One of the parts of the job that’s been really fulfilling for us is following the work being done in David Silver’s Digital Media Production class— it’s great to see all the exciting stuff they’re doing with Flickr, Google Maps, Twitter, blogs, and the intersections among all those media.

Something I’ve been working on for a while— ever since hearing about the class’s Google Maps assignment— is a map that would incorporate all the individual students’ Google Maps of San Francisco.  If done right, this will result in a USF-driven map of the city, with students’ words and pictures populating a dynamic map that would give prospects a true students’ eye view of what’s happening.

So today I have a proof of concept!  I’m using a Web app called MapChannels to integrate Google Map feeds; it’s a little unsatisfying to rely on a third party for this, as I’m sure it’s something Donald could code in a few hours, but he’s doing more important stuff, so it’s MapChannels for now.

I’ve used Twitter to locate the students’ maps, and one by one I’m adding them to this master map.  This definitely feels like a beta, but it’s still pretty cool:

San Francisco, mapped by USF students