Latest Contributions by Kylie

By now, I hope you’ve heard about National Geographic MapMaker, the new app and data perfect for bringing maps to your K-12 classroom. (If you haven’t, take a second and read about it now in National Geographic MapMaker – a new mapping app for schools or check out our October 10th webinar Introducing National Geographic MapMaker.) As it is a new app, there might be tools and capabilities that are new to you. We’ve put together skill builders to quickly get you (and your students) up to speed. Each skill builder covers app functionality in a short video and step-by-step written guide you can follow to try it out yourself. Too easy? Try the recommended "More practice" ideas at the end. The nine skill builders cover the key functionality of the app:  Map navigation and basemaps Pan, zoom, rotate, search, change basemaps, and use bookmarks – and unique to MapMaker, you can do these in 2D and 3D in the same app! Measure Measure distances and areas in 2D and 3D, including exploring some curious measurements. Is the shortest distance between two points always a straight line? Coordinates Investigate how coordinates change as you move across Earth or enter coordinates to go to that location. Elevation profile Draw a line on the map to see the elevation profile of the terrain it crosses. In 3D, you’ll also see where your profile line would be on Earth’s surface. Sketch on the map Add points, lines, and areas to the map to share additional information or draw attention to areas of interest. Export maps Save your map as a PDF or an image to include it in presentations, reports, and other formats. Put maps where you need them. Open and share maps MapMaker comes with a collection of maps designed for K-12 classrooms. Find maps about topics covered in lessons and share them with students and classmates. Layers and data Layers are collections of data you can add to the map. In MapMaker you can change how layers appear, explore details about the data on the map or in a table, and add and remove layers to create maps to answer your questions. Simulate daylight and weather See the angle of the sun at different dates and times and play to see the pattern of sunlight and darkness across Earth. You can even simulate weather patterns. Try one out and see what you learn. Suggestions or requests? Send them our way: mapmaker@esri.com. Visit our webpage to learn more, or launch MapMaker to start exploring.       ... View more

Use a Map for Classroom Instruction is a free web course from Esri that introduces K-12 educators to using maps and GIS in the classroom. Encouraging a teacher to bring maps into the classroom is often asking them to step outside their comfort zone. We’ve all seen maps and used them (likely on a phone to get from one place to another). But in the classroom? And digital maps? Incorporated into lessons and teaching? That’s a whole new language and skill set! As this is the Esri Education blog, I feel it’s safe to assume many of you are, well, educators. And educators who use maps, or want to use maps, in your classrooms. You get maps, you see their value, and you know (or are learning) how to make them part of your teaching. You are also the educators most likely to encourage or inspire a colleague to give maps a try. But where might those new to using maps in the classroom start? Where would experienced map using educators point others to give teaching with them a shot? Esri has a new, free, web course designed to guide K-12 educators to confidently use maps and GIS in the classroom: Use a map for classroom instruction. The course introduces a common language and skill set to build upon. And no previous experience with geography, digital maps, or GIS is required. Over five and a half hours, the four, on-demand sections bring you into the world of teaching with digital maps, covering: The value of digital maps in the classroom Using digital map tools (GIS) to explore maps Finding appropriate maps Interpreting maps Integrating maps into a lesson  Educators who complete the entire course, including tackling hands-on activities and passing quizzes, will receive a certificate of completion. Among the skills covered in the course, is a basic four-step process used to interpret maps. And remember, the course is free. You just need Esri access, available with a school account or by getting a free ArcGIS public account (18 and older only, please). For those of you newer to digital maps, take a look and see how the course can help you in your GIS journey. For those of you with more experience, take a look so you know what is available to the teachers you mentor. And all of you, please give us feedback when you check it out by emailing schools@esri.com.   ... View more

You have information in a Google Sheet that you want to see in a map. No problem! Publish your Google Sheet as a CSV and add it to the map in ArcGIS Online. Part 1: Publish your Google Sheet as a CSV (*If you click on a video, you will see it larger.) Open Google Sheets and open your CSV. It might be one that you created, or one that you saved to your sheets. Your CSV needs to be properly formatted: Start the table in the top left corner of the sheet. You can't have any non-numeric characters in the latitude and longitude columns.  Watch for random words or sentences above or below the main content. Ensure latitude and longitude values are always in the correct columns - we see some values flipped in some rows of some sheets. The type of your cell (for example, numeric) needs to match the contents in it. In particular, be careful of degree symbols or letters like N and W in numeric fields. Click File > Share > Publish to web. In the link tab, make sure the first drop-down is set to Entire Document and in the second, choose Comma-separated values (.csv). Click Publish. Click OK if asked if you are sure you want to publish. Copy the link that is shown by pressing Control-C on your keyboard. If you want changes to your Google Sheet to automatically appear in the map, verify that Published content & settings > Automatically republish when changes are made is enabled. Part 2: Add your published CSV to the map Log in to ArcGIS Online and open Map Viewer. Click Add > Add layer from URL. Paste in your URL (click Control-V on your keyboard) and click Next. Choose Reference the file from the URL and add it to the map and click Next. By referencing the file, changes you make to your Google Sheet will appear in the map. In the Fields dialog, accept the defaults and click Next. In the Location settings dialog, make sure the fields with latitude and longitude in your spreadsheet were correctly identified. If not, correct them. Click Add to map. Your data appears in the map! The information from your spreadsheet is available in the pop-ups. Now you can customize the symbology and pop-up, making a great map of your data. Want to try it out? Check out the great storymap my coworker Tom put together! ... View more

Sometimes there is information on the map that you’d like to capture with your survey result. In this example, students are capturing water quality samples along the river, and you've divided the river into zones. In the survey, have the map provide the zone as an answer in the survey instead of having students enter it.  While students could fill out the zone, there is no need for them to and it can introduce human error. You could get a sample that says it was taken in Zone 03, but the point on the map is in Zone 05. Which is correct – the point or the zone? Avoid this type of error by reading the zone from the map directly into your survey. To read the zone from a layer and put it into a question, add a question to record the zone and configure it to use a calculation based on the map. Watch the video below or follow the text steps below the video to configure this behavior in a survey: Add the question where you'll capture the information from the map as the answer. Think about the type it should be – are you reading a number from the map? A string? In this example, the zone names are strings so I used a Singleline text question. As you configure the question, give it a title (like "What zone was the sample collected in?"). Click Edit beside Calculation – this allows you to specify how the answer is populated and and to have it update whenever relevant information in the survey is changed. In the Edit calculation panel, for Source select Layer. Beside Select layer or table click Add. Browse to and select the layer with the information to use to populate the question and click OK. This could be a layer you found with the info (states, counties, watersheds, etc.). Or it could be a layer you created, as it is in my example. If you are creating the layer like I did for this water quality zone example, you have choices about how to create it, including (1) Creating a survey in Survey123 to create that layer as well, making sure to share the results publicly and use the results layer in your map, or (2) Defining your own layer in ArcGIS Online. The first choice is recommended if you haven't created layers in ArcGIS Online before.  Below Select output field choose the name of the field that will populate the survey. For Set filter, enable Extract data by location and select the map in your survey. This means the location set on the map will be used to find the data from the layer. Click OK to complete configuration of the question. Note: In the video, the sample zones are also included in the map. This is so that students can see them as they work, but that isn’t required to do a calculation. The layer used in the calculation doesn’t have to be part of the map. If you do want the layer in the map of the survey, using a custom map is discussed in See results while collecting data in Survey123. (That shows using a map with the survey data included in it, but you can use similar steps to use any map in your survey.) Think about where you might want to pull data from the map and save it as a part of a survey. Do you need to include the city and county that people are in? Are you working in different eco-regions or forest types? Put Survey123 to work for you – require less data entry and improve your data quality. ... View more

It's easy to get an ArcGIS for Schools bundle, and that comes with your very own ArcGIS org! Your first task is to set up that org. We now have a step-by-step doc that takes you from 0 to a configured, secure org your students can safely work in. You can find the steps and information in the Quick Start for the ArcGIS for Schools Bundle. It covers activating your org, securing it, creating accounts for teachers and students, adding another administrator, and connecting with My Esri (and why you want to). Check it out, and share any feedback by commenting here. Looking for guidance? See ArcGIS Online Organizations for Schools and Clubs. This doc dives deeper how to make the choices and decisions you'll face, while the Quick Start focuses on the steps to take. ... View more

A fairly common scenario: A classroom collects data with Survey123 and wants to only collect each item once. But while working in the survey, students can't see what has already been collected. This can be solved by updating the map in the survey to include the survey results. Step 1: Design and author your survey Design and author your survey as you would for any survey. Include a map, as that is where you'll show the data that's already collected. Make sure to take your time here and think about the types of answers you want, and use data types to get the most useful answers. Step 2: Publish and share your survey and results Once your survey is designed and ready (other than your updated map), publish it and go to the Collaborate tab. In the Collaborate tab, update Share survey. Set Who can submit to this survey? to the students collecting the data (this can be a group, your org, or even publicly). Still in the Collaborate tab, go to Share results and set who can view results of this survey so that with the students doing the data collection also have access to the results. (This can also be a group, your org, or even publicly.)   Step 3: Make a map with your results Go to ArcGIS Online, click Map, and add your results layer to the map. Make sure to use the results layer - it will be named like "surveyname_results". Configure the map. Consider setting symbology that looks right for the data you are collecting.  Configure labels on the results layer as follows: On the light toolbar, click Labels.  Enable labels if they aren't already enabled. Click Add label class and for Label field choose the field in your data you'd like to see as the label on the map during collection. If you want, you can click </> and use an expression to show multiple fields. Since the items on the map won't be clickable, the label gives the data collector information about what's already captured. Save your map. Step 5: Update your survey to show your map Go back to the Survey123 website and edit your survey. In the Design tab, click on the map question to configure it. Beside Map and extent, click Edit. At the top of the panel, click Organization's basemap gallery to change where you are looking for maps, and choose My content. Click the map you made in the previous step to select it, and click OK. Publish your survey to make your updated map available to everyone using the survey.  And that's it! As students and other data collectors work, the map in the survey will show the items that have already been collected. Before they add something to the map, they can check that it's not already there. ... View more

A fairly common scenario: A classroom collects data with Survey123 and wants to display the collected data in a dashboard. But on configuring the dashboard, the charts sort the choices alphabetically, which is not always the most logical order. This can be prevented by planning ahead: you can get the displays you want in the dashboard by naming your values with care as you author your survey. Problematic data First let's see where this problem might be seen. Here are some examples of data where alphabetical sorts are not desired: The month in which something happened. You expect to see the chart values going from January to December. But your dashboard will present them "April, August, December, February, etc." The time of day - morning, afternoon, evening, night. The dashboard charts show "afternoon, evening, morning, night." The class someone belongs to in high school - Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior. The dashboard charts order these "Freshman, Junior, Senior, Sophomore." I'm sure you can think of others: times where the words used have an expected order, and it's not alphabetical. Default sort in a dashboard Let's look at an example. Here data is collected that includes the month in which something occurred. A survey was created with the months as the options and the results were put into a dashboard. In the chart, they order alphabetically. In the following dashboard, I've filled out the survey 12 times, putting 12 points on the map, one for each month. Notice that the chart has the months alphabetized: You can adjust this sort in the dashboard, but only to choose reverse alphabetical order. Fix: Rename the values while authoring the survey The easiest way to address this is to account for the display order of your choices while you are authoring your survey. Rename the values for the choices to start with a number, while leaving the displayed words alone. Let's see how: Add your choice question, either Single select, Single select grid, or Dropdown. Provide the choices, using the words that the person filling out the survey expects (for example, January, February, March, etc.).   Save your survey, and click Publish to start the publish process. In the publish pane, click Modify schema.  Note: You can only do this before the question is published. After that, you can't rename the choices. After a question is published, you'd need to delete the question and re-add it to rename the choices. And if you already have collected data, it won't use the new question or naming. In the Name column, click the value you need to change (for example, January or February). Pre-pend the word with a number. A best practice is to use "01_" for the first, "02_" for the second, and so on. The 0 lets you have more than 9 ordered choices. Although you've added numbers, they'd sort 1, 10, 11, 12, 2 (using the first digit and then the second when sorting, the same way alphabetizing is done).  Once all your values are updated, click Publish. Now when you use your data in a dashboard, the choices will sort according to the numbers you put before them. Happily sorted dashboard charts! Now when you put your data into a dashboard, the charts will sort how you'd like. So plan ahead! While it is always a best practice to plan your survey, remember that planning how you want to use the data is part of that planning. If you are going to make a dashboard, make a test one with fake data before you do all your data collection work. (A good way to get fake or test data is to fill out the survey a few times yourself; you can delete these records before your actual data collection.) Your test dashboard will help identify problem areas, like this one, that you can resolve by a tweak in your survey. And changes to your survey are a much easier solution before you've started collecting your data. ... View more

Survey123 is an app for making surveys that include a location question. It's great for fieldwork and maps all the responses! But how do you share a map of the results with others? For example, if your students collected data about the school, and you'd like everyone in the school to get to explore their findings and see their great work. Make a map with the survey's "_results" layer by (1) sharing your results as a layer, (2) putting that layer in a map, and (3) sharing the map. Tip: If you are working with an older survey, you won't have a "_results" layer. Instead, you'll have a "_stakeholder" layer. It's the same as the "_results" layer here and can be used the same way. 1. Share your results as a layer Before your map your results, you need to give the people you want to see them access to view the results as a layer. Survey123 creates a layer of results for you, and you can configure it through the Survey123 website. After publishing your survey and while editing it in the Survey123 website, go to the Collaborate tab and choose Share results from the left side. Think about who you want to see the results: maybe it's your whole organization, or one of your groups. Perhaps it's everyone, and you’ll share it publicly. Choose the option for Who can view results of this survey? to match who you want to use your map. Most of the time, when sharing results you want to share all of them. That's the default. You might want to limit people to only seeing the results they submitted. If desired, you can do that in the What data can viewers see? section. This configures a "_results" layer that you can now put in a map. You can see the layer in ArcGIS Online by going to My Contents and choosing the folder for the survey: But wait, there are three feature layers! Yes, there are. So how do you know which one to put in your map? Since you want to map the results, use the one named "_results" (or, for older surveys, "_stakeholder"). To understand more about the "_results" layer and the contents of the survey's folder, read the appendix below. 2. Put the layer in a map Now that you have a layer to use, you can make your map. Go to Contents > My Contents in ArcGIS Online and open the folder for your survey. Click the three dots beside the "_results" layer and choose Open in Map Viewer – this opens your layer in a map! Set the symbology and pop-ups if you so desire, and otherwise configure your map. When the map is opened, the latest survey data is shown. However, data could be submitted while the map is open. If you want the data in the map to update while the map is open, so that the map always shows the most recently collected data, configure the layer so that the data refreshes automatically as follows: Click Layers on the dark toolbar and select your results layer. Click Properties on the light toolbar. In the Refresh interval section of the layer’s properties, enable Automatically refresh layer. Provide a timeframe on which you want the layer to update. Save your result map. Using the wrong layer is the most common mistake when making a map of Survey123 results. Are other users not seeing all the data? You might have you used the "_form" (or, for older surveys, "_fieldworker" layer). If the layer is right, check that you configured the data visibility correctly in the Survey123 website in step 3 of the previous section. 3. Share the map Just like you have to give users access to your results so they can see them, you have to give access to the map if you want others to be able to open it. In Map Viewer with your map open, click Share map on the dark toolbar. Set the sharing level and group sharing to give the right users access to your map. Beware: the Survey123 "Open in Map Viewer" button The "Open in Map Viewer" button from the data tab in Survey123 doesn't always use the layer you might expect. It is safer to make sure you are adding your results layer to the map instead of using that button. Great, I've got a map. What now? Once you have a map of the results, you can use it anywhere you need a map. Send it to a friend, stick it in a StoryMap or Dashboard, the possibilities are endless. Happy mapping! In this blog I used a survey about favorite color. You can fill it out yourself. It's part of a StoryMap, and after filling it out, you'll see your answer appear on the map of results! You can also see how it was created. The process shown in this blog is part of that story. And the story has videos that show these steps, too! Appendix: The layers for your survey While you now know what hosted feature layer view to use in your map of results, let's examine the layers Survey123 creates for you when you make a survey. You can see the layers in ArcGIS Online by going to My Contents and the folder for the survey: Creating a survey in the Survey123 website creates the feature layer (hosted) – this is the layer without anything appended to the survey name (in the example above, "Favorite color"). This layer is your big bucket of collected data. The data is stored in ArcGIS Online. You don't want other people accessing it directly, and you might have parts you want to keep secret. Keep it to yourself (you can see the person icon on the right, indicating it is only shared with the owner). Publishing the survey through the Survey123 website creates the two feature layer (hosted, view) with "_results" and "_form" appended to the survey name (in the example above, "Favorite color_form" and "Favorite color_results"). These layer views are windows into your hosted layer. They can be configured to only expose some parts of the data, or some capabilities such as editing and viewing. They have a connection to the hosted layer, so their data always matches the current data from the survey while limiting its use. Each of these layers is configured through the Survey123 website for a particular audience and task. The "_form" layer is shared and configured based on the options you picked in the Collaborate > Share survey tab. The "_results" layer is shared and configured based on the options you picked in the Collaborate > Share results tab. It doesn't allow data editing, so can be safely shared with a wider audience you don't want to change the data, but just to view it. Any of these three layers can be used in a map. However, the map will inherit the capabilities of the layer. If you use the "_form" layer with a default configuration, the person viewing the map can only see the data they entered in the survey. If you use the hosted layer, it won't be shared with the person viewing the map and so won't load. (And if you share it – which you shouldn't – they'll have access to all the data in ways you might not want them to have.) If you use the "_results" layer, you'll end up with a map of results that works as you expect.   ... View more

During data collection, a photo is often an important piece of information to collect. However, large photos quickly increase the size of your database and result in slower upload and sync times. But you need that photo! Choose your photo size to capture what you need and minimize its impact on your database. Note: While photos can be large and credits are consumed for storage based on the size of your data, the storage of attachments (including photos) is charged at a lower rate per GB than the feature data itself. All three of the ArcGIS apps for data collection support a custom photo size. Here's how you set it up in each one: ArcGIS Survey123 In ArcGIS Survey123, you can control the image size in a couple of ways: In Survey123 Connect, you can set a maximum size for the longest edge (in pixels) for all photos in the Options tab. In Survey123 Connect or the browser, you can set the maximum file size (in MB) for each individual image question. This will only be used when collecting data in the browser. In both cases, this only applies to photos taken through Survey123. Photos that were added from the device use their original file type, resolution, and quality. Learn more about restricting the image sizes in Survey123 Connect in Media questions > Images. In the browser, you'll find the File size > Maximum setting at the bottom of the Validation section for configuring an Image question. ArcGIS Field Maps In ArcGIS Field Maps, there are a couple of ways to set the photo size: The map author can set it as a part of the App settings specified during map configuration. See Configure the map > Specify photo size. The data collector can set it in the mobile app's settings. See Configure the mobile app > Specify photo size. (If the map author has provided a size, the mobile app defaults to it when the map is open. Details for how to override the map author's setting and use a device setting instead are included in that linked topic.) In both cases, the size is applied not only to photos taken through the app but is also used as the max size if uploading a photo to a feature. ArcGIS QuickCapture In ArcGIS QuickCapture, you can set the photo size for all photos captured through the project. While configuring the project, go to the General settings and set the Photo size.  --- And that's it! Now, no matter which field app you use, you can configure your photos to meet your project requirements.    ... View more

The ArcGIS Online 5x5 is a popular resource, quickly taking teachers and new users through a series of tasks introducing ArcGIS Online. While some appreciate the text-based document, others have asked for a more multimedia-focused version. And so here you are - Use a map in Map Viewer! This new StoryMap Collection takes you through the same 5x5 activities, this time with videos and embedded interactive maps. You'll navigate, measure, sketch, explore layers, and interrogate data. Try it out! Do you have a teacher that you want to share this with? Comment to let me know what you think. Any feedback you have is appreciated!     ... View more

When using ArcGIS in a classroom, the tone of the day is set by how easy it is to get everyone logged in and ready to go. I spend a lot of time helping early elementary students, and having easily remembered passwords is key! When creating accounts, I can set strong, but simple passwords for them. Yet when they log in the first time, they are prompted to change them! And suddenly no one in the room will ever know their password again... So how can we set students up with passwords they can remember and won't be prompted to change? The best way is to use single sign-on (SSO) to create the accounts. (This uses the same passwords as other school software, and avoids students having to learn an account or password just for ArcGIS.) However, this isn't an option for all schools and districts. This blog looks at options when SSO is off the table. Without SSO, a common approach is to sign in to each account after it is created and reset the password for them. But when creating 100 or more accounts, I don't want to undertake that Sisyphean task. Another option is to create or update the accounts through Python scripting, contained in an ArcGIS Notebook. In a script, you can update the password and set the security question, and then the students won't be prompted to do so when they log in. Download my notebook to see the full code. I've included comments to help you understand it. However, keep in mind that running a notebook is a more advanced task, so proceed with caution. Updating the account is the key part of the code, so let's take a look at that line, using arcgis.gis.User.reset:   account.reset(password=passwordFinal+'TEMP', new_password=passwordFinal, new_security_question='1', new_security_answer='Your City')   This assumes an account password of the final password, followed by TEMP. It then sets the password to the final, desired permanent password, and sets the security question. Security question option 1 is "What city were you born in?" and using that, with an answer of the city where your school is, has served me well. (If you'd like to see all the security choice options, they are listed out as part of the parameters for arcgis.gis.User.update.) Keep in mind that the final password is only as secure as your script makes it. If you are working with older students likely to sign in as other students maliciously, you'll want to choose something safer than password format proposed in the script. So one line of python that does the heavy lifting, and many fewer password resets in your future! ... View more

This blog is superceded by the newer process and blog: https://esriurl.com/surveyReview   We've all seen students attempting to be funny but being inappropriate. And if you haven't seen it, ask any class to fill out a 2 question survey with a nickname and an image. So how can we get data from the class and not put the work of the jokers in front of the other students? Add in a review step so that only approved data is shared with the class.  To add a review step is a simple, but involved, process. (If you've seen demos I've done or other blogs, you likely know by now that what I mean is that there are going to be a number of steps, but that I hold your hand through them - as long as you pay attention, you've got this! If, however, you are intimidated by long processes, this is likely not for you.) So how can we create a survey with a review process in place? Here are the highlights: Create a survey just like you usually do. Add a field to the data that stores if it is reviewed or not. After entries are submitted, review each submission and mark it as approved or rejected. There are a number of ways to review the data, but I find using a dashboard is a pretty slick way to do so, especially when you have a high volume of data and want to have a list of just what is left to review. Create a layer view that only includes the approved data, and use it in maps and apps for your class to see. Want to try it out for yourself? Head over to this dashboard to see how it works once all set up: you'll submit the survey, review your entry, then see it in the approved results.   Are you ready to see the full implementation details? Head back to the dashboard and expand the section at the bottom of the survey. Questions? Just leave a comment here. These are wrapped into a single dashboard to give you one place to see the workflow. In reality, your survey will be handed out as it always is, the dashboard will just be for your use, and you'll use the approved results the same way you use results today.     ... View more