A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 77

A VerySpatial Podcast
Shownotes – Episode 77
January 7, 2007

Main Topic: What would you cover in an intro class

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Click for the detailed shownotes


Music
This weeks podsafe music:
“Safety in Numbers” by The Saving Graces

News

Web Corner

  • London:A Life in Maps – British Library exhibition, podcast, blog, and Google Maps mashup!
  • Main topic

  • What should be in Intro classes such as Intro to GIS or Intro to Remote Sensing
  • NCGIA
  • UCGIS Body of Knowledge
  • Events

    This week A Very Spatial Podcast is sponsored by ESRI.

    MicroStrategy World 2007 conference is in Las Vegas, January 22nd to the 25th. Visit the ESRI booth for the latest GIS tools for business . To learn more visit: www.esri.com/veryspatial


    2 Replies to “A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 77”

    1. D.F.

      The mailing without an address is not new — it was famously (well, within Geography circles) done by Waldo Tobler and Peter Gould in the 1980s. See this summary: http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/89

      On teaching:

      Cartography: absolutely critical. Whether through a required cartographic class or at least having basic Cartographic principles drilled into them. Most maps by GIS practitioners are garbage. Utter garbage. Part of it is the abhorent cartographic tools wtihin most GIS’s (esp. ESRI), but part of it is lack of training.

      Writing! There is no class, even a technical class like GIS should ignore writing. Even when writing labs, they should be clearly written. (I’m a TA for an Intro GIS class this semester, I’ll be expecting decent writing from my

    2. Michalis Avraam

      I understand the need to explain the social implications of display in GIS, but I think all GIS courses fail to tackle all 5 elements of a GISystem. And more importantly, as you mentioned, there is a gap between lecture (theory) and lab (application). I am pondering whether the use of non-graphical interfaces (like the geoprocessor command line interface offered by ArcGIS) would force students to learn things in a little more detail, as well as allow them to explore things better (by figuring out graphical interfaces alone).

      Of course the problem remains that the geoprocessor does not have all commands available through the graphical interface and such. It would be interesting to see what your syllabus ended up looking like, and what feedback you have received so far.

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