Panning for Science in Science Magazine

The GigaPan, CMU Create Lab's Illah Nourbakhsh and Randy Sargent + several Fine Fellows are profiled in Karen A. Frenkel's Science Magazine article "Panning for Science."

Excerpt from the article:

"GigaPans have captured the public's imagination. Five thousand systems have been bought, and today the site hosts 40,000 public panoramas that draw 20 million visitors a year; another 20,000 are in private areas of the site while contributors work on them. Sargent and Nourbakhsh began training scientists to shoot GigaPans in 2008, and some 120 investigators are now using the system in their research. In mid-November, scientists will share findings at the Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science, hosted by CMU and the CREATE lab." Click here to read the rest of this awesome article.

Science 5 November 2010:
Vol. 330. no. 6005, pp. 748 - 749
DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6005.748

GigaPan for Educators

We are very lucky to have Pittsburgher and Propel-Braddock Hills charter school Principal Joe Oliphant joining us to discuss his use of Gigapan technology in k-12 education.

Mr Oliphant has been a classroom teacher for seven years in various grade levels. He was the Director of Technology Integration for two years before moving to his current position as a Principal. As a member of the Gigapan Dialogue project, Joe received a deeper understanding of how this technological tool can easily be embedded into the classroom with a focus on instruction, writing, and project-based learning.

Workshop participants will be exposed to various technology integration techniques to be used in various classrooms no matter what subject area. This workshop will provide examples of other Web 2.0 tools to use in conjunction with the Gigapan.org site and will be a hands-on discussion where project-based learning approaches will be reviewed.

GigaPanning Geology

Just another one of our amazing workshops to be presented this November as part of the Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science. Ron Schott of Fort Hays State University will present. Ron is one of the original pilot scientists in the Fine Outreach for Science Fellows program and has worked hard to push the limits of GigaPanning since the fall of 2007, particularly as applied to geology. He was among the pioneers in anaglyph GigaPanning, GigaPan guided audio tours, petrographic gigaphotomicrographs, and currently has more public gigapixels on the GigaPan.org site than anyone else (>620 gigapixels in >550 GigaPans).

His workshop will focus on the application of GigaPanning to geologic research and education. Participants will explore some of the existing applications of GigaPanning in geology (e.g. field site documentation, GigaPan-based visual correlation of outcrops/specimens, macro-GigaPans, petrographic microGigaPans, etc.) and discuss future directions in geologic GigaPanning. Examples of classroom pedagogy and research use of GigaPans will be offered to spark the discussion.

See you in November, Ron!

Fine Fellow Callan Bentley @ Smithsonian.com

Forget the museum for geological history, all you need to do is join Callan Bentley, of Northern Virginia Community College, for a tour. Check out the write-up, "Finding Fossils Where you Don't Expect Them" at Smithsonian.com.

Congratulations, Callan.

Profiled: 2009 Fine Fellow Christopher Hoadley

Christopher Hoadley, Associate Professor of Educational Technology at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development is also the Director of dolcelab, the Laboratory for Design Of Learning, Collaboration & Experience. Prior to this appointment, Chris held a joint appointment at Penn State University between the College of Education's Learning and Performance Systems department and the College of Information Sciences and Technology.

At NYU, Chris designs, builds, and studies ways for computers to enhance collaboration and learning. Currently his research focuses on collaborative technologies and computer support for cooperative learning (CSCL). He is an affiliate scholar for the National Academy of Engineering's Center for the Advancement of Scholarship in Engineering Education (CASEE) and was awarded a Fulbright for 2008-2009 in the South Asia Regional program to study educational technologies for sustainability and empowerment in rural Himalayan villages.

While at Penn State University, Chris, along with several other professors led The Mountain Project, a research, outreach, and educational project to help foster and study environmental education and sustainable living in the Himalayas. The Fulbright has enabled Chris to continue this work in Southeast Asia.

Using his GigaPan, Chris has captured some great shots of Kathmandu and India.

A few Fine Fellows

This year, we welcome 26 new Fine Fellows to Pittsburgh. This will be the fourth class of fellows, who will receive a GigaPan, training on how to use the equipment and our special Gigapan Stitching software. This incredible program is supported by the Fine Foundation and brings scientists and researchers from all over the world together, requesting only that they use the GigaPan in their research and post their images at www.gigapan.org

This year we welcome, among others:

Dr. Laurel Bestock Assistant Professor of Egyptology and Ancient Western Studies, Brown University. Dr Bestock led the inaugural excavation season of the Brown University Abydos Project (BUAP). Abydos, located in southern Egypt, is central to scholars’ attempts to unravel the early history of Egypt.

Dr. Faysal Bibi Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut International de Paléoprimatologie, Université de Poitiers. Faysal Bibi recently completed a PhD in Geology and Geophysics at Yale University and is at the start of a two-year postdoc at the Université de Poitiers, France. His research interests focus on the evolution of mammals in the Neogene, particularly bovids. He has worked in Mongolia, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Raymond S. Bradley University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences and Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dr Bradley's interests lie in climate variability across a wide range of time scales. He is particularly interested in how present day climate differs from climates in the past, and what may have caused climates to change and has written or edited eleven books on climatic change and paleoclimatology and authored over 120 articles on these topics.