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The Geo-Everything Project

History

Screenshot from Map project created by a DWRL studentThe DWRL has in recent years established a working relationship with UT's Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (DIIA), particularly in regard to student and instructor training and support in various audio and video recording software and applications. Additionally, a number of DWRL instructors have developed dynamic and at times, award-winning lesson plans adopting Google Maps for classroom assignments, projects, and community collaborations. We are looking forward to our continued collaboration with DIIA, and to further exploring the research possibilities provided by the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report.

Overview

This project will build upon the DWRL’s budding collaboration with the DIIA, and the international non-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations, the New Media Consortium (NMC). The NMC produces the annual Horizon Report, which in 2009 introduced six emerging technologies or practices likely to have a large future impact on teaching, learning, research, and creative expression. One of the promising trends The 2009 Horizon Report focuses on is the increasingly ubiquitous use of geographical information systems in common technologies, a trend the report has labeled geo-everything:

Devices we commonly carry with us increasingly have the ability to know where they (and, consequently, we) are, and to record our coordinates as we take photographs, talk to friends, or post updates to social networking websites. The “everything” in geo-everything is what makes this group of technologies interesting, and what will make them so much a part of our lives—geolocation, geotagging, and location-aware devices are already very nearly everywhere.

This year, the DWRL will host a dedicated research group to explore the relationship between geo-everything and emerging trends in writing. Specifically, we hope this group will engage with recent developments in Google Earth, which is now compatible with Google Maps and other applications, and offers rich opportunities for interactive and collaborative writing. We also invite this research group to think about how geolocation technologies embedded into mobile devices open up possibilities for the writing classroom and graduate research agendas.

Aims and benefits of this project

This project gives instructors the opportunity to research and explore the latest advances in interactive mapping and other geolocation technologies. From working in this group, project members will learn to actively develop and integrate these tools into their own research agendas and into classroom practices that focus on new forms of composition and collaboration. Among the topics investigated by the Geo-Everything Project are:

  • digital literacies
  • visual rhetoric
  • globalization
  • theories of space and place
  • cultural geography
  • cultural studies
  • ethnic and third world literature
  • composition studies
  • writing in online environments
  • narrative theory
  • digital storytelling
  • digital journalism

Participants in this research project have the opportunity to:

  • publish a collaborative journal article or DWRL white paper
  • deliver their research in an academic conference panel presentation
  • develop an innovative, multimedia component to their professional portfolio (whatever you build can be kept to demonstrate to future employers)
  • add a component to their teaching philosophy statement
  • incorporate interactive geospatial tools into their larger research agenda

The project's Senior Research and Development Manager (project leader) and R&D Officers (project members) will:

  • become proficient in Google Earth, Google Earth and Google Map plug-ins, and mobile apps, and apply their application in educational environments
  • develop a research agenda that enables the use of interactive mapping technologies in education and research, in particular the study of rhetoric, language, and literature
  • create detailed lesson plans of varying length and focus (e.g., class-long, unit-long, or semester-long projects), and pilot these lesson plans in DWRL classrooms during the spring 2010 semester
  • deliver presentations at the DWRL pedagogy workshop series and DWRL showcase. The showcase should include a vision for future DIIA collaboration and NMC Horizon Report-based projects
  • develop a possible formal joint-presentation with DIIA for the UT community and the international education community at large

Using Google Maps as a Writing Tool