Brief notes from David Bodenhamer's presentation (Feb 10)

David Bodenhamer (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) You Are Here: A Space-Time Wiki (gwiki) for the Humanities.

David described how the development of web 2.0 has led to different notions of how we learn and how we create knowledge – ability of the user to generate content, using new technologies to build new structures of knowledge.

Barriers of GIS use - a highly technical platform, expensive, privileges quantitative data etc.

Idea of redefining GIS – making it multi-modal, opening up to a variety of research environments, creating collaborative spaces within it, taking advantage of all spatial technologies.

Tool created called the “gwiki” – a method to store and access knowledge, and deliver it to the user, where they are. Location-sensitive set of tools. Content management system with a wiki built in – created online; content delivered to GPS-enabled phones. Uses QR code; tells the site where the user is and delivers geographically-relevant information to the user. UV marks can be added to books.

Bodenhamer discussed different ways that such technology might be used by the humanities, including the following example carried out by his university:

Use of gwiki in fieldwork – large project with Medical School, trying to encourage underserved African American women to secure mammograms. Enlisting fieldworkers who make individual contact with these women; fieldworker can access information about bus routes the women may take, about close by clinics – but also want the women to be able to speak about their experience by recording information (take photos, record voice information etc) – to enable the fieldworkers to understand some of the barriers faced by the women they are trying to persuade to go for screenings.

Creates a collaborative researching experience, and can be used to enable a multimedia learning experience.