Why a 3 Minute Video May be Better Than an Interactive Map to Understand the Nepal Earthquake

With each new natural or man-made disaster, technologies companies work hard to share valuable data and visualizations. I'm trained, having been in the GIS media for many years, to expect an e-mail from Esri, for example, that shares a social media map and perhaps another visualization. That e-mail went out this past week related to the Nepal earthquake, as both GIS User and GIS Cafe confirm.

Wood brick temple before the earthquake, as shown
in the video.

I find these and similar maps have begun to "all look the same" to me and rarely help me understand the underlying story, geographically or otherwise. Perhaps that's why when the Columbia Journalism Review suggested I watch a three minute Facebook video to understand the situation, I did. The more embeddable YouTube version is below.

Valuable Resources from Sinton and Boyes

Last week an event titled Spatial Thinking across the College Curriculum was held in Santa Barbara. I didn't attend. In fact, I didn't even know about it, until I saw on Twitter that Esri's David DiBiase spoke (and posted his slides, err presi). Then, after watching the latest Penn State Geography Dept Coffee Hour (description, video), I learned my advisor, Roger Downs, gave the keynote. I want to point readers to this short write-up of the event from Diana Sinton. I have three point to make about this event/recap/topic:

1. Read the recap. It's worth your time, especially if you are planning to attend or organize a gathering on this topic.
2. I have observed how few of the geography/GIS education events get any write up at all. I see tweets (mostly of who is on stage next or that someone will be speaking at 10 am) and agendas, but little in the way of "this is what happened/was of interest/sparked discussion." I am hopeful organizers (even those with limited funds) can find someone (blogger, student, vendor, etc.) to document what happens.
3. Perhaps it's time to take just a single issue or question on this topic and tackle it in a single day un-conference. I'm thinking of a variant of a code sprint. It sounds to me like the Santa Barbara meeting had many of the challenges we faced at Bucknell: too broad a topic to get much done.

Also worthy of note this week was the University of Toronto's Don Boyes' announcement via a blog post that he was sharing his online course course content for his introductory GIS courses including his lectures, videos and resource listings. Several people have already remarked on their quality via Twitter.

I watched the intro video and some of the technical lectures (How to do a query). The bite sized lectures, presented via Adobe Presenter, are essentially Boyes speaking to PowerPoint slides. The videos are demos of how, for example, to do a query in ArcGIS. The videos seem to be provided as a complement the PowerPoint "chalk talk" on the same subject. Boyes noted how much effort was required to create these lectures and videos.  I can only imagine!

As I watched I was reminded of something I heard on the Hack Education podcast this week. It was about if teachers should use "generic" (Khan Academy or other educators') videos in the flipped classroom, or make their own. The anecdotal response highlighted the value of teachers making their own videos. A high school student noted that she got math for the first time using videos her teacher makes, while another class, an economics one that used other people's videos, was considered one of the worst on campus, and students were switching out.

I for one am still pondering how best to use "home made" video in online teaching and in flipped face to face classrooms. In very process focused subjects like math, I can see how having the instructor use a consistent vocabulary and create videos that match the current state of the class as a huge plus. Is that also true in a "learning about a technology" and "learning software" type environment, too? Or does something more generic, like Esri's virtual campus courses combined with educator-created lectures work as well?

I hope Boyes and other geography/GIS educators will share their results as they try different combinations in the coming months and years.

Decide to Make a Difference; Choose Geo-Literacy

Those are not my words, they are the closing words from the two most recent National Geographic Education videos. The first is titled What is Geo-Literacy? and the second is titled Why is Geo-literacy Important?

The first video recaps the three "I"s that define geo-literacy: interactions (systems), interconnections (how one place connects to another, reasoning) and implications (selecting a good choices for the future). The second video suggests why we need to enhance funding and teaching of geo-literacy. If we do not, the video suggests, we are likely to make poor decisions about our personal and global future (and perhaps already have).

The videos present a lot of information, not the least of which is that geography, while selected as a core academic subject by Congress in 2001, has received no funding whatsoever. All of the other core academic subjects have been funded to some degree. (See: 1:57 of Why? video)

I want to challenge National Geographic to do more.

• I want it to answer the logical follow up to the closing words of the videos cited in my title: What would you like viewers to do? What action(s) should they take? 
• These videos seem to be aimed at educators, parents and perhaps Congress. I want National Geographic to suggest with whom it wants viewers to share the videos.
• I encourage National Geographic to add some context to the videos (on Vimeo as of May 1 and YouTube as of May 10). Why were these made? At whom are they addressed? Where are further resources? Neither the Vimeo or YouTube versions have descriptive information as this post goes to press. Such information is very valuable to the press, among others!

The videos are a great start in getting the word out about geo-literacy. I look forward to seeing National Geographic's vision for action on the issue.