Archives for March 2011

Mapping Community Assets: Learning by doing

2011/03/24 by

University of Windsor Social Work students have agency placements in their senior year, where they gain experience in the field and make community connections. Each student brings enthusiasm and unique skills to their organization. Take Lillian Gallant for example: her placement was been at the Ford City Neighbourhood Renewal project (housed in the Gino A. Marcus Community Centre).

Lillian started out with a plan to inventory the community, and from there, she developed a “community asset map” using GoogleMaps. Combining her interest in emerging technologies and her social work background led to this fantastic map of the neighbourhood. The process was a hands-on way for Lillian to learn about the community and the resulting visualization is a great way for her to share the results with the community.

I consulted on the technical aspects at each stage of the project.

Click on the different icons to reveal information about each asset:


View Ford City Community Asset Map in a larger map

Filed Under: Helping, Maps, Portfolio, Teaching & Learning, Towards Better Teaching

Spicy Nodes for Active Learning

2011/03/23 by

I love trying out new (to me) tools for teaching and learning. I was looking for a way to model “Active Learning” — this idea that students learn when they’re engaged in the process of learning. I found “Spicy Nodes” and voilà: a visualization of active learning was born. Click on the various “nodes” or bubbles to expand and see what’s buried beneath. Continue clicking on each node until it goes no further. You might find you’re actively learning about active learning. (Woah — that was kind of meta!) Go ahead and try out the tool yourself. There are both free and premium accounts available.

Filed Under: Portfolio, Teaching & Learning, Towards Better Teaching