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| Spending Per Student |
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| Year 5 NAPLAN Scores |
Now, National Geographic is re-affirming their commitment to geography education... through a highly interactive and integrated community that includes educators, explorers, storytellers, and photographers.National Geographic is moving toward a model that will provide full-time National Geographic staff in each of six regions across the country.
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| Map Size and Interactivity Levels |
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| A part of the overall winner's story map |
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| The villas of Marabe Al Dhafra in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: one of the 13 images from Unworthy |
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| From the Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree Video |
...our program was designed with the GTCM in mind, and ... we are continually making a concerted effort to ensure that our courses train students in the core geospatial abilities and knowledge specified in the GTCM and other relevant standards documents.He shared a table showing which of the courses are most closely related to core competencies outlined in the GIS Body of Knowledge.
...we emphasize training in ArcGIS given that it is the industry standard commercial desktop GIS platform, though we do (particularly beginning in our Intermediate GIS course) introduce QGIS and encourage students to develop experience with ArcGIS as well as free and open source alternatives like QGIS.3. What makes the UCLA Extension GIS certificate program different from other online programs? What is unique?
Several key characteristics distinguish UCLA Extension's online GIS certificate program from other online programs: (1) our program is primarily designed to serve students with little to no prior GIS experience, and (2) our instructional design deviates from the standard step-by-step ArcGIS tutorial-based training model that is so common in university-level GIS education. The weekly practical exercises in all five of our courses provide students with scaffolded learning experiences wherein students are given the responsibility of thinking critically about process and outcomes. This form of instructional design encourages development of true mastery of GIS techniques as students are thinking less about which buttons need to be pushed and more about the broader sequence of steps necessary to meet a given objective. While we are relatively young as a professional certificate program, our certificate program courses are built upon the established GIS curriculum that we use here in the Department of Geography at UCLA.
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| Map from a lesson on Magellan from Thinking Spatial with GIS |
The Sinclair National UAS Training and Certification Center has been granted a Section 333 Exemption by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), paving the way for broad educational and commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations.The Ohio institution is the first community college in the United States to receive an exemption and expects to pursue others.
...but this quarter is the first time nearly all of the 10 class projects have an inequality or social justice aspect to them. That focus is intentional: Elwood is the co-founder of the Relational Poverty Network, a UW-based international coalition she launched with fellow geography professor Victoria Lawson to reframe how poverty is perceived and researched...
Tom Egan (TE): As you may already be aware, the geospatial industry has an estimated US$270 billion value worldwide and has been around for 40+ years. So it should come as no surprise that there is a lot of interest in learning about geospatial science and technology. That’s the good news. The bad news is that geospatial training and education is very fragmented at the moment and can be quite expensive. If students want to learn about GIS for example and keep their skills up to date, they will likely have to learn about Esri ArcGIS, Pitney Bowes MapInfo, Google Maps, Hexagon Geospatial, MS SQL Server, Oracle Spatial, FME, CartoDB, etc… So spare a thought for all these students that up until now have had to enrol into courses across many different vendor and eLearning websites.
Enter discoverspatial.com, the world's first and only geospatial eLearning marketplace where students can learn in-demand geospatial skills with easy to follow courses from a wide variety of trainers across the globe. Discover Spatial is a global platform giving students access to a wider range of expert trainers and courses then what they could ever possibly access through a single vendor site or even a university/college degree. Our site is vendor agnostic and designed to be a hub for all geospatial education, giving students all the geospatial learning options in one single, convenient platform.
From what we’ve researched, existing eLearning portals such as Lynda or Udemy either have very broad focus or provide very limited offering for geospatial training. As such, they are not well placed to provide the best learning experience or compete with the breadth of training options we will ultimately offer. Discover Spatial on the other hand is purpose built to cater specifically for users interested in teaching or learning spatial.
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| The Map Journal-based story map does not have a legend just yet, but it is a works in progress. |
I think we all learned a great deal about patience from the project. Many of the steps were so elaborate that we would spend a full hour working on something, step away from it, and not be able to readily tell what had been done. I personally gained a great deal of respect for the opportunities that ArcGIS opens up. There are so many stories, concepts and theories that can be more effectively communicated by using the tools that ArcGIS provides to create a map that is at once critically engaging and artistically appealing. Working on the project also deepened my appreciation for the work that Physical Plant staff members do each day. The database and map that we received from them was very thorough in its description for each building, and I think that’s indicative both of how much work the staff members put into making sure the university is run well, and how knowledgeable they are of the campus in a way that no student could conceive of. Paraphrasing artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles here, thank you, Physical Plant, for keeping Wesleyan alive.I hope the students find a way to embed their names as map authors on the Map Journal-based story map. I am regularly frustrated by story maps where I cannot determine authorship!
GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.
Currently, Earth science GeoInquiries are in beta and available for field testing. More GeoInquiry collections will be released throughout 2015.I looked at a few of the lessons. Each is delivered in a several page PDF including a link to an ArcGIS Online map. There are learning objectives, details of the lesson relates to science standards and pointers to Earth science textbook chapters. The documents, all with a creative commons license, have the Esri, Amazon and GIS Etc. logos on them.
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| One of proposals role players evaluate in Tambopata: Who Owns Paradise, an edtech tool developed at the University of Wisconsin. |
Here we present Tambopata: Who Owns Paradise?, a map-centric, multimedia website created to enrich an educational role playing exercise about biodiversity, conservation, and development in the Amazon (www.geography.wisc.edu/tambopata). The exercise assigns students a character from the Tambopata region of the Peruvian Amazon, and asks them to evaluate four proposed zoning plans from their assigned perspective. Using principles of web cartography, we designed the four proposal maps to communicate complex information and allow for increased exploration. Compared to the previously used static maps, the website increases opportunities for student engagement with the material, incorporates multimedia, and clarifies spatial relationships and land use patterns. The website is available publicly and can be integrated freely into other university and high school courses.I would have studied this for my edtech course if I'd known about it!
Fourth graders at The Lane School and their geography-based business plans were thrown into the “Shark Tank” on Thursday as they attempted to impress local tycoons.
Groups in three classes researched natural resources, local economies and popular attractions in each region of the United States. They applied the information to a business model such as a resort or restaurant, which they pitched to pretend investors.
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| Landsat image Finder Libra |
A James Madison University outreach program that gives high school seniors an experience similar to what they will face in college or on a job has been recognized as a "2015 Program that Works" by The Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition.
JMU's Geospatial Semester was one of 10 programs recognized by the coalition at events this week in Richmond. The awards recognize exemplary science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs that make a positive impact on student or teacher learning. To be considered for the award, programs must be at least two years old, must include an evaluation component, and must demonstrate that they are sustainable and can be replicated by others.USGIF Scholarships
Please nominate your Awardee and help recognize them for their contribution to geospatial education! The Nomination Form with more information about the Awards is available http://www.geotechcenter.org/distinguished-geospatial-education-awards-for-2015.html.
With a little time investment, I believe that becoming comfortable in an open source GIS environment like QGIS can go a long way for those of us in the humanities. Increasingly, prepared layers of geographic information, or at least tables of easily geocoded data can be found downloaded from various locations online. Being able to take any of that data and project it on a map for use in a classroom setting or in our publications, even without employing more advanced analysis does not require more than a few hours of investment in a GIS education.I think the article is an honest description of the type of mapmaking many people want to do. I agree that ArcGIS may not be the right tool for them.