Tuesday, October 20. 2009

Podcast: Attracting Students to be the Next GEOINT Workforce

The opening sessions of this year's GEOINT Conference had a running theme: the need for new, well trained workers to fill open jobs within the industry. The need was echoed by all the morning speakers in particular, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md, who wants to make a "local push" for geo-education. Editor in Chief Joe Francica attended the sessions and swaps ideas with Adena Schutzberg about how to get young people involved in science, technology and geospatial technologies for GEOINT.

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Monday, October 19. 2009

Education Tidbits

The AP Geography class at Stillwater Junior High, MN, is using GIS, which the local paper describes this way: "GIS is simply technology that merges data with maps. Something as basic as Google Maps can be considered GIS because it links a map to data, in that case street addresses." Teacher Sara Damon seems to get geography: "That's really what geography is all about: Where is it? Why is it there? What difference does it make?" I like the idea of AP geography in ninth grade; when I was in school the only AP course for niners was AP Bio.

- Stillwater Gazette

Dr. Becky Starnes, associate professor of public management at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN, made a presentation, titled "Incorporating GIS Technology into Public Administration Education," at the 2009 Southeast Conference on Public Administration held Oct. 3. I continue to believe the future of GIS education is not teaching more students GIS per se, but integrating it into whatever specialized (like Public Administration) or general (liberal arts) curriculum they choose.

- The Leaf-Chronicle

Youth organization Rede Jovem has chosen five young women to map the favelas of Rio and upload the information to Wikimapia. Each mapper receives a monthly stipend and GPS-enabled phone. They will compete to see who can obtain the most information over the next six months. The winner will receive a grant to study journalism.

- AFP

Wednesday, October 14. 2009

Education Tidbits

The Challenger Center is offering a Webinar focussing on the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) and how its used to explore the continent. It's free and on October 21 at 12:00pm ET.

- press release

This sounds like an interesting paper for those considering using GIS in liberal arts. It'll be presented at the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) annual meeting beginning later this week:

Additionally, Mike Taber, professor of education and director of CC’s [Colorado College] environmental program, will present his work on “Using GIS to Support a Data Driven Construction Approach to Teaching Global Climate Change.” Taber and collaborators at Colorado State University developed a curriculum that utilizes data-driven learning modules and challenges students to thoroughly understand climate change. Their work was sponsored by a grant from the Center for Multi-scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP).

- Colorado College News

A faculty member and students from Northern Illinois University will tackle the economic climate in Riverside Illinois this fall. It seems the city will pay for the report produced, if it likes it; I'm not sure how that jibes with "volunteered."

Six NIU students and their professor, Richard Greene, have volunteered to gauge downtown Riverside's potential for economic improvement through a method of planning known as geographic information systems.

GIS is a complex system of collecting and computing geographic data, in this case to come up with a practical and sustainable business scenario for downtown.

- Riverside Brookfield Landmark

Wednesday, October 7. 2009

Education Tidbits

A guest column in the University of Montana paper touts the reasons to study geography. GIS is mentioned, but in passing.

The Department of Geography at The University of Montana is developing and adding new courses that reflect the status of the world on all levels. And an understanding of international topics is not the only realm of learning. Analysis of environmental and social issues as well as studies in geographic information systems (GIS) an important tool in many jobs, cartography, community and environmental planning, water issues, human impact on landscapes, mountains and climate are among the department’s many offerings.

Montana Kaimin

The Idaho State University history department received a $1,290,704 “Understanding Social Networks within Complex, Nonlinear Systems: Geographically-Integrated History and Dynamics GIS”

- press release

"With regards to his curiosity regarding my job title, I can confirm that we (GIS technicians) are a relatively new “species” that first came about just over 10 years ago." That's from a letter to the editor in response to a letter that questioned the title. Nice to see a proud GIS technician educating others.

- Press and Journal, North Scotland

Monday, October 5. 2009

A Review of NITLE Geospatial Event

Sean Connin, who helped put together the NITLE Geospatial Technology in the Liberal Arts event last weekend offers this recap, including some of the ideas I shared in my presentation. (And, special thanks to everyone for their kind hospitality to my Dad, who attended with me.)

I was pleased to be invited and to meet with instructional technologists and others interested in using technology in the liberal arts. This is a great group of folks, all passionate about what they do, and alas, all overworked! I'm more and more convinced that in the coming years the vast majority of students will learn about GIS in the context of a liberal arts course than in formal GIS/geography courses. I've been thinking about how our community can support this growing need for developing "good GIS instead of experts with certificates.

One final point. The night after I spoke at this conference I attended a family event in Burlington, VT. My Dad and I had dinner with a most interesting couple. After discussing teaching and biking, I learned the husband was involved in planning. He made a great point, with which I fully agree: People know quite a bit about GPS; many even understand how it works. But, no one really knows what GIS is. It's interesting how these two events tied together.

Wednesday, September 30. 2009

SpatialKey Following in FortiusOne's Footsteps

I found this blog post on SFWeekly which linked to post on the SpacialKey (sic) blog. The SpatialKey Blog post details how the company, on its own, read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about Operation Safe Schools, downloaded data from SFData.gov did some analysis (video below) and came to some conclusions. The post does note the conclusions have a bit of an asterisk on them, since they deal with drug busts and schools, but the data used was collected in the summer when school is out. The post also makes clear that the company has no relation to the city, but would love to speak with them. Transparency = good! There's also a step by step discussion of how SpatialKey was used which can be used as a tutorial.

I note this blog post because it parallels what FortiusOne does with its Dataset of the Day posts (blog). These tend to deal a bit more with analysis even as they highlight freely available datasets. These efforts are great resources for GIS professionals and educators. Should your organization be offering this sort of materials?