Last Updated on Monday, 15 March 2010 07:50

The Indigenous Mapping Network - Google Tribal Geo Tech Workshop was held on February 25-26, 2010, at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA, US.

Thursday, February 25


Shuttle pick-ups from Wild Palms Hotel to Google: 8:00am, 8:30am


8:30am - 9:00am -- Registration & Breakfast (provided free to participants)


9:00am - 9:30am -- Opening blessing, by Ann Marie Sayers - Tribal Chairman, Indian Canyon Nation of Ohlone People
9:30am - 10:00am -- Introduction to workshop
  • Review existing technologies
  • Showcase of great examples
  • Security and Confidentiality of your projects and data
10:00am - 12:00pm -- Introduction to Mobile Data Collection
  • Become familiar with mobile handset
  • Field exercise: we will go outside and learn to use smart phones for collecting map data.
  • Visualizing the data you collected: back in computer
12:00pm - 1:30pm -- Lunch, provided free to participants
1:30pm - 4:00pm -- Break into two parallel tracks (more information was provided in workshops)
  • Community Track: focus on creating maps with rich content about your indigenous community - Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach
    Exercises and topics include:
    Creating maps with MyMaps: we will collaborate to build a map that includes photographs, videos, and stories.
    Embedding on blog or Sites page: we will put your map on a website, so you can share it with the world.
    Converting to Google Maps and Earth, from other formats
    Security and confidentiality of data
  • GIS and Technical Track: focus on using and converting GIS data in your maps - Mano Marks, Google Developer Relations
    and Christiaan Adams, Google Earth Outreach
    Exercises and topics include:
    Brief Introduction to Google Maps & Earth
    Introduction to data formats
    Converting from other formats, third-party tools
    Technical details of GPS in Google Earth
    Importing using GIS tools, including ArcGIS
    Google Earth Pro
    Security and confidentiality of data
4:00pm - 5:00pm -- Open work time, discussion, Question & Answer (everyone back together)
5:00pm - 6:00pm -- Tour of Google campus

6:00pm - 7:30pm -- Dinner, provided free to participants

Shuttle pick-ups from Google to Wild Palms Hotel: 7:15pm, 7:45pm

Friday, February 26

Shuttle pick-ups from Wild Palms Hotel to Google: 8:00am, 8:30am


8:30am - 9:00am -- Breakfast, provided free to participants


9:00am - 9:30am -- Review of Day 1 Rebecca, Karin, Mano, Christiaan, Carl
 Questions from Participants


9:30am - 12:00pm -- Break into four parallel tracks (more information provided in workshops)

  • Community & Earth Track: focus on creating maps with rich content about your indigenous community
    Exercises and topics include:
    Creating content in Google Earth, including adding points, lines, polygons
    Adding photos, slideshows, and videos in pop-up balloons (we will have photo albums in PicasaWeb and videos in YouTube prepared in advance)
    Creating narrated tour: we will get started on creating a narrated tour about your indigenous community.
    Importing GPS data into Google Earth
    Importing GIS data info Google Earth
  • Programming Track: focus on code and programming languages for building very customized maps
    Exercises and topics  include:
    Advanced KML
    JavaScript Programming
    Google Maps API
    Google Earth API
  • GIS Track: A deeper look at the tools available for data conversion and manipulation
    Exercises and topics include:
    Google Earth Pro
    Google Earth Enterprise
    A deeper look at 3rd party tools

12:00pm - 1:30pm -- Lunch, provided free to participants, Participant Presentations Pt 2, Raffle

1:30pm - 3:30pm -- Open work time, discussion, Q & A, etc.


3:30pm - 4:00pm -- Google Map Maker for adding your data to Google's base map

4:00pm - 4:30pm -- Wrap-up & Conclusion (Raffle was done in back of room)

Shuttle pick-ups from Google to Wild Palms Hotel: 4:30pm, 5:00pm

Dinner is on your own.

* There were three tracks the first day, and four the second day for more targeted training: a Community Track, a GIS Track, and a Programming Track.
  • Community Track: for participants who specialize in building content for mapping indigenous communities.
  • GIS Track: for participants who use GIS data and/or GIS tools to create their own data.
  • Programming Track: for participants who specialize in programming and developing customized website applications.
Banner