ArcGIS is Esri’s platform — an integrated set of mapping and analysis tools, which work together, on desktop, server, mobile, and cloud. The ArcGIS Book is a “platform book” — pretty enough to be a coffee table book, enough prose, diagrams, and big ideas to be a textbook, enough online instruction to be a workbook, and available in both hardcopy and digital form (web or 40mbPDF).
Both digital versions are readable on smartphone (landscape or portrait), tablet, laptop, or monitor. The chapters bob and weave through banks of examples and lessons that allow users either to read about or jump in and work with various tools. The text is awash in links to scores of online maps and apps, each its own launchpad for exploration. And through it all are key ideas about maps, mapping, analysis, representation, data, tools, people, and solving problems with GIS.
I spent several hours hopping back and forth between Mac and Windows computers, Chromebook (11″), iPad (10″), Android tablet (7″), and iPhone (4″). I could jump into the text and explore most of the web links even on my smallest devices. Larger screens made it easier and more absorbing, of course, and certain tasks require specific technologies. (For instance, it can be a challenge to add an external file to a map in iOS, ArcGIS Explorer needs a Mac or a mobile device, Operations Dashboard needs Windows, and ArcGIS Pro needs a strong Windows machine.) But there are so many things to see and do with any connected device that a viewer can explore and study for days on end without needing to create a thing. Still, the book invites (and helps) you to create a free 60-day account in an ArcGIS Online Organization, and will step you through a number of lessons.
So how can educators use this? First, explore it. Learn from it. Show your colleagues, friends, and family, and say “This is STEM, art, careers, news, history, nature, people, life, problems, discovery, solutions, the world … and what we do with GIS in education.” Second, share it with your students. Encourage downloading the PDF or bookmarking the website. Challenge them to summarize a key idea, identify what makes a certain map cool, or find an important external map at least one step away from a direct link from the book (requiring both investigation and ability to repeat the route). Third, check out the ConnectED segment in Chapter 10 (p.147), and help a school get into using GIS!
But, whatever you do, do not set this book aside for “some day”! Explore the digital version of The ArcGIS Book, which makes it easy for anyone to engage!
Charlie Fitzpatrick
Esri Education Manager
أكثر...
Both digital versions are readable on smartphone (landscape or portrait), tablet, laptop, or monitor. The chapters bob and weave through banks of examples and lessons that allow users either to read about or jump in and work with various tools. The text is awash in links to scores of online maps and apps, each its own launchpad for exploration. And through it all are key ideas about maps, mapping, analysis, representation, data, tools, people, and solving problems with GIS.
I spent several hours hopping back and forth between Mac and Windows computers, Chromebook (11″), iPad (10″), Android tablet (7″), and iPhone (4″). I could jump into the text and explore most of the web links even on my smallest devices. Larger screens made it easier and more absorbing, of course, and certain tasks require specific technologies. (For instance, it can be a challenge to add an external file to a map in iOS, ArcGIS Explorer needs a Mac or a mobile device, Operations Dashboard needs Windows, and ArcGIS Pro needs a strong Windows machine.) But there are so many things to see and do with any connected device that a viewer can explore and study for days on end without needing to create a thing. Still, the book invites (and helps) you to create a free 60-day account in an ArcGIS Online Organization, and will step you through a number of lessons.
So how can educators use this? First, explore it. Learn from it. Show your colleagues, friends, and family, and say “This is STEM, art, careers, news, history, nature, people, life, problems, discovery, solutions, the world … and what we do with GIS in education.” Second, share it with your students. Encourage downloading the PDF or bookmarking the website. Challenge them to summarize a key idea, identify what makes a certain map cool, or find an important external map at least one step away from a direct link from the book (requiring both investigation and ability to repeat the route). Third, check out the ConnectED segment in Chapter 10 (p.147), and help a school get into using GIS!
But, whatever you do, do not set this book aside for “some day”! Explore the digital version of The ArcGIS Book, which makes it easy for anyone to engage!
Charlie Fitzpatrick
Esri Education Manager
أكثر...