Latest Contributions by CharlieFitzpatrick

The 2018-19 school year marks the third year for Esri's "ArcGIS Online Competition for High School and Middle School Students." It is also the second year for Esri's "Teacher Video Challenge." Both "tests" deserve serious consideration. The student competition offers a lot of opportunity. In participating states, students (singly or as a team of two) do research and submit a presentation in the form of a Story Map or other web app. This can be done as part of school or outside of school (e.g. individually or through a club), but gets submitted through the school (high school for grades 9-12, middle school for grades 4-8). A school can submit up to five entries to the state, which chooses up to five each HS+MS projects to receive $100. These ten get national recognition, and one each at HS+MS get entered into a final competition, and a trip to Esri's User Conference in San Diego, CA, to present to GIS users from around the world. The teacher challenge lets K12 educators describe their use of ArcGIS Online. Teachers create and share their own one-minute video as an entry, and Esri chooses one story per month for a more in-depth video interview, with a $500 honorarium. This collection shows the breadth of content areas, grade levels, teaching styles, school environments, and implementation strategies through which teachers can engage ArcGIS Online. Past awardees range from more traditional to decidedly non-traditional situations, but all teachers demonstrate real craftsmanship as educators. ArcGIS Online has vast capacity, but even at its most basic it can be enormously powerful. In both the student and teacher challenges, what matters is implementation. It's far more impressive doing powerful things with basic tools than basic things with powerful tools. Learners and leaders who understand their focus area deeply make impact. See how by looking at the collection of student winners and teacher challenge awardees. Then plan your entries! ... View more

Esri T3G Handouts and Posters on Box  These T3G graphics (in English and Spanish) are powerful instructional resources and planning aids for PD providers. You can see them as flyers with text or larger, less text-y posters. ... View more

"It's the work of freedom." These words by history teacher Mariana Ramirez near the end of the education section of the 2018 Esri User Conference plenary summarize the power of teachers helping students investigate their world. The Math, Science, & Technology Magnet Academy at Roosevelt High School, in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, presented their work on Esri's stage in 2013, and two teachers (Ramirez and English teacher Alice Im) were brought back in 2018 to receive the "Making a Difference" award, because the work their students do is such a powerful model. Theirs is not a "simple research project" that could be replicated immediately in any given week, or even a month. Teaching under-privileged youth in an inner city public high school sometimes involves helping students facing serious personal responsibilities and family distress, working with English language learners, overcoming difficulties in reading and math, wrestling with layers of "administrivia," coping with inadequate resources, all while covering classroom content. How then does one help students build substantial background knowledge and long-term life skills? Amid exploding reams of data, often conflicting or unbalanced sources, and shifting and confusing scales of attention and value, what matters is not accumulation of facts but ability to learn -- to ask good questions, handle varied inputs, derive substantive meaning, think critically, make good decisions, and act, singly and in concert with others. Teaching these skills takes all the time, energy, empathy, attention to detail, coaching skill, content expertise, pedagogical experience, planning and adaptability, capacity to tolerate risk and withstand failure, and multi-tasking that a teacher can muster, for dozens of students at a time, typically over 100 on any given day. The best teachers know that education is a process of engagement, not simply delivery. They teach people, not content, and so tweak their interactions scores of times per minute, at once speaking, listening, looking, feeling, cataloguing, digesting, planning, and reacting … explaining here, asking there, cajoling one, praising another … all while helping to erect the scaffolds of knowledge and skill, and the trust with which students frame their view of the world. Because of its capacity for incorporating limitless types, amounts, and scales of data, GIS is a powerful tool for learning. The MSTMA teachers help students build their skills, then turn the focus to the world they know, asking them to dig deep, seek the data, analyze it, and present their conclusions. It takes time to build the requisite skills, conduct the research, and present to their peers, their teachers, their community, and the broader outside world. But the students recognize the rewards, inside and out, often very quickly, occasionally only over time. "One person can make a difference … and everybody should try," says Esri president Jack Dangermond at the close, echoing the words of President John F. Kennedy. Anyone in doubt, or anyone simply seeking affirmation, need only watch the video, and then share it. "It's the work of freedom." ... View more

Just like any other classes at school, CTE classes can take advantage of Esri's offer of software to schools and clubs for instructional use. To see if your school might already have software, check out Map#1 of Esri's USK12GIS Story Map. CTE classes might also be interested in these tools: Drone2Map City Engine ArcGIS for AutoCAD ArcGIS Maps for Microsoft Office ArcGIS Maps for Adobe Creative Cloud or see Esri's full list of products ... View more

Results are in for the 2018 ArcGIS Online Competition for High School and Middle School students! Congratulations to the national winners and honorable mentions at both levels, and to the 34 other state winners competing for the grand prize -- a trip to the 2018 Esri Education Summit. Congratulations also to the 101 other awardees who, just like the state and national winners, each earned $100. The displays and documentation of all 137 awardees are visible to the public, via an ArcGIS Online Map Viewer Presentation, with six frames. For both HS and MS, the national winner and honorable mention projects were very good, about very different topics, with very different approaches, so see both their Story Maps and documentation. The other state winners at each level reinforce the breadth of topics and approaches available to anyone. The competition did not require teachers to allocate significant in-class time or instruction, although some did provide it. With the array of instructional resources freely available, students can learn a lot on their own, but they need that first exposure to the technology, and need an account with which to explore, build, save, and share. Esri offers all schools and clubs free instructional accounts, plus lots of classroom-ready content and project starters, and links to local mentors (see Map#4) and instructional opportunities (see Maps #6 and #7), so there is no reason for any student to be left out. In 2018, 28 states participated. In the 22 states receiving entries, 126 came from 46 high schools, and 180 entries came from 41 middle schools. Of the 306 total submissions nationally, a third happened in just one state -- Minnesota. Think what students will show when all states actively support students investigating and reporting on their world, thinking critically and making a difference, using GIS. Start working now to support the 2019 ArcGIS Online Competition for HS+MS Students! ... View more

With skill, passion, and analysis, high school and middle school students are exploring their world and creating maps with ArcGIS . Esri challenges US students to create and share projects about something in their home states, striving to be among the best in the school, state, and nation. Esri's 2019 ArcGIS  US School Competition is open to high school ("HS," gr.9-12) and middle school ("MS," gr.4-8) students in the US who can analyze, interpret, and present data via an ArcGIS  web app or story map. Patterned after 2016 state events by Minnesota and Arkansas, Esri launched a national challenge in 2016-17; in 2017-18, 28 states participated (results below). For 2018-19, Esri offers to all states the chance to participate, with grants to states supporting ten equal prizes of $100, for the five best HS and five best MS projects in the state. Schools can submit up to five projects to the state, and states submit to Esri up to ten awardees (up to 5 HS, up to 5 MS), with one project each at HS and MS tagged for a final level of competition. From across the nation, one HS project and one MS project will each earn a trip to the 2019 Esri Education Conference in San Diego, CA, during Esri's 50th year celebration. State Leadership Team: Esri seeks state teams to conduct each state's competition (limit of one team per state, covering all 4th-12th graders in the state). The team may consist of geo-savvy adults from schools, higher ed, informal ed, government, business, and non-profit realms; different types of expertise are important; the team's key tasks are spelled out in "VII" below. Team leaders can apply via a form attached to the bottom of this post. (Collaboration, commitment, and proven experience working across the state is required.) See the 2017+2018 results and 2019 states by clicking the image below, or in map#2 of the US K12 GIS story map. 2018-19 Contest Details: Eligibility Entrants must be pre-collegiate students registered in grades 4-12, from public schools or non-public schools including home schools, under age 19, who have not yet received a high school diploma or equivalent Entrants must reside and be in school in the United States or its districts or territories: 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. (Thus, "state" in this document means one of these 56 units.) Students can work singly or in a team of two, but can participate in only one entry. Teams with one student in middle school (gr.4-8) and one in high school (gr.9-12) must be considered as high school. Entrants may work on the challenge through school, via a club, or independently, but entries must be submitted to the state from a recognized school or home school. Any school or home school program can submit to the state a maximum of five (5) entries total, counting the sum of middle school and high school entries. Entries Entry forms (student/s to school, school to state, state to Esri) will be made available to state leads in January 2019. Entries must be from an ArcGIS  Organization account (not a "public account"). Any K12 school (public, non-public, or home school) or formal youth club can request for free an ArcGIS School/Club Bundle (includes an ArcGIS  Organization account). Entries must be an ArcGIS  "web app" or "Story Map". Entries must focus on content within the state borders. States may choose to refine the focus further, but the geographic scope of the project must be within the state. The project may reference data outside the state "for context," but may not extend the focus of the study beyond the state borders. For example, broader patterns of environmental characteristics or demographic movements may be referenced for context, but the focus must be on phenomena within the state. Schools must announce their own internal deadlines, in time to complete judging and provide information to the state by its deadline. States must announce their in-state deadlines, but can be no later than 5pm Pacific Time on Wed May 15, 2019. States must submit data to Esri no later than 5pm Pacific Time on Wed May 22, 2019. Awards Esri will announce its awards decision by 5pm Pacific Time on Mon June 3, 2019 Esri will provide a travel grant to one HS team and one MS team, each team consisting of the student(s) and at least one parent/guardian (could be teacher/rep). Awardee teams must agree to attend the Esri Education Summit ("EdUC"), arriving by 10amPT Sat July 6, and staying through at least 4pmPT Tue July 9, 2019. Awardees will be responsible for handling any tax implications, be personally identified including name and photograph, and post a graphic in the Esri User Conference ("UC") Map Gallery on Mon. Awardees will be recognized at EdUC and UC Map Gallery on Mon, and may have additional attention. Because only the top 1HS+1MS nominees from a state will be considered for the national competition, states must ensure that, if selected, their top nominees are willing and able to accept the award and attend. State Registration, Mentoring, and Judging States may determine but must announce in advance if they will require any form of "pre-registration" by schools as potential participants, and any cutoff date. Any such exclusive operation must be clearly announced and applied equitably. States are encouraged to establish an "Early Mentoring" option. In this scenario, states set an "Early Mentoring" deadline, recommended as no later than Fri March 22, 2019. Entries submitted to the state leadership group by the state deadline would go to state judges for review and comment (but not scoring), so students might benefit from learned guidance. States would be responsible for constructing and implementing their own submission/comment/return process, ensuring adequate opportunity for judges to review and respond, and students to consider and revise. Any such process should require "transparency," to foster good instruction and prevent inappropriate communication; only a student's parent/guardian/teacher/leader should be communicating with the student; all other communication should be between adults. In considering this model, states are encouraged to seek early commitments from many judges. States using an "Early Mentoring" process may determine but must announce clearly in advance if entries must have gone through the formal "Early Mentoring" process to be accepted for final state judging, and must apply the policy equitably. Design/Judging Criteria Entries must be from an ArcGIS  Organization account, not a "public account." This can be an Org operated by, e.g., the student's school or club, the district, the state GIS Education Team, or similar group. Entries must be visible without requiring a login. Entries engaging "premium data" (login required, such as Living Atlas) must set the display to permit access without needing a login. See helpful note. Entries must be "original work by students," but may use data generated by outside persons or institutions, within guidelines of "fair use." (Students are encouraged to use appropriate professionally generated data, but the integration, treatment, and presentation must be original.) Entries must provide to the school/state/Esri two links in "short URL" format, e.g. "htttp://arcg.is/1A2b3xyz" one link goes to the "display" page (the app or story map) one link goes to the "item details" page (the metadata page for the app or story map). A link to this page will require a login if the Org does not "permit anonymous access" and the link uses the form "[my_org].maps.arcgis.com/etc"; to get around this, change the link to the form "www.arcgis.com/etc" when creating the short URL. Users can create a short URL in "arcg.is" format within the ArcGIS  interface, or at http://bitly.com (where any URL string formatted as "[anything].arcgis.com/[anything]" will be turned into a short URL formatted as "arcg.is/[shortlink]".) National scoring rubric. The state can vary this, and even use different rubrics for HS and MS, but must apply the same rubric to all entries in a single grade band, and the rubric must be clarified for the entrants at the start. The national competition will use this rubric, and recommends it or something similar to the states (100 points): (5) topic is clearly identified, meets [nation's/state's] criteria, focuses on content within state borders (10) overall presentation within the app or story map is effective in informing about topic (20) cartography is effective -- the composition, visualization, and interplay of layers (display scale, transparency, classification, symbolization, popups, charts, tables, labels, filtering, legend appearance) facilitates the viewer's grasp of individual elements of the topic and story (20) data used is appropriate -- engages an adequate volume and array of clearly significant elements, does not exclude clearly significant elements, does not include irrelevant elements; of the 20 "total data points possible," 5 are reserved for rewarding the creation, documentation, and inclusion of one's own data [0=none, 1=little/weak, 2=some/modest, 3=satisfactory, 4=much/good, 5=most/excellent] (so an otherwise ideal project that contained no user-generated data could receive at most 15 points) (20) geographic analysis (classification, filtering, geoanalysis) is evident, appropriate, and effective; the "map product" is not "essentially uniform dots/lines/areas on a map" nor "primarily pictures" (25) documentation in the item details page is clear and complete; all non-original contents (including images) in the presentation/ web app/ story map are appropriately referenced and/or linked so their sources are clear, and original contents are described and/or linked; documentation identifies processes used to analyze the content, plus any persons who assisted in project (including specifying if no one did) PROJECT TIPS Look at previous national winners and honorable mention projects. This is a "map competition." Entries should be analytical in nature, map-centric rather than photo-centric or relying on too much text. Use of videos or static images generated by anyone other than the team members must be carefully documented, and such media should be used sparingly (few times, as supplements rather than primary visual elements); such outside content generally detracts from national scores. The project should emphasize student work; professionally generated GIS data generally does not detract from national scores this way. A good way to judge project balance quickly is to identify the "number of screens" a viewer would encounter and the number of seconds a viewer would spend consuming the entire project; map-based time and attention should be at least two thirds. Good projects gently help even a viewer unfamiliar with the region know quickly the location of the project focus. Requiring a viewer to zoom out several times to determine the region of focus detracts from the viewing experience. (Pretend the viewer is from a different part of the country, or a different country.) Maps should invite interactive exploration by the viewer, not be static ("images"). The presentation should hold the attention of the viewer from start to finish. Maps should demonstrate "the science of where" -- the importance of location, patterns, and relationships between layers. There is an art to map design; too much data may feel cluttered, but showing viewers only one layer at a time may limit the viewers' easy grasp of relationships. Care should be taken to make "popups" useful, limited to just the relevant information. They should add important information, and be formatted to make the most critical information be easily consumed. These popups can include formatted text, key links, images, data presented in charts, and so forth. Entries based on a project involving more than more than the entry team should note carefully the work done by the team members. For instance, if a class of 20 works together on a single project and three teams of two students each create different entries based on the 20-person project, each entry should clearly indicate what work was done by the team members. Any content prepared by the teacher/leader must be clearly identified. (For instance, "a Survey123 form (linked here) was created by our teacher, so our competition team do all the data gathering.") Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Schools should consider issues around exposing PII. See http://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools for strategies for minimizing PII. Teachers and club leaders should help students minimize exposure of their own PII and that of others, including in map, image, and text. States must help potential entrants understand the level of PII required. Entries submitted to Esri for the top national prize (i.e. 1-HS and 1-MS) must agree in advance to expose student names, school names, and school city/state (homeschool students would be identified to closest city/town name). Esri will not seek, collect, or accept student names for any entrants other than the national prize entrants (1-HS and 1-MS per state). These and only these will have names exposed by Esri. State Leadership Teams Team leaders can apply using a form attached to the bottom of this post. (Contact Charlie Fitzpatrick if your state needs assistance.) The state leadership team is the key to student participation in a state. All students in grades 4-12 are eligible to participate if a state has submitted an application to and been recognized by Esri. If there is not a formal state leadership team, no students from the state may submit entries. State leadership teams can include anyone who is willing to help develop the state rules and apply things fairly for all students in the state. Team members can be teachers, education leaders, college instructors, GIS practitioners, nonprofit or for-profit groups, or any adults interested in students across the state being able to participate. The tasks that must be handled by the leadership team are these: Decide state customizations: particular themes, dates, and participation policies. Submit appropriate paperwork to Esri, including the address of the state website and active email to which state participants may submit questions. The paperwork defines whom Esri will deal with on rules, participation, and grant funds. Post the necessary information, including state customizations, to a publicly accessible website. This can be quite elaborate (see MN 2019 example), but can also be just a single page of text, as long as it provides all the relevant info. Let schools, clubs, educators, and students across the state know about the competition, website, and email. Recruit and organize judges, and coordinate any "early mentoring option" communication. Post the state's official versions of Esri's template entry forms. Ensure the entries from school to state carry complete information. Submit to Esri proper information about participation and awardees from the state. Receive funds and distribute prizes. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: Email Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri K12 Education Manager, cfitzpatrick@esri.com Shortcut to this page: http://esriurl.com/agoschoolcomp ... View more

Here's an excellent blogpost (with key details for Org admins) about the process of Sharing and Collaboration across ArcGIS Online Organizations. (Imagine you want to work on a project with someone in another Org, or invite your persona from one Org to collaborate with your persona in a different Org.) ... View more

Two free downloadable PDF of 11x17 posters are available on Esri's Training site. (Sign in to download.) https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/5acd157885785d4ea0ae930b/the-language-of-spatial-analytics/  https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/5acd14a785785d4ea0ae917f/arcgis-common-patterns-of-use/  These are important works for anyone seeking to understand the "big picture" of solving problems with GIS. ... View more

I get asked a lot "What resources does Esri have for me to use or learn with?" The answer is "A LOT!" Rather than require you to go hunting, I'm presenting here a bunch from which you can easily choose as you see fit. First, the good news. K12 schools can have software at the school at no cost for instructional use. Go to https://www.esri.com/schools, hit the pull-down, choose "Software Bundle" and just fill out and submit the form. Easy. (Administrative users and higher ed folks, see the "Licensing" tab at the far right on that page. International users, see your local Esri office.) The harder part is making decisions about what to teach about and with. A vast amount of Esri training is available for free, usable 24x7. For educators who find big lists and lots of options overwhelming and just want to start GENTLY, step by step, learning about GIS and ArcGIS Online in little bites, see http://esriurl.com/gettingstartedforeducators. Instructors of science, social studies, etc should see especially numbers 8 and 9 about GeoInquiries. Anyone can take advantage of all kinds of free training on Esri’s website. See http://www.esri.com/training, click “Catalog/FindTraining”, then click “Free training”, and you’ll see about 180 results. Using the search criteria will help you filter those. Anyone can access free training on the site http://learn.arcgis.com which provides “scenario-based software training” that some people find easier to understand. Some of these are in the general "Learn" content, and some are in the education-specific "Teach" content, http://learn.arcgis.com/en/educators/  Sites with an ArcGIS School Bundle can access any online of Esri’s e-learning courses (including those with a lock) at no cost if they have a personal login to their ArcGIS Online Org and the Org admin has “enabled Esri access” for that login (see "Enable Esri Access" in online documentation). Esri posts a vast amount of instructional content in Orgs (e.g. http://k12.maps.arcgis.com) and in blogs and docs on GeoNet (http://arcg.is/esriedcommunities) If you want to "teach about GIS" the way people teach CAD or video editing or programming, that's different. For CTE teachers, all the above may be useful, at least in terms of learning the technology and getting comfortable with why and how people use it in particular arenas. But for answering "What do we need to include in our course?", it's essential to know the requirements, what defines "success," and the experience of the instructors. I'll add two important sites for CTE leaders: The Career & Technical Education Community group is a zone where we post information of relevance to CTE instructors, and where they can ask questions and add comments. http://www.geotechcenter.org/ is the website of the GeoTech Center. Right below the map on the front page is the "Model Courses" zone where you can see how different institutions have designed different experiences. ... View more

There is a lot of interest in technical certification (see e.g. this blog). For high school programs contemplating seeking Esri certification, the attached document illuminates important considerations. ... View more

The best teachers share a few characteristics. First and foremost, the students as individuals are more important than the subject, so you have to know and understand each kid deeply to help them. You need to know your subject matter intimately to engage different kids in different ways. You need to organize activities that challenge kids at a reasonable level, and kids don't handle all challenges equally. There are often ways to meet irksome rules while still meeting more important missions. And you must remain adaptable. In today's education parlance, the first three elements are generally called "differentiated instruction" or "whole child education." But the teachers who stand out grasp and implement the last two elements as well. And because of those, the teachers are sometimes called "mavericks." Retired but tireless teacher Randy Raymond, from Detroit, is a "maverick." Randy got his BS and MS degrees in science in the early 70s, then did research on Isle Royale, the big island in Lake Superior. "We took the first boat out in May, and the last boat back in October." He did some teaching in northern Michigan, and ran a landscaping business. "But my first real teaching began in 1981, with 6th grade science in Detroit Country Day School, where I started addressing kids' needs, especially those needing something other than typical classes. I began an 'outdoor field study' program. All day every Friday, no matter the weather, every class period was outside field study for that hour. Kids liked coming to school." Prominent people liked the special projects underway, and found ways to support these with money or technology. And Randy made more connections with people in business, government, and nonprofits who could make things happen. "I saw GIS in 1987, ARC/Info on Unix, but didn't have the technology or time to cope with it, but knew it would be important." With a reputation for success, Randy shifted to Cass Technical High School in 1991, teaching older kids. He earned more grants, and in early 1993, at the NSTA (National Science Teachers Assoc) Conference, Randy saw me in a booth, showing ArcView 1.0 for Windows. "I have money! I need to buy a school license!" It took Esri months to set up the mechanism, but Randy became the first teacher to buy this license, and his next 25 years became a blur. With a special grant, "I got hardware and built a lab, and had students explore and tinker during the day, and taught adult ed classes in the evening." His students began doing projects. One group studied lead in the water in Detroit, mapping lead pipe water service; Randy had wondered if the problems some students exhibited with certain content, and thus on some critical tests, might be influenced by lead in the water. "Four good chemistry kids spent one year doing research, and the next year working out ways to relieve lead loading in the water that happens overnight." Available health data was not pinpoint geography, but showed over 6800 kids with blood lead poisoning. Randy and his students were set to present this at the opening of Esri's 1995 User Conference, but were diverted to the White House to receive the grand prize from the Seiko Environmental Youth Challenge. Meanwhile, projects for Ford Motors and the City of Detroit earned even more attention, as seen in Esri's "GIS in K12 Education" video (1995) and Esri's book "Zeroing In" (1998). "Some kids and I worked on the city's $100m Empowerment Zone grant, downtown for four weeks every day after school, with our computer and printer there. On the day they had to submit it, I was putting the booklet together and they were holding a police car to get things to the airport and then to DC before the 5pm deadline. President Clinton said that, of all the proposals, ours was the most informative, especially in the first pages, with the maps." Because of his GIS skills, Randy was moved in 1998 from Cass Tech to Detroit Public Schools Executive Services. "I did data and analysis, not politics." That made him extremely valuable, and students of any age with GIS skills very attractive. Randy taught GIS at colleges and Saturday academies at local high schools. "As a school administrator, I came with the background of a teacher who was accustomed to doing things that met needs, solved problems, and were possible even if not typical." Entrepreneurial associations grew, providing more kids experience with GIS, through collaborations between a mix of governmental, educational, non-profit, and private partners. "In 2008, the city asked to collaborate on a lead study. We got 300,000 records from 1992-2008, with real addresses; 169,000 were really good, and 80,000 of those were currently in schools, across 13,000 blocks of the region. We published an article in 2013, showing 54% with lead damage when they were young. The results were so obvious that people asked if we rigged it, but we had a number of kids with tests from two or three different years, and we were clearly failing them. They were not being engaged in the special ways needed given the things that had happened to their bodies." (See Education Week's related article.) For publishing a study that exposed damage, Randy got in trouble, and retired in June of 2013. For a quarter century, Randy has talked passionately, with anyone who would listen, about "purposeful applications of technology in school … It's what you do with the kids, that's more important than any subject you're teaching. Doing something good with them is always my goal… [GIS] is like a whirlwind, and some see the endless opportunities and dive in, while others just avoid it because they don't get it and just can't see the value … It's not magic. The longer they are involved with GIS in real world work, the more they get engaged in what they need to know and how interconnected things are, and they're iterating and editing constantly, making decisions to make something better. You don't just give an answer and have someone tell you that you got it right or wrong, you get the chance to investigate … Kids working with GIS get smarter even if you don't see it on a test … We want them to know that learning is a lifelong process and sometimes we stumble, and things change so we have to adapt … School is meant to be a 'terminal' thing, but learning is not; the more school is an end in itself, the less learning becomes the goal; we need to get people invested in learning rather than in school …" And now? "The joy of retirement is that I'm only out of [a given project] if I want to be." His current mission is showing school and district administrators how to use GIS to enhance school safety. There are always new people waiting to be exposed and, fortunately, mavericks doing whatever they can to help people of all ages and roles grasp the power of GIS. ... View more

"Workforce" is a prominent topic for state governors; every state is concerned about employability of young people after school … and even during school. And, every year, at Esri's User Conference, some GIS-using professional at a business, non-profit group, or government agency will mention to me the challenge they face "finding people with the right skills … even the beginning skills needed …" to work for them. Digging deeper, with governors and with GIS professionals, two skill sets appear: (a) job-specific fundamentals, and (b) "soft skills" of being a reliable worker, collaborating, working independently, communicating, making decisions and solving problems, being adaptable, thinking creatively, and seeking help when needed. I smile because all of these can be developed with "long-term" experience with GIS.   How do you document these things? A lot of schools run "Career and Technical Education" (CTE) courses that help students learn fundamentals in a line of work … cosmetology, public safety, diesel engines, biomedicine, network administration, GIS. Many of these courses involve independent tests on established principles, latest patterns, and current technology.   Esri offers certification about Esri software. But even the most basic -- "ArcGIS Desktop Entry Level" -- is no slouch of an exam. It is designed for GIS users with up to two years of applied experience. I can vouch for the breadth of its coverage; I took the Desktop Entry 10.5 exam a couple of weeks ago. The published info shows that it includes content about ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and even ArcGIS Enterprise. The Certification Team has presented enough for someone to do a critical self-check about their readiness. Given the $225 cost of each exam, scouring these materials is time well-spent.       Should secondary students take this exam? It is absolutely not designed for them. There are significant legal and logistical challenges to overcome before one can take the exam. Minors must complete additional paperwork weeks ahead. Still, some educators have steered their students toward it. There is a frightfully low likelihood that a high school student even with two years of hour-per-day classes will pass. (Again, the course was designed for the entry-level professional with up to two years … 4000 hours … of applied experience.)   Should educators take the exam? This makes much more sense, especially in a CTE class. Just as high school teachers get "content certified," it makes sense to earn a software certification if one is teaching what would represent entry-level GIS jobs. It may help the educator (re-)discover the lightning pace of software evolution, the breadth of the ArcGIS platform, and the difference between "just a map" and "a tool for analysis, communication, and problem solving."   So, does GIS even belong in schools, and especially CTE? Absolutely. The combination of "job-specific fundamentals" and "soft skills" can be built starting even in elementary school. Developing capacity to understand maps, create and analyze data, communicate powerfully, collaborate, solve problems, and so on, cannot develop sufficiently high in a single year of hour-per-day class. GIS has a home in every situation involving data and locations, whether learning U.S. history, analyzing local community situations, or modeling global threats. Educators need always to design appropriate and realistic measures of student capacity and achievement, clarifying student responsibilities, and building in their students scholarship, artisanship, and citizenship. (Thank you, Michael Hartoonian.) Documenting this with a digital portfolio, perhaps via a Story Map Journal, might be a useful model. ... View more