Latest Contributions by TomBaker

As of October 1, 2019, the following software is available globally in the Esri School Mapping Software bundle. It is free for classroom and club instruction of youth. ArcGIS Online (Organization Subscription) Living Atlas data ArcGIS Story Maps Survey 123 Collector Quick Capture (software info) Operations Dashboard WebApp Builder and Configurable Apps ArcGIS for Desktop (with several extensions) ArcGIS Pro (with several extensions) Community Analyst Insights for ArcGIS (software info) City Engine (software info) ArcGIS Online is the primary software used in 95% of school settings. U.S. schools and youth clubs may sign-up with this form to request the software. Non-U.S. schools need to check with the local Esri distributor, see https://www.esri.com/en-us/contact.  For more information on licensing, see this blog. ... View more

Educators interested in complimentary evaluation book copies from Esri Press, may now request ebooks. Esri works with VitalSource, a powerful digital textbook delivery platform that enables qualified educators to examine books with ease. · If you do not have an account with VitalSource, you can get a free account here:https://www.vitalsource.com/sign_up  (Because the platform collects name and email address, this is not meant for minors such as K12 students.) · After establishing an account, college instructors can get access to books directly through VitalSource. K12 instructors just need to send an email to [email protected] and request a code for a specific Esri Press title (or titles), then "redeem" the code within your VitalSource account … simple! You can access your VitalSource Bookshelf library via multiple devices, including mobile devices, and your progress and notes sync. It's awesome! · To view titles and descriptions, you can do it on VitalSource (which will expose books from publishers other than Esri Press, but Esri can provide codes only to Esri Press titles) or check on the Esri website, http://www.esri.com/books (which shows just Esri Press titles). ... View more

Talking and working with teachers around the country, I commonly hear ideas and suggestions.  Today, I've explored building a proof-of-concept out of a few of those ideas. Schools are heavily using Google Docs (and Google Forms), the hands-down standard in K-12 education.   Many teachers have asked about making GeoInquiry questions digital (form-based). Still others have recommended putting the questions and map on the same webpage. One way to achieve this is to place the questions in a Google Form and share it publicly - embedding it, along with the GeoInquiry map into a storymap. The results aren't too bad and the data collected by the form would ideally flow into a spreadsheet on the teacher's Google Drive. Of course, Survey123 could replace the Google Form and perhaps another story map template (gen 1) would work better in this case. Related links: Explore other assessment prototypes in my gallery. Or see the new GeoInquiry storymap! ... View more

Check out the new "GIS in CTE" Learn path!  This new path is intended to help educators and students in general GIS CTE classes get an understanding of the broad, technical landscape of GIS.  If you have feedback about what is or is not in the path, send an email to [email protected]   Link: https://learn.arcgis.com/en/paths/cte/ ... View more

Explore and share the new storymap, Getting to Know GeoInquiries from the Esri schools team.  The storymap walks new educators through the basics of GeoInquiries, including the anatomy of the teacher guide, accessing student worksheets, and interacting with GeoInquiry maps.  It's a great one-stop for learning about GeoInquiries and how to effectively use them in classrooms!  Share the short URL: http://esriurl.com/GeoInquiryStoryMap  ... View more

The long-awaited World Geography GeoInquiries collection has released 15  "Level 1" activities and ArcGIS Online maps, based on the content from the award-winning book, Mapping Our World.  The activities are designed for middle and lower-high school geography classrooms, are based on the C3 Framework for social studies, and tied to leading world geography textbooks.  All activities are licensed under Creative Commons for easy reuse by educators. Currently, the collection includes "no-login" activities studying: urbanization temperature factors seismic and volcanic activity population density plate boundaries political boundaries population growth standards of living the Arabian Peninsula - culture growth of global communications the Arabian Peninsula - physiographic monsoons of South Asia GDP and development Central America sea level rise North American trade Explore the activities and maps >> ... View more

The National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) and the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) are teaming up this fall in Austin, TX to bring what is surely to be one of the largest geography education events in the country! Planned for November 22-24, 2019, the event features a growing line-up of GIS sharing and learning.  We'll start tracking the Esri and partner-based presentations below to help give you a heads-up. Thursday, November 21 CUFA Book panel        Thursday, November 21, 11:15am - 12:30pm        Location: Room 16B, Austin Convention Center        Presenters: E-yung Shin, Sarah Bednarz, others including Thomas Baker Clinic #753: Using Interactive Maps to Explore Lessons in Apportionment and Redistricting Thursday November 21, 2:00pm - 5:00pm Location: Exhibit Hall 5 Classroom B, Austin Convention Center Presenters: Rebecca Theobald, Anita Palmer Friday, November 22 Session #8: Teaching Population Change, Demographics, and Lifestyles with Interactive Mapping Friday November 22, 8:45am - 9:40am Location: Exhibit Hall 5 Classroom A, Austin Convention Center Presenter: Joseph Kerski Presentation #918: Advance Your Geospatial Technology--Empowered by Your Curriculum Standards Friday November 22, 2:05pm - 3:00pm Location: Ballroom Prefunction Area Level 4, Austin Convention Center         Presenters: Thomas Baker, Barbaree Duke, Injeong Jo Saturday, November 23 Session #1051: Interactive Mapping Infuses Geography Across the Curriculum Saturday November 23, 9:35am - 10:30am Location: Exhibit Hall 5 Classroom A, Austin Convention Center Presenters: Anita Palmer, Thomas Baker Photo credit. ... View more

We have begun the process of creating digital student worksheets to accompany GeoInquiries.  We've chosen to put these worksheets in Google Docs, based on popular request.  In this format, the Doc can be saved to a teacher's or student's Google Drive. The Doc can also be downloaded in more traditional file formats such as Microsoft Word, OpenDocument, RTF, plain text, PDF, ePub, etc.   While much more flexible than our usual PDF type, these student documents (with directions and questions) is now fully accessible to all learners.   To track the conversion progress or to download from the currently available worksheets, see: https://esriurl.com/geoInquiryWorkSheets   ... View more

We invite you to explore the class of 2018-2019 K12 teacher video challenge winners!  There were 10 monthly winners this past school year from around the US, representing a wide range of curricular area and grade bands.  Each video is about 3-4 minutes in length and packed full of great ideas that you can implement next year in your instruction! Explore the winners at:    Congrats to the winners!  Stay tuned to see what's next! ... View more

For those attending the 2019 Education Summit at the Esri User Conference, please consider joining us the Esri schools program at the following special interest groups.   Teacher Education and Educational Research SIG Saturday, July 06 9:00 am - 9:45 am Marriott - Pacific Ballroom 16   Geography Education and Computational Thinking (AAG Program discussion) Sunday, July 07 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Marriott - Pacific Ballroom 14   State GeoInquiries and Schools Curriculum SIG Sunday, July 07 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Marriott - Pacific Ballroom 14   Informal Education and Service Learning SIG Tuesday, July 9 07:00 AM - 08:00 AM SDCC - Room 12   ... View more

GIS or a Geographic Information System is geographic mapping and analysis software used to collect, display, analyze, and communicate information and stories about a wide range of social and natural phenomena tied to specific locations.   GIS runs on mobile devices, laptops, servers, and in the cloud and is used globally in every industry, from law enforcement to marketing analytics.  GIS is the central technology in the geospatial family of technologies. Other technologies like GPS, drones, image processing, and remote sensing are also often included in this family of technologies. Today, geospatial technologies are playing critical roles in data science, self-driving vehicles, 5G communications, and much more.  Explore a subset of GIS-enabled careers >> GIS software is free for K-12 classroom instruction.  A classroom teacher or building administrator simply needs to complete the form. Several desktop, web, and mobile software products are included with the software. If you are new to GIS, we recommend starting with ArcGIS Online and then moving to ArcGIS Pro (Microsoft Windows-only).   Request free Schools Software Mapping Bundle >>   With an ArcGIS Online account, “Enable Esri Access”. This will allow both teachers and students to search for and enroll in a number of online Esri Training courses.  If you don’t know where to start, take a closer look at these courses first. Good courses to start with include: Exploring GIS Maps Teaching with GIS: Introduction to using GIS in the classroom Getting Started with ArcGIS Pro Another great way to learn about Esri technology is by searching through the “Learn ArcGIS” content.  These are activities that can typically be completed in one or two class periods.   Explore Learn ArcGIS >>   Finally, for teachers, we recommend earning an Esri Technical Certification.  These certifications are not designed for K12 students, but we do encourage CTE educators to build the skills necessary to earn the “Entry level ArcGIS Desktop” certification.   Learn about certification >>   For additional learning opportunities, search through the Esri Press catalogue. Take particular note of materials in the education and training section of the catalogue.   Explore Esri Press >>   Finally, engage fellow CTE teachers in the GeoNet Project reserved just for CTE teachers and be sure to add your dot the CTE map.    Enter the community >> ... View more

Our February Teacher Video Challenge awardee is Jack Buckley from Cohasset, MA!  Well done, Jack!  Check out Jack's video and submit your own entry to the challenge. ... View more

Technically, it's the wrong Pi but hey, it's close enough for Pi Day.....   For those schools and after school clubs that use Raspberry Pi micro-computers, I've posted a working set of  instructions to get the ArcGIS API for Python running on a Pi 3.  See the draft.   Happy Pi Day! ... View more