Crisis Mapping, Politics & New Media

Dear community,

I am developing a new course: Political Science 397: Crisis Mapping, Politics & New Media. As the course progresses I will post materials here for your review. Please feel free to use any portion of the materials posted here for your own course development.

Follow us on twitter: #CMClass

New Resources for the Fall 2011 Course:

• Syllabus (August 2011)
• Introduction to Crisis Mapping Powerpoint
• Semester-long powerpoint for students (evolving)(September 2011)

Grassroots mapping using kites and balloons on JCU’s campus

Links to material from my Spring 2011 course:

• Syllabus (January 2011)
• Discussion Questions related to material assigned for weeks 3-4 of the course.
• Discussion Questions related to material assigned for weeks 4-6 of the course.
• Discussion Questions related to week 10 readings (specifically, “Vicarious Violence…”)

Information for instructors: visualization and analysis:

• Ushahidi (puddles, footprints, sonar)
• Nuclear Test Explosions (quite well done)
• Geotime (3d!)
• Depiction
• HunchLab

Past Activities

• Live Crisis Mapping Libya for the Standby Task Force
• GPS & satellites activity with Dan Palmer
• Games & Playsourcing. Thanks to Brett Horvath @KilaVentures, Nick Martin @Tech Change for ideas, and Tom Weinandy for writing an excellent blog post describing our in-class experience playing games and discussing the implications.
• In class last term, guest Speakers JD Godchaux and Lela Prashad from NiJeL helped students troubleshoot their final projects, and introduced open-source GIS, including Quantum GIS and GeoCommons.
• Playsourcing

Open Street Maps Exercise

What can we learn about maps & difficulties of making space/time maps from mapping our daily routine?

Thanks for any input or comments!

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood & assign them tasks & work,

rather,

teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

~ HT: @PatrickMeier

Many thanks to the Department of Political Science at JCU for your encouragement, and your coffee.