GIS Education Weekly: Why Learn Open Source Software?

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Daily Mail: Men ARE better than women at reading maps... and it's all thanks to playing with Lego during childhood - Highlights of an article based on research by a professor from Aston University: "Professor Gina Rippon claims playing with Lego helps boys to think differently. She suggests contrasts due to ‘different experiences’ of growing up, not gender. The professor added map-reading is one area where there is a robust difference." @geospatialwomen asked for retweets by women who feel they are better map readers than the men in their lives.

LinkedIn: Why learn an open-source GIS solution? - Christopher Haakon Strutz of OSGIS offers his argument. Reminder: Open source software is commercial software. My advice to students: learn to use lots of different software. Why? Because whatever software (title, version, platform, etc.) you are using in school will most assuredly NOT be what you use further along in your career. You need to learn how to learn software (and programming languages, workflows, etc.) since you'll be using new ones all the time!

Commercial GIS Software: Setting the Record Straight

Confusion

In recent months I've run into a number of pieces about open source GIS in magazines, on social media sites and on blogs. That's great; there should be lots written about this important part of the geospatial toolbox. So, while I'm happy to see the content, I am saddened these posts may have caused and will continue to cause some confusion about open source software.

Here are a few titles and sentences from content published on the web in 2018 that suggest that open source software is not commercial software.