rest of the World Wide Web. In the third of her
international expeditions, Silvia and fellow SJEDS educator Mrs. Pickering
journey to Costa Rica and Peru in Latin America.
They’ve even worked up a fun theme playing off of the popularity of the latest
Indiana Jones film: “Indiana José and the Quest for Pachamama.” José the teddy
bear is tasked with finding a crystal skull to unlock the “Book of Knowledge,”
as explained in this excerpt from Silvia’s
travel blog
:

“Indiana Jones gave Mrs. Pickering,
Mrs. Tolisano and me very clear instructions.

We absolutely HAVE to find Pachamama. Indiana Jones
said that Pachamama is the only one that can help save the rainforest and so
many endangered animals that live there. If we don’t find Pachamama, they will
disappear from earth FOREVER.

We can’t let that happen!!

The
problem is though, we don’t know who Pachamama is and where we can find her.

Indiana Jones told us that the the only way to find Pachamama is if we are
able to return a piece of quartz that has fallen out of some crystal skull. We
need to find it and return the quartz. It is  the ONLY way to open THE
Book of Knowledge that will reveal who and where Pachamama is…

Indiana Jones gave me, José the
travel bear, a flash drive that is guarding the quartz. I am keeping it safe in
my pouch. I can’t loose it. Mrs. Pickering, Mrs. Tolisano and I are on our way
to Costa Rica and Peru and we have promised Indiana Jones
that we would find a way to
save the precious animals and their habitat.”

Oh the drama! The adventure! The…rich learning opportunities!

I hope you’ll follow along with Silvia and the students at SJEDS as they
travel around Latin Americain search of
Pachamama. I can’t stress enough how wonderful the blog is as an example of how
to use technology to bring real-world learning to students.

Of course, geographic knowledge and skills are central to Silvia’s Latin America blogging curriculum. But read just a couple
posts and you’ll quickly discover an impressive breadth of interdisciplinary focus.
Here a few of my favorites from the Costa Rica leg of the trip covering
a range of topics:

Continue reading “José the Bear Travels to Latin America”

Five for Friday: Five Migrations in Baseball History

As the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays prepare
for the final games of the 2008 World Series, we’re reminded of how geography
plays a fun role in the Great American Sport. Often state lines aren’t as important as regional divides or city-pride for
any sports fan and create a new U.S. geography that can’t quite be mapped.

Place is definitely important in sports when we look at the
rare times in history that U.S. (and Canadian!) baseball teams have re-located, creating some very angry and
bitter fans in the process. This week’s Five for Friday highlights five major team
re-locations in baseball history… and can possibly shed some light on some current
rivalries between places!

                                   Baseballmap_nike

1902— The Milwaukee Brewers became the
St. Louis Browns in one of the first team relocations.

1903— The original Baltimore Orioles became the New York Highlanders, and then
the Yankees. Ask a Baltimore fan about the Yankees,
and you’ll get an earful for a number of reasons. Could this bitterness have started in 1903??

1955— The Philadelphia Athletics moved
to Kansas City…and then 13 years later to Oakland, California.

 

Continue reading “Five for Friday: Five Migrations in Baseball History”

Geography Awareness Week – Never Needed More Than Now

Yesterday I shared details of our recent Public Engagement Coordinator (PEC) training at the NCGE conference. This morning I’m happy to report that one of our PECs has done his homework! Stephen Veliz, our industrious PEC from Florida, included this post about Geography Awareness Week on his blog “Teaching in Tallahassee”; which focuses on integrating Web 2.0 technologies across the curriculum: Geography Awareness Week is … Continue reading Geography Awareness Week – Never Needed More Than Now