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Coming soon: ObservingTheEarth.com

As part of my NC Space Grant I will be rolling out a podcast series in early April. The podcasts will focus on Earth Observation data, tools, and examples from across disciplines. There will be a mix of video and audio podcasts but most will be fairly brief (5-10 minutes). Check back for the official launch information.

The new podcast has been taking my focus off of Spatial@UNCP, but I will try to get it back on track, at least 1 a month, as I get a stockpile of Observing The Earth episodes completed.

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Cartography, Fall 2011

Cartography, GGY2500, is the first course in our ‘geospatial track’ and provides an introduction to the wealth of geospatial data and technologies that are used almost all disciplines today. The lectures and in-class labs will focus on map reading and interpretation, spatial data, Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing, and web mapping technologies as they relate to presenting information through maps. The class will meet MWF at 11:15-12:05 in 1246 Oxendine. Other courses in the ‘geospatial track’ that will be taught in future semesters are Intro to Geographic Information Science and Remote Sensing.

GGY2500 is a required course for the Environmental Science major and Geography Minor and Concentration.

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Off to the NC GIS Conference

I am off to this year’s NC GIS Conference in Raleigh. This event occurs every other year and has become known as one of the country’s foremost local GIS events. I will add occasional updates to this post through the Academic Assembly on Wednesday and then through the conference on Thursday and Friday.

The afternoon at the Academic Assembly has kicked off with Greg Ferrara talking about ITRE at NCSU and their work with the NC SHP on motor carrier enforcement.

Next is Eric Lester talking about IAVO’s application GeoGenesis including their free version GeoGensis Lite which you can download and play around with.

After a quick break Ken Galluppi from RENCI is talking about geoanalytics with a lot of focus on cloud. Switching to Jeff Heard to continue…looking at an infrastructure to build what Ken was talking about. the Big Board…teleconferencing over a map aka real time interactive map.

Now Ann Moss Joyner with Cedar Grove Institute is taking us to the use of GIS for advocacy and social justice.

I just sat down from my presentation. I talked about NCView and why other institutions should join.

Chris Badurek of ASU is talking about monitoring rural sprawl which I can say is definitely an issue in Watauga Co. and I hope to add to it some day 😉

Thanks to Jeff Essic of NCSU for putting together the Academic Assembly.

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ArcGIS 10 is here…on campus

Just a quick heads up that the campus labs should now all be updated to ArcGIS 10. This version has a lot to offer especially since we have jumped from ArcView to ArcInfo, but it also comes with a significantly updated interface. If you plan on using ArcGIS for class or research and do not have it on your personal computer I can provide you with the installation materials as well as free access to online training from Esri which you can check out at training.esri.com.

I also plan to do a one day hands-on intro session to ArcGIS 10 sometime during the semester, I will send details out to the general faculty list and here on the blog once I get things firmed up a bit. Meanwhile, I have been using ArcGIS 10 for a few months now, so if you have any questions or issues let me know and I will see if I can help.

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Fall is falling upon us

It is, in fact, the end of the summer ‘break’. Both summer sessions went well from my perspective and while the online class wasn’t all that I hoped it would be, I think I did well for a first time through. The key is to not allow any wiggle room in terms of time, structure everything as tightly as possible. I structured half the class (the writing assignments and projects) and left the tests and exams open ended time-wise. Everyone got there writing assignments and projects in on time and most waited ’til the last minute to take the map tests and exams not leaving themselves enough time to do as well as they could. SO…the lesson learned…STRUCTURE EVERYTHING :).

With the fall starting, so too will the Spatial@UNCP podcasts. I am going with an every other Thursday schedule again this year and will probably lean towards mapping and cartography topic in the fall since I am teaching Intro to Cartography. If you would like to join me on a podcast to talk about how you are using geospatial technologies in your class, research or service let me know. If you have anything specific you would like to hear about let me know.

FYI, Geography Awareness Week is the week before Thanksgiving (Nov 15-19) and I hope to have at least one guest speaker on campus to talk about their work in Geography. GIS Day is always the Wednesday of Geography Awareness Week and I hope to do something during the activity hour that day on campus. Of course all of these things are contingent on not being crushed by the fall.

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Diligent summer? That is the goal.

It seems that house hunting is taking up an inordinate amount of time in my two weeks since classes ended, but writing is occurring, GISing is in action, and postering is underway. I have a World Regions in Summer 1 and an online section of World Regions in Summer 2. The online decision was initially because I will be at the ESRI Education User Conference and International User Conference, but I was astounded by the fact that it filled in less than a day after summer registration came online. I have turned away more people than are in the class! Clearly next summer I will offer an online option again (assuming it goes well this summer).

I do plan to offer a 2 day Intro to GIS workshop in late July or early August, so keep an eye out for details on that when they become available.

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Podcasts delayed

I apologies for falling behind on the podcast distribution. I have Episode 14 recorded and plans for 15 and 16, but between conference travel and editing interviews for the other podcast from said conferences and the end of the semester rolling through I have put Spatial@UNCP on the back burner for another week or so. I should be back to the “every two week” schedule by the first week in May.

Starting in July the podcast is going to go themed as part of the previously mentioned NC Space Grant and the Intro to Cartography class I will be teaching in Fall. Expect podcasts on specific technologies and data sources for the 2010-2011 school year. Until then, we will be talking Census and general GIS topics for the next 4 episodes.

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Putting the Digital Earth to Work – NC Space Grant

I am very excited to be able to share that I was awarded an NC Space Grant, Informal Science Education grant. The title of the proposal was “Putting the Digital Earth to Work: introducing potential science and social studies users to Earth Observation sensors and their data” and it has a fairly focused goal of:

highlighting the data from remote sensors and the tools used to interact with them.

A second goal will be to reinforce users’ existing spatial literacy as the data captured by the sensors is highly spatial in nature. There will be a few targeted outcomes including the project website, an online map-based Earth Observation Virtual Laboratory, podcasts about earth observation, an educator workshop, and a set of open lesson plans.

If you are an educator (formal or informal), keep an eye here to find out more about the educator workshop that will take place in June 2011. It will be a mix of lecture, computer, and group activities…I think, but with 13 months to go, who knows what will change.

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Spring 2010 campus geospatial workshops

We are working with the Teaching and Learning Center to offer two hands-on workshops this spring. The first will be Introduction to Geospatial Technologies on Thursday, February 18th at 3:30pm. The second will be Finding and creating spatial data on Thursday, April 22 at 3:30pm. Each workshop will use ESRI’s ArcGIS software and Google Maps for the hands-on examples (though no previous experience is required) and will last approximately 2 hours or until the questions stop coming at me. To register to attend either of these workshops just reply to the email Dr Normandy will be sending out prior to each date or just send her an email with your interest.

If you would like to read the descriptions of the workshops click more.

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Spring 2010

I hope that everyone has had a great break! With classes starting just around the corner I wanted to point out that Spatial@UNCP will be back up and running on a weekly basis (except for holidays of course) beginning January 14. Since I will be teaching GIS this semester many of the episodes will be playing double duty for the classroom and general info. With that in mind I will still try to limit the episodes to 5-6 minutes each.

If you ever have a topic you would like me to talk about on the podcast feel free to contact me.

Here is to an rewarding Spring 2010!