Exploring Geographic Dimensions of Learning at Scale

New forms of distance education like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide the opportunity to reach global audiences of learners at an enormous scale. These new methods of engagement not only provide ways to expand our audience of learners, but also to collect enormous amounts of spatio-temporal data regarding their interactions with a course. This talk highlights the development of Maps and the Geospatial Revolution, a MOOC offered on Coursera which has enrolled more than 85,000 students to date. In addition to characterizing its design and execution, I focus particular attention on the emerging research opportunities associated with exploring the geographic dimensions of learning at scale.

Dr. Anthony Robinson is the Director of Online Geospatial Education Programs at Penn State and teaches the largest Mapping MOOC -- Maps and the Geospatial Revolution – in the world. He will be on campus next week as part of the New Mappings Collaboratory  (http://newmaps.as.uky.edu/) Spring 2015 Speaker Series and will be giving a talk on Monday, February 9^th at 2 pm.

The UK Appalachian Center welcomes Iryna Galushchak, Professor of Economics at Precarpathian National University for a SWAP (Sharing Work on Appalachia in Progress).  Dr. Galushchak will be giving a talk entitled: Economic, Ecological and Cultural Influences on Regional Development in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains.  This is a free event for UK Students, Faculty, and Staff and will be held at the UK Appalachian Center from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, February 6, 2015.

About The Talk: "Networks and north–south partnerships have become prerequisites for much research funding in policy-relevant fields. The objectives vary but usually include levelling the scholarly playing field, improving research quality, building southern capacity and relaying southern perspectives to northern policymakers. Reflecting on a decade’s work in Southern Africa, this paper suggests such initiatives often fall short of their objectives."

We invite you to a forum discussion organized by French and Francophone Studies at UK on the Paris attacks of January 7-9, 2015. 

UK faculty from the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Department of History, and the Department of Geography will discuss the recent deadly attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Paris kosher market, as well as provide some context for the social and political debates that continue to emerge in the wake of the attacks.

Discussion participants:

Dr. Ihsan Bagby, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (MCLLC)



Dr. Jeffrey Peters, French and Francophone Studies (MCLLC)

Joel Pett, political cartoonist, Lexington Herald-Leader

Dr. Jeremy Popkin, Department of History

Dr. Suzanne Pucci, French and Francophone Studies (MCLLC)

Dr. Leon Sachs, French and Francophone Studies (MCLLC)

Dr. Michael Samers, Department of Geography

Dr. Sadia Zoubir-Shaw, French and Francophone Studies (MCLLC)

• Dr. Jennie Burnet, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, received the 2013 Elliot Skinner Award from the Association of Africanist Anthropology for her book, “Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda,” (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). The association described the book as “an outstanding piece of research and writing (that) makes a great contribution to anthropology, African studies, gender and the treatment of violence.” Her research interests center on Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Africa, and the United States, where she examines structure, agency, and human subjectivity and such topics as race; ethnicity; gender and sexuality; violence, genocide, and peace; and development studies. (Dr. Monica Udvardy is contactperson)

4:00-4:25 Dr. Adam Milewski, Assistant Professor of Geology, University of Georgia, "The Past, Present, and Future of Water Resources in the Middle East and North Africa Region"

4:30-4:55 Dr. Neda Zawahri, Associate Professor of Political Science, Cleveland State University, "Management of Transboundary Rivers in the Middle East"

5:00-5:25 Discussion moderated by Dr. Alan Fryar