Latest Contributions by ClaireThurlowNZ

  Did you remember to engage with the teacher that you mentor in GIS on GIS Day?     Perhaps by hosting their class at your organisation to give some real life examples on how GIS is used visiting their class at their school and running some fun GIS activities for the students. We would love to hear your stories if you did engage your teachers and their students, why not share those stories on this new GeoNet community 😉 If you didn't engage your teacher or their students in 2020, perhaps you can plan to do this in 2021. GIS in 2021 is 17 November. Keep an eye on the GIS Day website for resources to help you plan a GIS Day event for your teacher.   ... View more

Did you know...there are so many classrooms in New Zealand that will never experience GIS without the encouragement and support of a GeoMentor! So why not encourage a GIS Professional you know to connect with a school and visit a classroom. If you need some reasons to encourage people to become GeoMentors why not tell them your story about GeoMentoring remind them that children at schools right now are the meme generation so communicate visually and are therefore primed to communicate with GIS make sure they know there are pre-written lessons that they could run in the classroom, geoinquiries are a great place to start connect them with this group so they can ask questions and share stories about their GeoMentoring experiences get them to register as a GeoMentor so Eagle Technology can help them get connected to a local school who is keen for some assistance,  Lets help to make GIS accessible in more New Zealand classrooms. ... View more

Drones are something that school teachers are increasingly wanting to use in their classrooms. The type of drone a school purchases can be varied but we do recommend the following workflow once a drone is purchased: Download Site Scan LE - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/site-scan-ee/id1433145634 (iPad version only) to enable the teacher / student to create a flight plan for the area of interest. The app is free to use for existing ArcGIS Online subscriptions. Install and license Drone2Map - only schools with the ArcGIS Schools Advanced Bundles have Drone2Map licenses Process the images in Drone2Map - the Getting Started with Drone2Map for ArcGIS course can help with this Publish images as an Orthomosaic and/or 3D Mesh to ArcGIS Online - help on how to do this can be found at https://doc.arcgis.com/en/imagery/workflows/resources/creating-drone-imagery-products-drone2map.htm  Maybe you can use this information to help the school teacher that you mentor to use drones and convert the output into a useful product that they can use in ArcGIS. ... View more

This week the first ever virtual Esri User Conference has been happening (Esri UC 2020). As part of this event the UC Plenary Session - Part 3 in particular focused on Esri efforts in the Education Space. We heard National Geographic's Chief Education Officer - Vicki Phillips, talk about #GENGEO, a generation of students who are using geography to seek solutions for the planet. About the many education resources that National Geographic have focusing on the use of GIS to teach subjects and The new Esri Education Beta Teach with GIS ArcGIS Hub site. I encourage you to access the Plenary Session on demand (you need to be registered for Esri UC 2020 to do this currently), explore the new National Geographic resources and the ArcGIS Teach with GIS Hub site and then share your learning's with the teacher(s) that you mentor. Watch this space for an announcement for when Eagle Technology releases their new GIS in Schools New Zealand webpages as well. ... View more

Many of the teachers that you are mentoring might be focused on providing options for GIS at NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3. While this is important, GIS can be used in other areas of the geography curriculum, as well as in other subject areas. For Example, below is a link to a Story Map that shows how GIS can be used to teach Geographic Skills Geographic Skills Building Story Map  Or you can use GIS it teach about earthquakes Earthquakes Learning Guide using GIS - An ArcGIS StoryMaps    Or is the mathematics department is interested in incorporating digital technology in their classrooms - GIS can be the tool they could use. Esri has some short lessons in Mathematics to help with this implementation - these lessons can be found at GeoInquiries for Math | Algebra Activities Using GIS . Good news these GIS based mathematics lessons don't require an ArcGIS Online username and password to use so that takes some of the complexity out of implementing them.   Or the history department might be interested in using GIS. Below are some helpful resources specific to topics that we teach in NZ ANZACs @ Gallipoli - follow New Zealand in the WWI Gallipoli Campaign  A short lesson about the D-Day landings in WWII New Zealand Victoria Cross Winners and some more generic short GIS based history lessons GeoInquiries for World History | Inquiry-Based Activities    ... View more

While it is great, as a Schools Geomentor, you can do a lot of back end ArcGIS Online administration on behalf of your school teacher there is also huge benefits of upskilling your teachers to be able to utilise this functionality inside of ArcGIS Online themselves. Or as the Chinese proverb says You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime. To be able to assist with this learning process, Eagle Technology and the GIS Champions funded by the Geography Network of Expertise are producing a series of videos showcasing various "administration" items in ArcGIS Online. Below is a list of videos currently available: Running an ArcGIS Online Status Report Changing a students role in ArcGIS Online so they can run analysis Setting ArcGIS Online new member defaults Changing User Types in ArcGIS Online Adding a comment to students maps or apps Finding spatial data for a GIS lesson These resources are freely accessible with no login required. If you or your teachers have difficulty accessing these resources try logging out of your ArcGIS Online account. ... View more

Once students get back to classrooms they might be keen to get out into the field to capture data. Why not recommend the following Storymap to the teachers you mentor to help them sort through which ArcGIS App they should use in the field. It can be confusing with Survey123 for ArcGIS, Collector for ArcGIS and ArcGIS QuickCapture in the offering. ArcGIS field apps in schools. The story map covers what is common to all three apps and the data collection power they bring to the field. Teachers will need to determine which app is right for each data collection project they run, some times that answer is determined by the purpose of the project so feel free to assist in the decision making process. ... View more

As you are all probably aware, during COVID19 alert level 4 school teachers have had to very rapidly move to teaching classes in an online environment. Many teachers have used this new environment as a reason to brush up on their GIS skills and / or use GIS in the classroom. For many teachers this mode of teaching will continue as we go down the COVID19 alert levels. Some teachers will also have to teach in a hybrid environment with some students in the classroom and students online, beaming in from their homes. Below are some useful resources that you could recommend to the teacher(s) you mentor to enable spatial learning from home using ArcGIS Online The Esri Mapping Hour Loading students into ArcGIS Online - via a CSV file Loading students into ArcGIS Online using Single Sign On (SSO) Skills building for teachers Skills building for students Lessons, using Story Maps, to get you started with ArcGIS Online If you would like recommendations on further resources teachers could utilise for online teaching of GIS for students contact gisinschools@eagle.co.nz. The New Zealand Board of Geography Teachers (NZBoGT) Network of Expertise is currently in the process of recording some useful teacher self learning videos which will be posted on YouTube progressively. The link to these videos will be added to this blog as it becomes available. Banner photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash ... View more

Young curious minds are a good thing, but how do you explain COVID-19 to children, young people, and maybe even those who are not so young? How about connecting them to the following blog post http://ow.ly/SrAl50yTHzy which incorporates useful resources to help with understanding. Feel free to distribute this blog post link with the school(s) that you geomentor. Banner image captured 3 April 2020 and does not contain up-to-date information please visit the live dashboard for up-to-date information. ... View more

With schools closed in New Zealand and so many children learning from home Esri will be releasing  a series of 20 free informal one hour videos for use in homes/classrooms starting 7 April 2020 (NZ time). These videos will highlight interactive maps and GIS. The videos are collectively called the mapping hour and will be progressively released at esriurl.com/mappinghour (live on Tuesday). These videos will show viewers what is possible with GIS and equip them to engage young minds eager for learning opportunities. Please let the school(s) that you geomentor and parents that you know about this website esriurl.com/mappinghour. For more details continue reading…   The videos will be presented by Charlie Fitzpatrick, Tom Baker, Kylie Donia, and Joseph Kerski from the Esri's Education Industry team and will include: - software tools, - academic content, and - instructional strategies that help students from primary through to secondary school to learn how to spot patterns, illuminate relationships, and build captivating presentations.   The videos will cover the following software: - ArcGIS Online, - Survey123 for ArcGIS, - ArcGIS Dashboards, - ArcGIS Business Analyst Online, and - ArcGIS StoryMaps   Resources utilised for the videos will be provided by Esri Training Services, Learn ArcGIS, and the Esri Schools teams.   Teachers can request an ArcGIS Online account for their school via gisinschools@eagle.co.nz  #NZGISinSchools. Parents without access to ArcGIS Online can request a temporary login from Esri Schools program (temporary access expires currently expires on 31 May 2020). ... View more

Before you head to the school you have been assigned to mentor, check out the information in this document. #NZGISinScools #NZGeoMentor ... View more

Welcome to the New Zealand GIS in Schools Geomentor Community on the Esri GeoNet website. This community is a location for NZ GIS in Schools Geomentors to network with other geomentors. It is a place to bounce ideas for geomentoring off each other, post your tips, celebrate your wins as a geomentor, celebrate your teachers wins with GIS and let people know what did not go well so they can learn from your experiences! If you are already a Geomentor in a New Zealand school may this community assist you in going forth to mentor your Geography Teacher(s) in the "Art of GIS" and the "Science of Where". You are part of a rare breed that is helping to inspire fascination, invoke curiosity and spark interest in the next generation of spatial professionals. Go you! If you are just exploring how to become a Geomentor in a New Zealand school - visit our Geomentors | Eagle page to sign up. ... View more

Could a scroll bar please be added to the right side of the Survey123 for ArcGIS Web Designer page?  I was working with someone who is unable to use the full functionality of a mouse (especially the roller ball) which made it very difficult for her to create a survey that had more than four questions to it because she couldn't scroll down the page. ... View more

When adding a date field to a list element Line Item Text field in the online version of Operations Dashboard it would be useful to be able to format the text to be DD/MM/YYYY or DD Month (in text eg July) YYYY. ... View more