Hello Noemi and welcome. Search for Susan T as she is a fantastic user of web2.0 from Israel and has done a lot of translating from Hebrew.

Noemi,
I am delighted that you like the website. Not only are there a lot of useful resources on the site, but I think there are also a lot of ideas of new things that can be done, better than I have done them.

I am in process of developing the first course for our online courses in moodle. It is a course studying the four known Ancient American civilizations, one of which, the oldest, has only come to light since the 1990's and there is still very much to learn about it. It is called Norte Chico, is located on the west coast of Peru, and is unique among known civilization in having no pottery, no evidence of war, and no evidence of slavery, yet it accomplished diverse trade between the sea and the moutains, using various elevations to grow what was needed. An important agricultural produce was cotton, which was used at ocean side to make nets to catch fish which was the principal part of the diet even up the mountains. The other civilizations are Inca, Maya and Azted, about which so much more is known. The Norte Chico is being dated, and latest information puts it at 4000 BC, and maybe earlier, which would put it in the same time frame as Sumer in Mesopotania. Perhaps the cradle of civilization was not the ONLY cradle of civilization!\

Well, it is late and I need to take my book and relax in bed until sleep creeps over me. Hubby has been asleep a few hours already. But I felt no sleep coming when I was creating the organization of this new course.

Anne

Hi Noemi,

Thanks for introducing yourself. I'm kind of an "out of the box" thinker myself and I use maps to show where poverty is most concentrated in Chicago, which is where schools need more help, and where kids need more mentors and learning experiences in the non-school hours, such as you are demonstrating on your blog.

While I use my maps to show where the need is, and to show locations of existing non-school tutor/mentor programs, I also use them to show leaders how they can mobilize volunteers and provide dollars so that there are constantly improving tutor/mentor programs in every poverty area of the city .

Here's a link to a map showing Jewish temples in the Chicago region: http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/2008/09/chicagos-jewish-congr...

This is one of several maps we create that illustrate how faith groups beyond poverty could mobilize resources to support tutor/mentor programs operated by faith groups in the city, or operating in neighborhoods of the city where kids need help.

We've created an interactive map, where leaders of banks, insurance companies, colleges and faith groups could create their own community involvement and collaboration strategies, by building their own map views.

Thus, you can see that my "out of the box" thinking seeks to engage people beyond poverty in long-term strategies that help kids who now live in poverty, be holding jobs when they are adults so they can raise their own kids in a different economic environment.

I hope you'll write about these maps, in ways that some of your readers might begin to use these in their own efforts to help disadvantaged kids, in Chicago, or in other cities.