Blog Reflection

       To say that I have blogged before is something of an understatement. Many years ago (at the completion of Junior College), I was encouraged by one of my former instructors to do something useful with the massive array of information I had gathered over the previous two years. After some heavy duty research I began rememberthispoint.com in June 2012, now a three year ‘experiment’ has had over 145,000 page views since going online (I didn’t monitor traffic for several weeks, so this count is conservative). Using ‘Blogger’ has been a relative cakewalk by comparison, prepping material and using both internal and external tools to make things work haven’t been necessary (and it’s free, my other is hosted in the cloud and costs a couple hundred a year to have someone else manage that aspect).

       Blogger would be great for students to experiment with, as I see some taking quite readily to it and others not so much. Blogging is not for everyone (long term), there is always a certain amount of commitment that is necessary to make your blog useful and/or informative, without it you’re wasting everyone’s time.

       I have actually begun to give real consideration of converting my current blog to one for my classroom and/or subject material, there are a lot of things to consider, most importantly content. There are lots of neat things that you can legally repost without a hitch, but some educational material might become an issue, so these things are on my mind.

       There was not really anything overwhelming regarding this assignment, other than one thing. Since I already consistently develop and search for content at rememberthispoint.com it did become confusing what I had used where and if I had posted for this assignment or my webpage. Other than that this was a really interesting project.  

The Google Earth Experience

        Trying to incorporate Google Earth into the classroom includes mostly trying to figure the best way to apply all of its features towards a multitude of classes. Google Earth has astounding capacity to teach what will be my core classes, history, geography, and possibly earth sciences.

       Google uses modern satellite images and incorporates their own custom features as well. One of the most universal aspects is being able to locate a location by address or coordinates; this would make looking up specific cities (or towns) moderately straightforward. This feature would be useful for historical research, as Google Earth incorporates images that go back some period of time (often dependent on the particular location). Another particularly good feature is the ability to apply points to specific locations on the globe, making the ‘tagging’ of places a feature that could be used for a multitude of applications. I could easily assign seek and tag assignment that are applicable to an assignment, offering the chance for students to learn (and see) about this place, possibilities are quite vast.

        Please visit: https://www.google.com/earth/for more information. The learning curve is relatively simple, many people use it with much frivolity, it is quite easy and powerful if used correctly.        

Know Your Content

       MrCzWorld is a true blog by definition of what most people consider a ’blog’; it is not however the limit of what you can do with one. This project is more elemental in respect to ease of use and accessibility, updating and maintenance. I operate another, one that started as a simple blog and very quickly morphed into a webpage before ever being viewed by the public. There is an easy explanation for this, storage space, and how much storage you require depends a great deal on what you plan to use the blog for. In the case of MrCzWorld it would (and will) remain largely text based, meaning I won’t require extra storage for large image files and video. My webpage on the other hand required a great deal of space and more importantly, management of that storage that I had no ambition to deal with.

       A blog like ‘this one’, that is one that could be used in a classroom (on a school budget), would by necessity be limited to what could be both useful and affordable. When you plan to pull out almost all of the stops as I have done with rememberthispoint.com it becomes inherently more complex and expensive. So, when planning on using a media vehicle like a blog you must give real consideration to future use, anything free will most assuredly become one of three things quickly: 1. You will run out of space 2. and/or you will be required to rent or buy storage 3.over capacitate and have to move into a more ‘professional set-up’ which could cause an enormous amount of work. Plan ahead, domain names are difficult to come by (good, unused ones that is), and if you are a school teacher operating a bunch of small free blogs could turn against you quickly. It is better to run one good encompassing webpage or blog than a half dozen poorly maintained and rarely updated smaller ones, you will lose your audience. -BC

6 Inspiring Websites That Teach You To Code

My initial field of study was in Geographic Information Science (GIS), and it was through this course work that I learned coding skills. Mostly I studied the type of coding that is used for web pages like: HTML, CSS and VB, these have been very useful for blogging. Even when using standardized 'templates' you can highly modify the appearance if you know what you are doing. Whether you want to change font size or type, coloration of lettering, backgrounds, etc etc. all of this is buried in the code, and can be changed.

If you have never written code before don't let it intimidate you, there is really something for everyone. The skills I learned above were not necessarily the the most effective for the software tools one uses in GIS, the primary software is written in a code called Python. This is a fairly straight forward code and in GIS in almost all work settings you will use software called ArcMap and all sorts of custom tools can be built for that program if you know how.

What you choose to study should be based on what you objective is going to be, although lots of code knowledge is good, be careful to not waste your time. When taking a Computer Science class at the U of I my professor (and her sons) were really into building apps for the iPhone. Know what you would like to do and jump right into it, coding is a means of building and creating something out of letters, numbers and symbols using a computer and (usually free) software...so what are you waiting for? see the hyperlink below!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1dioIC/kMk$!ucN:jjfUYRT@/imgur.com/gallery/BL6Vs

Urban Layers. Explore the structure of Manhattan’s urban fabric. | MORPHOCODE

In 2010 I was very fortunate to help chaperone my sons 8th grade class trip to the east coast. Of the many stops we made the trip finally came to an exhausting end in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Sadly I believe that I was one of the very few that gave much of a care about that particular leg by that point, but my fascination with this place has been constant since then. The fall after this trip (which occurred in May-June), I began studies in Geographic Information Systems (now referred to Sciences instead) Manhattan was a recurring theme for a handful of projects as it offered such deep history and tonnes of data to play with. Below you will find an website that offers deeper exploration of this place and also provides a fine example of how adaptive GIS technology can be. 

 "Urban layers is an interactive map created by Morphcode that explores the structure of Manhattan's urban fabric. The map lets you navigate through historical fragments of the borough that have been preserved and are currently embedded in its densely built environment. The rigid archipelago of building blocks has been mapped as a succession of structural episodes starting from 1765." -from webpage

Urban Layers. Explore the structure of Manhattan’s urban fabric. | MORPHOCODE