Fun with GIS 251: ArcGIS School Bundle Expands
The ArcGIS School Bundle has grown! It now includes Insights for ArcGIS and Esri CityEngine, in license numbers matching the size of the Bundle in place. No special request is needed, these are now just built into existing and new ArcGIS School Bundles. And, like the previous elements, these are available to K12 schools and youth clubs at no cost for instructional use.
The heart of the Bundle remains the ArcGIS Online Organization account, with its many built-in powers, "sidecar" apps, and connections to the entire ArcGIS platform, all accessible via internet connection. The second key online component has been ArcGIS Community Analyst, a powerful research and analysis tool with couple-of-clicks access to an immense wealth of demographic data (and more) all ready for mapping and analysis. The addition of Insights for ArcGIS enables intense exploration of data, in search of trends, patterns, correlations, and relationships, in a "card-based" operation, again all within a web browser.
On the Windows-based desktop side, ArcGIS Pro Advanced users continue building powerful skills in core 2D and 3D environments, enhancing those with powerful extensions, now including Image Analyst. The Bundle still includes the latest version of ArcMap, but desktop users in schools are largely graduating to the newer, more powerful, more connected ArcGIS Pro. The "new kid" in the School Bundle is Esri CityEngine, a powerful rules-based construction environment for creating large, interactive, immersive urban environments, long of particular interest to educators working with students anxious to work in the modeling and gaming realm.
Like most elements of the Bundle beyond the basic Map Viewer and Scene Viewer in ArcGIS Online, access to these new tools is established by explicit provisioning, typically according to the user's "type" and "role." These can also be managed individually, but handling more than a few in a manual and one-off fashion is inefficient and can be time consuming.
As with all products in the ArcGIS family, a host of resources are available for learning to work with them. See the product pages, the documentation, the Learn site, Esri Academy, and GeoNet for various forms of guidance.