Designing and implementing learning experiences for youth has been one of the most rewarding activities I have been able to do during my time as a researcher for the Connected Learning Research Network. Working with some members of my research team and in collaboration with school teachers, students, and game designers, we have made two…
It was great to find out about the different kinds of collaborations that are emerging between Wikipedia and other open knowledge projects. As the projects grow and their databases become more complex and rich, members of the communities have been experimenting with different ways of integrating their data, creating interesting mash-ups. For instance, the integration…
The theme of education was pretty pervasive during this year conference. Despite of the myths that surround Wikipedia in popular culture, and the fears of high school and university teachers about the inaccuracy of the free encyclopedia, the joint effort of progressive educators around the world and the Wikimedia foundation has developed a solid and…
I am glad I finally had the opportunity to participate in Wikimania, the international conference where wikipidians and other wiki practitioners get together to discuss, code, and reflect about the future, present, and past of Wikipedia and its sister projects. This year, the conference was host in DC, at the George Washington University campus, and…
OSM in Action. During the six years of history, the OSM project has been able to grow thanks to the volunteer work of an active community of amateur mappers and developers. Although this community is geographically dispersed around the world, it has organized itself in several localized projects. In the OSM wiki it is possible…
Meeting at the Crossroads Maps are a form of media that display geographic information and spatial data. They are graphic statements that carry a message about the locations they represent and the authors who made them. Maps empower people with geographic knowledge. In the history of empires, nations, and cities, maps have been used in…
In July of 2004, Steve Coast, a 24-year-old British computer scientist and entrepreneur, started OpenStreetMap (OSM) with the objective of creating a free editable map of the world. Tired of the problems data proprietary companies generate by the restricting geographical information (In the UK, as in other European countries, geographic information is very expensive and…