GIS Education Weekly: Why Did I Get that GIS Master's Degree?

Education News

EdWeek: State Grades on Chance for Success: Map and Rankings - "Examine the grades and scores that states and the nation earned on the Chance for Success Index in Quality Counts 2018, along with how they scored on a host of socioeconomic and other indicators that go into those rankings. For a description of what these education indicators mean, view the grading scale and methodology." Related article.

GIS Education Weekly: Boundless Details Program, Ashcloud Apocalypse Results, ISIS Geography Assignment

Ashcloud Apocalypse Global Risk Results Map

Not too much data in Massachusetts.

Esri UK and others put together a GIS Day activity based on a volcano eruption. The sign up page explains it's "A hazard risk mapping activity for Geographers." Here's the AGOL map used to drive the activity. The final map created by participants is the Ashcloud Apocalypse Risk Map.

A tweet from Michael Gould (@0mgould) reports:

 >9000 entries and 6 million map views in 1 week!

Indiana State and PrecisionHawk Partner on Growing UAS Industry and Education

Indiana State University and Raleigh, N.C.-based PrecisionHawk have signed a research and development partnership that aims to advance the unmanned aerial systems industry from multidisciplinary perspectives. The university-business collaboration will focus on safety, education, training and algorithm development for PrecisionHawk's DataMapper aerial data software.

These Students Don't Need Any Help Finding a GIS Project

I see too many students (college and grad) asking for help finding a topic for their GIS projects. Two students at University of Pittsburgh at Bradford didn't have any trouble. They fish and hunt, so they gathered data about ice fishing holes and deer sightings. Now the hope is the data and maps are good enough to let one of the student's grandfathers bag a deer when he visits! 

GIS Education Weekly: Getting Skills at Community Colleges, MOOC Stats, Economically Diverse Colleges

Those with Bachelors Flock to Community Colleges for GIS

The end of a long article from the Hechinger Report (+1) about those with degrees returning to the community college for job skills is this factoid:

At California’s Foothill College, employed workers from nearby tech companies have flocked to the community college for advanced training in geographic information systems, said Kurt Hueg, Foothill’s vice president of instruction. The school has embraced its role helping Silicon Valley, he said, but it’s difficult letting educated workers know about opportunities at community colleges.

“Marketing is a big part of our function here,” Hueg said. “As much as people think they know about us here, they don’t really know us.”

University of West Florida GIS MOOC Update

A press release this week detailed the impact of the school's Introduction to GIS MOOC offered this past May.

Takeaways:

• 3400 students
• Content used by the University of Hawaii to teach professionals and academics in Mozambique
• Mentioned at Esri Education GIS Conference plenary
• Will be taught again next May

We Are HERE

A few weeks ago I noted Hexagon's "I am Hexagon" features profiling its employees. This week HERE has started a similar effort called "We Are HERE."

Before HERE technology happens — people happen. It may seem like magic, but there are a lot of people behind the scenes bringing things to life. How do they do it? This blog series will provide answers as we interview HERE employees and pull back the curtain.

First up is an interview with Mahmoud Abid, a Sr. Dev Ops Engineer, based at the HERE office in Schwalbach, Germany. Via: Glenn Letham (@gletham).