On a different note...

     This week I decided to talk about something different than security issues.  I decided to talk about the bright side of mapping mashups and how they can be really useful in today's world.  I came across this website that allows you to create your own map mashup.  It allows you to create it by; choosing the exact location (either coordinates, or street address) a caption that can be displayed along with a caption that you can put with your marker (you can also choose a different color for the flag that represents whatever you are talking about).  When I first came across this website a couple ideas came to mind.  I thought it would be really clever for people who travel a lot to plot out different restaurants, museums, scenic views etc throughout their travels and make a blog about it!  This allows you to see what other travels suggest seeing or maybe what specifically they ate a restaurant they really enjoyed and would recommend.
     When I saw the coordinates option I automatically thought of people who are out on the water.  This could be really handy for divers who are looking for new dive spots.  Maybe there is a shipwreck you haven't discovered yet or a coral reef that a lot of fish have migrated to recently.  These are just some ideas I thought of, off of my own interests, does anyone else have any ideas and how they could use this with their interests or hobbies?


The website I found is: http://www.mapbuilder.net/

Mashup Security

* I tried researching about security surrounding mapping mashups and I couldn't find a lot of current information.  The information I found is about 2 years old and concerns the businesses that are using mashups and not the users.  For instance, there is certain security put in place for businesses so third-party users cannot hack into their business and destroy or steal documents.  Security is needed here because mashups integrate information from two different producers.  When reading about business security the articles read more as "this is what we are doing to see if this helps the problem."  It didn't sound as though there was a definite form of security that worked.

* The one piece of information that I found on user security is that mashup sites don't have rules stating how people's personal information can be used.  With this being said I was curious to see if any of you could think of rules that you feel would be appropriate or are needed for mashup sites in order to keep people's information safe?

Some interesting facts about Mapping Mashups

Below is a scenario that really helped me to understand how this application works:

"     As part of a large undergraduate history course he teaches about World War II, Dr. Martinez developed a mapping mashup that he introduces to the 150 stu- dents at the beginning of the semester. The mashup, which works with Google maps, represents major events leading up to and during the war. Fundamen- tally, it’s a map, he explains, showing them on a pro- jection screen that it works very much like the online mapping tools students regularly use. The map covers virtually the entire globe, and users can move around the world, zooming in and out, showing the area of search as a map, satellite images, or satellite images with maps, dates, and events superimposed.

     When students zoom in on Europe, they see flags scattered around the continent and into Asia. Simi- lar maps dot Japan, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. When clicked, each flag opens a pop-up box that names the location, explains what happened there and when, and shows a photograph of that site at or close to the date in question. Flags correspond to important battles, political events, treaties that were signed, and cities such as Vichy, the wartime capi- tal of France. The text in the box also includes links to articles that talk in depth about what took place in each location and the significance of that event. Stu- dents can zoom in to particular locations and see sat- ellite images of what the place looks like today. They can also get an idea about the terrain where soldiers fought and died." ( http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7016.pdf. )

Positive of Mapping Mashups:

* explains more thoroughly relationships as opposed to text and numbers

Negatives of Mapping Mashups:

* Commercial mapping systems focus largely on North American and Europe

* Making a application work properly requires strong technical skills and a considerable amount of time

Simple way of thinking about Mapping Mashups

** When you do a google search for instance "Restaurants in Rome, Italy"- the google map that pops up with all the peach colored flags that show you the location of restaurants is an example of Mapping Mashups

Mapping Mashups

     I am starting a new blog topic and it is on "Mapping Mashups."  I personally have never heard of Mapping Mashups before, but after doing some research on it, it is basically a map (like google earth) with data placed on top of it.  An example I saw in an article is a map of the United States and alumni from Syracuse University for instance, could see where their fellow classmates have ended up.  Or colleges could see how their recruitment is holding up across various parts of the Country or World.  I am curious if any of you have heard of Mapping Mashups before and what the context was.

An interesting youtube video on mindmaps

    I came across this youtube video that shows a famous author of books discussing topics surrounding the brain and learning and his take on mindmaps.  I think he brings up a couple good points during his interview, but there are some that I don't agree with as well.  The ideas I like is when he described mindmaps as "a thinking tool that reflects externally what goes on inside your head."  I also agree with him when he talks about how mindmaps are effective because they make associations with multiple ideas.  What I don't necessarily agree with him on is when he said that rigid lines in mindmaps don't make them as effective.  These are my thoughts on the interview....I was wondering what you all thought!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlabrWv25qQ

Mind map templates

     As I was reading more information on mind maps I came across one website that provides templates for you to use.  I didn't like this idea because I felt that it contradicted the whole idea about why mind maps work.  In my opinion they are so beneficial because they allow the learner to create something that will benefit their learning, if they are given a template to go off of it limits their creativity and personally I feel the benefit of creating a mindmap.  I was wondering what you all thought, any opinions on this?

A reading for another class....

      While I was reading for another class I came across this sentence,

"Student- constructed concept maps can provide information to teachers as well as to students, in particular, such maps may indicate possible misconceptions and 'holes' in students understanding" (Ormrod, 2008).

    This was discussed in the chapter about Metacognition, Self-Regulated Learning and Study strategies.  I thought I would pass this along as another way to think about mindmaps.  When I read this the part that stood out the most to me was finding "holes" in what students know.  Sometimes students can bluff their way through a paper by only highlighting on concepts that they know, but I feel this is harder with mindmaps because there are so many ideas that are connected with one another that students really have to know the concept and how the ideas relate to one another.