[GRASS-user] Basic GIS course ideas

[maning sambale]

Hi FOSS GIS users,

I am a part-time instructor in a college teaching introductory gis
course.  I have been advocating for the use FOSS GIS (particularly
GRASS and QGIS ) in our schools for the lab sessions.
This is the second term I am doing this and have been reflecting on
how did it go the first time.

The objective of the course is for students to understand basic gis
principles as well as practical applications in site planning, land
use, ecology and business.

Judging by the previous experience, it is a little bit difficult
introducing the student FOSS GIS especially the linux way of doing
things (CLI).  We are using XP machines and most students probably
know computers as MS windows only.

Some are more interested in creating cool maps and not on the
underlying spatial analysis techniques (i.e. r.mapcalc) that were
used.

I wrote the list to ask GRASS instructors on any ideas in making the
course better.  If you have any approaches/techniques/exercises you
might want to share please do.  I firmly believe using FOSS GIS
especially in our country is very important.  As a compromise though,
a suggestion from this list was to also introduce them to propriety
GIS package.  We have a few arcview 3.2 in the lab so I might give a 1
or 2 sessions about it.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Maning

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