Would you like to have your students work together to build an annotated map? Google Maps has just added a collaboration feature. When you are creating a personalized, annotated map using the “My Maps” feature of Google Maps, there is a new button entitled “collaborate“. This feature allows you to email an invitation to others to allow them to help annotate the map. For example, a group of students could create a map based on a course reading, annotating placemarks with insightful interpretations. Alternatively, students could map geological features, watersheds or species distributions. Students involved in community projects could place their own pictures together on a map.

Next to the collaborate button on Google Maps is another feature for sharing information. If you’ve found or created a wonderful KML/ KMZ file using Google Earth, and want to share it with someone who does not have access, click the “import” button to upload the file from the web or your computer. You can then send Aunt Mary the link to see your vacation trip, or share the link with your students via Blackboard. Your students or Aunt Mary do not need to have or use Google Earth to see your map.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) reports on a new search engine from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory that makes it possible to look for particular terms or phrases within a recorded lecture.

According to the brief news item, users can search for terms like “white dwarf” in a lecture on astronomy, rather than browsing the recording the old-fashioned way. Want to learn more? Go to the Lecture Browser home page and search for the desired term in one of more than twenty different disciplinary categories. The search engine will return a list of MIT lectures in that field which contain the term, with links to cue up the recording at the point(s) in each lecture where the term is found.

At present, this tool is available only at MIT, but the CHE report indicates it may be made available to other universities at some point in the future.

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Amazon.com will be soon releasing their highly anticipated e-book reader device, code-named Kindle.

The CIT tested the Sony Reader earlier this year and the Amazon device has many similar features - a screen that uses E Ink technology that resembles a printed page and the ability to hold up to 200 titles. However, Amazon’s entry into the market will include wireless capability that allows for purchase of titles directly on the device without a computer and can even be used to update purchased titles with new information. It can also search through books for particular words and phrases. Amazon has several partners in the publishing industry, providing what promises to be a wide range of content.

feature article at Newsweek

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Two professors are leading a project to produce and freely distribute 1,000 original open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a Web site. The goal is to make textbooks more available to those who are disadvantaged and cannot afford conventional textbooks.

Richard T. Watson, interim head of the department of management information systems at the University of Georgia, and Donald J. McCubbrey, a professor of information technology and electronic commerce at the University of Denver, have started what they call the Global Text Project. Professors and experienced professionals (including graduate students, in some cases) from around the world each write, pro bono, at least one chapter of a book. Each chapter is reviewed by a scholar. Editors then assemble the chapters into complete books. The books are written using wiki software which allows writers to frequently edit and update the material. Scholars and professors have the final word in the content, to avoid the criticism sometimes leveled at wikis, namely that the communal editing process can introduce errors or result in unsubstantiated information. The project leaders also plan to work with traditional publishers and relevant authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth is unavailable or inadequate.

The Global Text Project intends to publish books in Arabic, Chinese, English, and Spanish. The project leaders estimate that they will need 20,000 volunteers to write all the materials they have planned.

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article about the project is here.

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The medical students have some medical exercises with physicians from around the world at Ann Myers Medical Center in Second Life. See some snapshots as examples at http://scienceroll.com/2007/08/09/live-blogging-today-first-medical-simulation-in-second-life/

Before practicing medicine on real patients, nursing students at Tacoma Community College, in Washington, get to practice on virtual ones in the world of Second Life. Visit the article “To Save a Second life” from The Wired Campus.

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The 3D SpaceNavigator plugs into your computer via USB to facilitate moving around in a 3D environment. I’ve tried it with Google Earth, and after a brief adjustment period, I was able to investigate in three dimensions smoothly and effortlessly. This device is advertised as a 3D mouse, but it does not exactly function like a mouse. It moves easily in 3D, but its only button opens the menu to adjust the navigator properties. The recommended use is with the SpaceNavigator in one hand and a mouse in another (which is enjoyable, saves time navigating, and is very smooth).

3Dconnexion’s website has excellent videos to show how the SpaceNavigator is used. According to the website:

“The key advantage of a SpaceNavigator over a mouse and keyboard is the ease of performing intricate adjustments to camera views and models with out repeatedly stopping to change directions, zoom, or rotate models. With a SpaceNavigator you can do all three at once. “

This device would be very useful in building your 3D projects. It is compatible with over 100 3D programs, including Google Earth, Maya, AutoCAD, eDrawings, SketchUp, SolidWorks, and many others.

Other uses include:

• smoothly navigating presentations with 3D content
• using the SpaceNavigator while creating a movie of 3D materials
• Holiday presents

The SpaceNavigator is $59 plus about $12.50 shipping (it is heavy).

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