Thanksgiving 2018 news

[CharlieFitzpatrick]

Friends, would you please share some news here about GIS in your situation? The notes that some of you have sent personally to me, or items that you are inspired to add upon reading others' entries. Tell us anything ... little tidbit, powerful "deal with it," or epic summary. Please REPLY to this note to keep it all in one thread.

Also, please make sure you have posted in our tally any GIS teacher trainings you did this year.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for what you do for LEARNERS OF ALL AGES!!

[HarrisPayne]

Hi Everyone,

I've been doing several workshops where I've advertised the GeoInquiries™ lessons for more than just social studies teachers.  I had an entire group of math teachers do a workshop with me last February.  The reviews of the workshop were excellent.  The process for the workshop is very simple.  I first show the excellent and short video that Charlie created that demonstrates how the interactive webmaps work and then give them time to explore the lessons.  I've begun to ask teachers which ones they like best and the American History teachers like the Pearl Harbor lesson but be sure to have them zoom in to a scale where they can see the routes that the Japanese planes took to reach the island.  It teachers the importance of scale at the same time it teaches about the event.

A BIG THANK you for the civics Geo Inquiry lessons.

[JulieErickson]

Good morning,

We've done two day workshops to introduce GIS resources using the excellent resources provided by ESRI to support education.  We build the day introducing ArcGIS Online using the 5x5, intro to GeoInquiries, time to explore GeoInquiries and identify ones to include in their classroom or share with other teachers.  We do more guided activities using the already built lessons in Learn ArcGIS.  Participants also build storymaps--either using the Learn ArcGIS storymap lesson, the storymap tutorials or just by creating.  They each share their storymap and discuss content, process & their discoveries as they built the storymap. This is very fun and engaging because everyone is able to complete a storymap regardless of content and technology skill level--if they are not inspired and have no ideas or are struggling with the technology, the storymap lesson in learn is perfect.  (It is also perfect to learn all the nuances of storymaps which we point out).  The evaluations have been exceptional for these workshops--things like "This was probably the most excited I have been by a PD training.  There are so many opportunities for almost all grade levels and subject areas.  I will definitely be sharing this information with colleagues." and "This workshop exceeded my expectations and expanded my understanding of ArcGIS. Informative, excellent use of time, ability to work at our own pace, leave with ready-to-use materials, fun class dynamics. Thank you for offering this workshop and providing us with such useful and relevant information!"

As a follow-up and to provide support we are offering three 1 hour webinars with additional information and to answer any questions.

Julie Erickson

Learning Specialist

TIE

jerickson@tie.net

[JulieErickson]

I’ve attended the online T3G the last two years via Zoom.  The ESRI team does a phenomenal job making the online T3G interactive, engaging and relevant. 

A colleague and I had a 2 day face-to-face training planned for October 8-9 with 45 attendees from ND, SD and WY; due to the predicted weather and potential hazardous travel conditions, we moved the event online to Zoom on Friday, October 5 and spent the weekend switching out face-to-face to online to go “live and online” on Monday and Tuesday.

Thanks to the ESRI team's excellent facilitation of an online conference, I was able to quickly switch the face-to-face to an online event by incorporating your processes and strategies.  We wrapped up 15 hours of online professional development and utilized Zooms breakout rooms, chat, feedback tools, two guest speakers and more with 45 attendees.  It was amazing.  The reviews have been excellent and the group was very engaged and participatory.

Thank you so much for the high quality professional development that the ESRI Education team consistently provides. Not only is it a valuable opportunity to learn ArcGIS education applications, it is also a great example of well-planned and executed professional development.

Julie Erickson

jerickson@tie.net

[ScottFreburg1]

Awesome work Julie. based on your results we may try this in Minnesota. We have done F2F for 4 years and over 70 workshops, but the time has come to try and reach more than the 10-30 that we can get into a F2F session. We may be reaching out to you for some advice as we are planning for summer 2019. Cheers,

[ChrisBunin]

Georgeanne Hribar and I recently completed a year-long Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources project that tasked a group of gr. 5-12 teachers with creating best practice US History Story Maps that leveraged the power of primary source analysis and the story map platform.  Eleven story maps were created and Georgeanne applied some serious GIS wizardry to make these really solid resources for the classroom. As part of the project we have been introducing folks to ArcGIS Online, GeoInquiries, Story Maps,and the LoC collections.  Since November 1 we've connected with nearly 50 Virginia educators via three face to face trainings.  You can view the collection here.  Each story map is accompanied with a lesson plan, student materials, and answer keys.  

[ShanaCrosson1]

These are amazing! I'm hoping these are open to share. I work with 6th grade Minnesota History teachers, and this is an incredible example of the power of Story Maps and primary sources. What a ton of work, so thank you for sharing!

[PeterStetson1]

This past summer I presented the first 5 day session of the Power of Data workshop to 8 eager educators from many areas and subjects from across Rhode Island. I am now working with them to support theie presentation of the enhanced lesson they created in that workshop. Another workshop is being offered this summer.

One of our local lake associations has asked our local school enviorthon club to collect data from around the lake so I worked with the teacher/advisor to create a Survey 123 which the students will use to collect the data. They will then train members of the association to use the survey and collect their own data .

I am working with several schools in Rhode Island to utilize their ESRI Org accounts. Many of them got the accounts but had no idea what to do or how to set them up.

[JenniDahl]

Several years ago we received a grant from Esri to hold teacher workshops in Springfield and Chicago, Illinois. Recently one of the participants of our Springfield workshop contacted me to let me know that he started a new position at his high school as technology coordinator in a state-of-the-art technology center.  He mentioned that, as a teacher, he used the "Mapping Our World Curriculum" with his students with great success. In his new position, as tech coordinator, he expressed interest in establishing an ArcGIS Online Organization, introducing Esri GeoInquiries to the teachers and exploring mobile GIS apps. He invited me to visit him at his school. I received a wonderful tour of the tech center and answered a few questions about setting up an organization account and using mobile apps. I let him know that I would happy to help him with any other questions that might arise.

It was really neat to hear how a former workshop participant has been using GIS with students and teachers throughout the years! I was so encouraged to know that Esri workshop we conducted with the Esri Grant had such a lasting impact!

[EmilyHaines]

While looking for GIS Day resources for my own classes a few weeks ago I came across the 4th grade Geoinquries. My son is now in 4th grade so I reached out to his teacher to introduce her to GIS and share some resources. I also offered training for her or to come in and work with the students. She took me up on the offer and I'm scheduled to do an hour PD session with the 4th grade teachers next week. Hoping it will get them to expose students to the power of GIS!