Computer Science for All is President Obama’s initiative to get all US K12 students to learn computer science. Why? Problem-solving, creativity, entrepreneurship, and logic are crucial life skills. Governors, mayors, school district leaders, and other education influencers are joining the call.
Good news! Students and teachers alike can do this with GIS, online, starting even at a young age, in just minutes. With an ArcGIS Online account, users can create and save maps, then get busy customizing, zeroing in on the mission. Designing a solution that presents information to an audience or solves a specific problem for a client is what hundreds of thousands of GIS users do every day. Students can identify walking hazards in the school vicinity, call out neighborhood opportunities for local businesses, profile shifting demographics for social services, construct environmental reporting apps for concerned citizens, build satellite data monitoring apps to help a community on the other side of the world, and countless other purposes.
It just takes getting started. A while back, I posted about building an easy swipemap app. I’ve used this example with learners young and old with no previous experience coding or doing GIS, and walked them through it well inside an hour. This is just a sample. Students need resources for examples, and then purposeful opportunities of relevance: a map to school; an app about the school in the world; a web scene (3D) presentation showing five places around the world they would like to visit and why; an app showing the college they would most like to attend.
Teachers must adapt to countless new challenges every day — students growing up. Students need the same chance to explore, attempt, fail, struggle, get close, fall down, and struggle up again. “Fail fast, fail early, fail often” (a modern business mantra) is what happens when people stretch their limits, try new things, customize, and build capacity. GIS lets users practice — over and over again — breaking problems down into little steps that build, iteratively, all the while exposing new patterns, illuminating relationships that had been hiding in the shadows. Custom maps and apps help students learn what it is to be a maker, a builder, a designer, a coder. The chaos of life provides countless opportunities. You just have to start!
Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager
أكثر...
Good news! Students and teachers alike can do this with GIS, online, starting even at a young age, in just minutes. With an ArcGIS Online account, users can create and save maps, then get busy customizing, zeroing in on the mission. Designing a solution that presents information to an audience or solves a specific problem for a client is what hundreds of thousands of GIS users do every day. Students can identify walking hazards in the school vicinity, call out neighborhood opportunities for local businesses, profile shifting demographics for social services, construct environmental reporting apps for concerned citizens, build satellite data monitoring apps to help a community on the other side of the world, and countless other purposes.
It just takes getting started. A while back, I posted about building an easy swipemap app. I’ve used this example with learners young and old with no previous experience coding or doing GIS, and walked them through it well inside an hour. This is just a sample. Students need resources for examples, and then purposeful opportunities of relevance: a map to school; an app about the school in the world; a web scene (3D) presentation showing five places around the world they would like to visit and why; an app showing the college they would most like to attend. Teachers must adapt to countless new challenges every day — students growing up. Students need the same chance to explore, attempt, fail, struggle, get close, fall down, and struggle up again. “Fail fast, fail early, fail often” (a modern business mantra) is what happens when people stretch their limits, try new things, customize, and build capacity. GIS lets users practice — over and over again — breaking problems down into little steps that build, iteratively, all the while exposing new patterns, illuminating relationships that had been hiding in the shadows. Custom maps and apps help students learn what it is to be a maker, a builder, a designer, a coder. The chaos of life provides countless opportunities. You just have to start!
Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager
أكثر...