Keeping an online, interactive information book

Okay.

So the phonebook went online, as www.whitepages.com or www.yellowpages.com what else could possibly happen?

You could Mapplerize it! For an example, take a hospital that decides they want to go online with their phone/address/information book. Mappler lets them map the residence of staff members, surgeons, nurses with each data point containinga staff member’s phone number, and related information. It’s a clean way of orgainzing data, and since it is online, it can be accessed by whoevery you want it to be accessed by!

Maptastic! (Please don’t try to look this up, you won’t find it in the dictionary.)

It’s a Grind

Last Saturday, 12 high school students (10 from High School South and 2 from High School North) and 4 adults crammed into the It’s A Grind near Plainsboro Plaza. Except they weren’t having a coffee house for reading poetry, they were training to collect data in a Walkability Assessment for Plainsboro. Students learned terms like “curb cut”, “flush” and not only learned the elements of a perfect intersection, but also, became aquainted with the process of investigation.

-Susan & Joanne Im

Walkability!

In another chance to help out their community, WW-P students have launched a new project to improve Walkability and Bikability in their township, which would encourage an increase in conversions of transportation from gas guzzling automobiles to enviro-friendly bikes and sneakers. The “Walkability Assessment” will map various intersections around the community in need of improvements. Each data point will include final scores and rankings of each crossing and intersections and photographs of missing elements. This project not only brings the community to aid in environment-improving efforts, but also, the data collected from this assessment will greatly improve the township’s decision making when considering road repairs to be made. Initially begun by the West Windsor Bicycle & Pedestrian Alliance (view at: http://maps.gismap.us/wwbpa), South’s Green CmPs is pursuing this project with a data collection date of May 16, 2009 at 9 a.m. They are looking for volunteers to help them so mark your calendars! (Prior to the event, volunteers will be required to participate in a one-hour training session.)

For more information, visit their project web site at http://sites.google.com/site/greencommunitymapping2009/index.

Bernards County Incorporates Mappler into School Curriculum

In an innovative project, the Science and Social Studies department in Bernards Township banded together to monitor deer populations. With the heavy involvement of students, the project boasts more than a hundred data points and shows promise in educating others in the “impact of geography on a particular culture” (http://www.communitymap.net/deer/bernards/). Each data point may contain deer-related accidents, movement of dear families, hunting and food supply. Students are expected to learn more about the scientific process as well as technological tools available to them.

Using Mappler to Showcase Research

Nowadays, most things have gone online and high tech. With Mappler, dreary, research papers may now be presented with a twist! (okay, so maybe you can only do this if the paper in question is related to location…)

Mappler allows users to map a point online and input data for a certain location in a proffessional manner.  Enviornmentalists may find Mappler a particularly useful tool for presenting data obtained from water sample analysis from various points along a river, or for tracking negative or positive changes  in the environment of a specific area.

Because Mappler allows various individuals to contribute to one site, it also helps that a project started by one die-hard environmentalist can be carried on and supplemented by others miles away~! Rather than a schizophrenic collection of numerous papers dealing on the same project carried in different areas, Mappler allows individuals to create one final, organized presentaiton of their data!

For a wonderful example, check out: http://www.communitymap.net/chatham/

-Joanne I.

Celebrate New Jersey! Who said New Jersey wasn’t cool?

Celebrate New Jersey!

Last year, my sister and I helped out an organization (Celebrate New Jersey) that was hosting a competition for students to raise awareness about the Garden State.

Students from different areas submitted essays describing a key aspect of New Jersey, or a key individual in New Jersey history. Now—to the fun part! We mapped the aspect or individual the student  wrote about as a single point in the map of New Jersey. Each point contained the photos of each student along with their essay. After mapping dozens of students’ works for hours, the final product was an organized, interactive showcase of all the applicants’ works which could be viewed by friends, families and other students!

To view the site, visit:

-Joanne I.

Integrating GIS technology for Educational Use

Mappler technology is an innovative use of google maps to benefit educational and community organizations.  Two key factors make Mappler-based projects so useful: community involvement and community improvement. Mappler allows widespread community involvement into one project. All you have to make is an account, learn the gimmicks of the technology (which isn’t very hard) and you’re set to go!

To provide an example of the type of projects that use Mappler, students can use it to track trends in history and formulate their own conclusions. For an example, a student could map all the places in New England key inventions were made in, adding a paragraph or two to go with each mapped area. The final result should show the area of England  that gave birth to some of the most historically important inventions. But it doesn’t have to end there! Not only would the project help students digest information about inventions quickly for the upcoming test, but students next year could add inventions they thought they were missing into the final map. (By the way such a project exists!)