## 4 Piloting of the Tools
### Details of the Assignments
This was held during the fall term of 2012 when Hurricane Sandy and the unusual convergence with a significant mid-latitude cyclone over eastern North America produced severe weather that provided many examples for discussion. In this class there were 111 students where six uploads were made by phone and 191 were made using the web. In this class, a much larger number of ratings of photos was made relative to the first year classes, _i.e._, 616. These assignments were all implemented using the first assignment type within Geo-Wiki, _i.e._, upload, rating and discussion of geotagged photos. This past winter, a new first-year class was also given the second Geo-Wiki assignment type, _i.e._, the more interactive one. The focus was on the analysis of information provided by the satellite imagery on the Geo-Wiki site through a series of structured questions, additional web resources and _in situ_ photographs of the features to be examined. The student was provided with a background document available as a pdf on the site that explained the learning objectives, provided some context, photographs and on-line references for reading that was necessary to answer the questions. The student was then directed to a wizard that worked through a series of multiple-choice questions. For each question, the Geo-Wiki automatically zoomed into the site of interest and the student clicked on one of a series of possible answers. The student was then given a free-form box to enter up to 512 characters explaining why that choice was appropriate in terms of the background information learned. The student then rated the difficulty of the question on a scale of 1 to 4 through click boxes. For this initial trial, the questions were of two types. The first focused on identification of the process evident from the satellite imagery and from resources provided for the point of interest. The second provided a variety of photographs of physical features and the student was asked to select the best choice that matched the process evident for the point of interest. The assignment was graded based upon the number of correct answers. This creates an environment where unwanted collaboration can be rife and undetectable. The students were told that this was to be an individual assignment and shared answers were unacceptable. With increasing emphasis on personal responsibility and integrity in the university learning environment [16], the University of Waterloo has chosen to require a student to accept responsibility for that integrity by acknowledging a statement before the assignment is submitted for grading, found at [17]. The topic of this assignment is the role of human intervention in the evolution of the 'Dying' town of Civita di Bagnoregio in Central Italy (Figure 6). Figure 6: View of the foot bridge to the medieval town of Civita di Bagnoregio taken from the current Civita di Bagnoregio on the surrounding plateau. Photo by [PERSON], 2013. The region encompasses an interesting history of natural and human-induced erosion which has isolated it from adjoining landscapes--erosion which is undercutting medieval dwellings and which has created some urgency for rehabilitation of a recently recognized tourist attraction. It is an excellent example of the linkage between human activities, potential for human intervention and an interesting visual landscape that can be appreciated from satellite image analysis. It also has ties to comparable landscapes in the Cheltenham hills close to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and the South Dakota badlands of the Prairies, all of which can be seen from Google Earth or similar platforms.