GIS Education Weekly: Making MOOCs Massive Again

Resources

Cartogram: Violence Against Women

Geographical: Violence against women - a global perspective - A cartogram shows the worldwide pattern.

Motherboard: Following a Google Map to Nowhere Is Easy. Getting Out Is Hard - A look at navigating by the moving dot rather than a static map.

Outside: Strava Is Killing the Blissful, Beautiful Loneliness of Running - Does measuring sport remove the fun? Or add to it? Via Larry in Muscatine.


FastCo Design: How Strava, The App For Athletes, Became An App For Cities - If the product is free, you are the product.

Education News

EdSurge: A Proposal to Put the ‘M’ Back in MOOCs - Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, suggests how to make MOOCs massive again. I was pleased to find we at Esri are doing what he suggests. We offer (1) a limited number of courses, just a few times a year, with firm deadlines, (2) provide free certificates for those who complete them and (3) we do our best to "hype them." We have a near record crowd in the current offering of The Location Advantage!

Half an Hour (blog): Reviving the MOOC – An op-ed by Stephen Downes that responds to the proposal above. In particular, it suggests the xMOOC is whole different animal, and business proposition, than the cMOOC.

Programs

Duluth News Tribune: UPDATE: UWS dropping multiple academic programs - Among the minors to be dropped at the University of Wisconsin-Superior are Geography,  Geography (Teaching) and  Global Studies. Via Donna Genzmer.

CBS: NGA West Looks To Youth To Fill Employee Ranks - Per National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency director Robert Cardillo, the agency will expanding its K-12 outreach program to prep today's students to work at NGA West. In related (geographically anyway) news: Boundless is moving its headquarters from New York City to St. Louis (press release).

People

Teen Vogue: Cole Sprouse Reveals College Major in GIS - I had no idea who this Cole person was before I read on. "Did you know that Cole Sprouse, also known as the lovable outsider Jughead Jones on the CW’s Riverdale, has a degree from New York University...Cole Sprouse and his brother Dylan Sprouse, at that point most famous for starring in Disney’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, both graduated in 2015 ...Cole studied archeology, or more specifically — GIS (Geographical Information Systems and Satellite Imaging.)"

Lookout Landing: Seattle Mariners hire Dr. Lorena Martin as Director of High Performance - The Seattle Mariners hired Dr. Lorena Martin to be "responsible for coordinating all aspects of the Mariners physical and mental training approach of players and staff, including oversight of the entire organization's medical, strength and conditioning, nutrition and mental skills departments." Among her many credentials are "three post-doctorates in GIS spatial analysis, biostatistics, and epidemiology."

On Campus

My Horry News: Horry County students 'gravely' serious about new project - "Under the guidance of computer science teacher Blake Vaught, the students began photographing each gravesite and then pinpointed its exact location using the latest in satellite technology." In short, students are mapping an old cemetery.

Signal: U.S. Navy Must Keep Geospatial Intelligence Afloat - The Navy is working to gain its own expertise in GEOINT by working with NGA. "After a few years, Navy intelligence would have a cadre of GEOINT-trained analysts that could support development and growth of GEOINT throughout the fleet. The core competency of geospatial intelligence would be preserved, not outsourced, and the NGA would be part of interorganization cooperation instead of an outsourcing agent."

CBC: Workshops hope to inspire Indigenous youth to get involved in mapping - "The week-long workshops are being held at the Radisson hotel in downtown Winnipeg, and has brought together a couple of hundred people to learn more about making maps. Guests include specialists from across North America, Indigenous peoples from various communities, as well as a delegation of  30 youth."