Bits of Landscape: Links from ASU talk

As a departure point for asking how emerging online apps are changing (or aren't) the future of planning and design, we peeked at some of these widely available sites and applications:

Wikimapia
Common Census
NJ LA Sites

Wired gives you a guide to Second Life
Rutgers has a Second Life page too.
For the less digitally inclined there is First Life

And Vitruvius.

Some of these examples come from "Many, many maps: Empowerment and online participatory mapping" in the First Monday journal.

OIRT is making Rutgers more like a game

Technologies for instruction are providing increasing opportunities for collaboration, student engagement, and active learning.

Rutgers' Office of Instructional and Research Technology is holding their annual Holiday Technology Showcase

featuring the
Grand Opening of the Rutgers University Second Life Island
and the
Launch of Rutgers on iTunes

Also featuring: Sakai, ePortfolios, Digital Storytelling, and Games
for Education
Thursday, December 11, 2008, from 10am-6pm
ASB Annex 1, Busch Campus

A list of exhibits and demonstrations is available at:http://oirt.rutgers.edu/showcase2008

Free Reading material

The only thing better than finding free reading materials is finding time to read them. Andy at Digital Urban has posted two free things to read:

• The Renaissance of Geographic Information: Neogeography, Gaming and Second Life
• Fractal Cities by Michael Batty and Paul Longley

Rutgers in Second LIfe

Having written a small bit about Second Life, I like to keep an eye out for universities exploring what the game might mean for them. Rutgers Continuous Education has opened a competition, called Innovations in Learning, within Second Life looking at creative educational tools and techniques for use in the metaverse. I think the potential for creative problem-solving and innovation is strong, and the prizes are compelling (1st place gets a Mac Book Pro). But I can't help but wonder how many students we have that will have both the technical skills to build something new and the time to do it.

Ordnance Survey in Second LIfe

CASA's Virtual London has been politely removed from Second Life out of respect for a request by the British Ordnance Survey. As the Digital Urban blog reports:

Details on the work currently unavailable are in the post below, we are reserving comment at request on this one, but i guess you know our views...

Since I have never met Andy I can only guess that this is a very polite British way of saying that the Queen's rules on mapping are a tad bit crazy and oppressive. I have never fully grasped the rather extreme British system, but always thought it was just because I was an American, on the outside. This little episode reveals more fully the extremes to which this system continues to prevail upon the GIS community, even in a metaverse.

Second Life for Les Halles?

Paris is on the verge of replacing Les Halles with something new. So, the BBC reports, they've turned to Second Life to get a full and robust set of suggestions on its future.