[Ica-osgeo-labs] [OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of having Open Principles in Education for our future generations
Suchith Anand
Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk
Mon Jun 29 14:31:22 PDT 2015
Hi Ravi,
I fully agree with you that software piracy should be dealt with firmly by law. You can others can do your bit by helping educate the public on this.
"If you study this proprietary software only you will get GIS job ", is another clever marketing strategy (like the Billions of dollars "software donation" clever marketing , free software for sometime and then starting charging poor organisations who fall into this trap ridiculous high yearly charges once they are locked-in to the vendor etc etc…) . Unfortunately lot of people still get fooled and fall into these kind of very clever marketing traps and it is important that we atleast make people aware of these marketing gimmicks so others do not fall in these traps .
As educators we should be aware that these clever marketing strategies like you mentioned 'Learn the popular GIS and you will find a sure job' that are misleading lot of poor students and i think it is time government comes up with strong laws as well as enforcement so that poor students are not tricked in these kind of marketing strategies of any vendors and their supporting folks. It is also important that all educators please be aware of any vendors trying to use sponsorship (free conference passes, free software for limited time etc etc…) as a key tool for helping them push their agenda into education, so please do fall into this trap.
* Can any of these training institutes or proprietary GIS vendors guarantee hundreds of thousands of students good GIS job after they learn to use that particular software only ?
* Can any proprietary GIS vendor can make a public offer on this that all students who know how to use their software will get GIS job guaranteed by them with immediate effect. If so, they will be flooded with job requests from thousands of students from India alone who fell in these kind of marketing traps.
But more sadly, the missed economic and innovation opportunities of these students being developed as creative innovative minds and future innovators are too big to be quantified.The focus of Geo education should be on the Science and understanding of the geospatial concepts and principles NOT on any particular software only. Open Principles are key for enabling this.
I am happy to hear that Govt of India is supporting and pitching for Open Source and that is not surprising as it is hard economic facts that drive this (but again some proprietary vendors might try to use their influence to change this). Corruption is still a big problem in lot of developing countries .
Let me give you an example, even if developed countries like USA, UK, Europe are all realising the yearly costs (Billions of dollars of taxpayer money) that has to be payed by government organisations, local authorities, state and city governments etc on proprietary vendor software.
* For example, in USA alone ,there are thousands of government organisations (cities and towns alone) who are using GIS for their operations. If a proprietary vendor is charging say $15,000 + per year for their service for one organisation (using the City of Westminster as an example and assuming the vendor does not increase their yearly charges) , what is the costs for the organisation for the next 5 years, 10 years, 25 years?
* Now calculate the costs nationally per year (say a conservative estimate for 5000 cities, towns and various government departments using GIS in USA alone ), then calculate the total costs for 5, 10, 25 years etc.
You can easily see the Billions of dollars of taxpayer money that has to be spend for paying proprietary GIS vendor (which should have used for improving education, healthcare etc).
For a developing country like India, we cannot even think about wasting billions of rupees of taxpayers money on paying some proprietary GIS vendor! (there are thousands of people who don't even have proper food and shelter). Please also see related discussions at http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-June/001724.html
I do not know anything about school education situation in Gujarat that you have mentioned but please see the mail i send on open principles in Education successfully used in Kerala government schools at http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-June/014405.html
The IT at Schools initiative is over 10 years old now and is one of the largest simultaneous deployment of Free and Open Source Software based ICT education ( ( in over 12,000 schools benefiting 200,000 teachers and 6 million students ) that has transformed access to quality education to even students from the poorest backgrounds. This is a good example of scalability of education opportunities with very little resources using Open Principles. Details at https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php
There needs to be programs for training and empowering school teachers , for any education initiative to be successful. The example i gave of IT @ Schools initiative in the state of Kerala in India, the reason, it is successful (it is still evolving and developing and there is long way to go) is that there was strong teacher training component and support from all stakeholders (Parents, Teachers and Students).
Government Schools in India (esp. in rural areas) are really struggling and initiatives like IT at School are a small hope that things can change and students from poor backgrounds also will have some better opportunities. I have seen this transformation slowly taking place at least in Kerala.
There is still a long way to go and in some schools it is very basic facilities ( 3 or 4 computers connected to the internet for the whole school) but the change in the students academic level is amazing. These students who used to have no access to any library or any other good learning facilities are now able to access excellent educational resources ( wikipedia etc for their learning). That made me convinced on the importance of Openness in Education and i decided that i will do everything in my abilities to keep the doors of education opportunities open to all.
These students and many like them worldwide are for their first time in their life are seeing some chance to escape the vicious cycle of poverty through getting quality education . Education is a long term investment and we will only see the impact of initiatives like these after many many years (at least 20 years) and once it happens it is transformational change to help people escape the cycle of poverty . The cost of hardware will keep coming down and internet access (even in developing and poor countries) is increasing but one of the biggest hurdles for giving access to good quality education is the high cost of proprietary software . This is especially important for scalability when we want to reach thousands of schools to benefit millions of students globally who still do not have access to quality education opportunities.
I am speaking as father of a five year old son and like me every parent wants their children to get better opportunities. Even if someone is from the poorest of backgrounds, they want their sons and daughters to have good quality education and better future. Technology is a big enabler for poor students to also have quality education opportunities. I am very happy to see other excellent initiatives in "Geo for All" that our colleagues have done from South America (gvSIG Batovi in Uruguay) to Poland (GIS at Schools) and i am sure over time it will all help in our small way to help spread more education opportunities for all.
Best wishes,
Suchith
________________________________________
From: Ravi Kumar [manarajahmundry2015 at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 6:49 AM
To: Suchith Anand
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org; discuss at lists.osgeo.org; msolem at aag.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of having Open Principles in Education for our future generations
The developing world including India battles a scourge 'P I R A C Y'.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/it-services/Nehru-Place-A-beehive-for-software-piracy/articleshow/11349126.cms
Unless this affliction to society is cured, Open Source Software will have very slow growth.
While I teach Open GIS, I am flooded with questions like, 'Where is the employment prospect'. (Their answer) 'Learn the popular GIS and the Students will find a sure job'..
With Govt of India pitching for Open Source, is to be added with a vigorous 'Anti-Piracy Policy'.. Call it 'Zero Tolerance'. While at FOSS4G India 2015 Dehradun, a speaker from Gujarat narrated a story of how schools were supplied with computers with no other Operating System but an Ubuntu DVD. Schools, are in a state that they are not even aware of 'The Existance of OS, and it's need'. They just shifted to the popular OS, and it is an easy guess HOW.
So when it comes to countries like India (and other developing countries), education of Open-GIS, has to include merits of FOSS, and FOSSGIS.
The most popular proprietary GIS in India, is available every where, with what is known as a 'CRACK', to open. There are hardly any legal cases that can be searched on the WEB.
Ravi
On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 3:39 AM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:
Colleagues,
It was just by coincidence while i was working on getting data for a research paper on "How to quantify the economic impact of Open Source Geospatial software " that i came across Randal Hale's email's on the difficulties faced by one high school in the USA for Proprietary software updates [1]. It was a clear wake up call on the consequences of Proprietary GIS agenda for schools and education. It was then i decided to send an Open request to AAG [2]and humbly request AAG to specifically include Open Education principles firmly in the new Advanced Placement course in Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T).
But on 22nd June 2015 when i read Dave Murray's (GIS Coordinator, City of Westminster, USA ) reply email on this ,i realised that this is a much wider problem and we need to make all colleagues globally aware of the dangers of falling into some Proprietary vendor's very clever marketing trap. Dave has kindly given me permission to share his email with the wider geo community so the wider community is aware of these kind of marketing gimmicks and vendor lock-in tactics. It will help others realise the costs of being silent as it is affecting not just government departments such as City of Westminister in USA and hundreds of other organisations worldwide but our future generations education opportunities. I am determined to do my best to make sure education is not at the dictates of any vendor.
Dave and City of Westminster, USA are just one of thousands who fall in the marketing gimmicks of various proprietary vendor's trap. Unfortunately many are very scared even to discuss this in public.
In fact, the questions i asked AAG is also valid for all other educational initiatives worldwide to avoid them falling into these kind of marketing strategies of some Proprietary GIS vendors. I request all governments, universities in their education policy worldwide to look into the following important criteria :
* What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing free services/software for the long term?
* If the Proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of thousands of students? Can anyone give us any guarantee.?
* If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or 10 years time? Will it be the schools who have to pay or the government will give them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
* If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program ?
* What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?
I really hope these thousands of schools and teachers (affecting hundreds of thousands of students) will not fall into this proprietary vendor's marketing trap and be at the mercy of vendor dictates later (in just 3-5 year's time) . Randal Hale's email has been eye opener for all and i decided to do my best so these schools do not have to suffer when they change their conditions later and the schools are unable or forced to pay these ridiculous costs later (as Dave's organisation City of Westminister have realised later).
It is a wider education problem that as educators we need to be aware of. It will really be a missed opportunity for a generation and we should not allow that (esp as we now know the background marketing gimmicks and vendor lock-in tactics and experiences from those affected previously). The schools should be investing precious resources on other important things (getting more teachers, investing in more teaching and learning facilities etc) NOT being forced to pay to some Proprietary GIS vendors for access to their software in the future.
Please don't be fooled by any 1 Billion or 10 or 100 Billion dollar blah ...blah... "software donation" clever marketing from any properitery GIS vendor! Also organisations like AAG has a difficult dilemma on will they support Open Principles in Education or will they knowingly lead hundreds of thousands of schools to Proprietary vendor's trap because of strong sponsorship pressure. .If a particular proprietary GIS vendor wants their software to be the ONLY one to used for any education program that is not real education but just a software training program designed to building their user base and agenda in the name of widening geoeducation. I am hopeful AAG and others in similar situation worldwide will choose the right path which is in the interests of educators and students in the long term.
Education means empowerment of educators and students and that is very important to keep in mind. That is why it is important to have open discussions and debates on this (some of my emails on this issue are not even allowed discussion in some mail lists for fear of upsetting sponsor) .
I am clear that as Educators we have to keep focus on Open Principles in education. For us, who are supporting Open Principles in Education , we do not have the money or power as the vendors, so it is educators like you all who have to make sure the right choices are made as it affects hundreds of thousands of students not only today but our future generations also.
The aim of "Geo for All" is to develop on a global basis collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations for enabling open education opportunities for all by empowering academics and universities worldwide by using Open Principles in Geo Education . What is the point of teaching GIS to students and taking away the tools from them after the course and telling them that now you need to buy these expensive Proprietary software licenses if you want to continue using them after their course (which is what some proprietary GIS vendors would like!)
The key message from all this is there are now many Open alternatives available for educators to make use of as per their needs. The focus of Geo education should be on the Science and understanding of the geospatial concepts and principles NOT on any particular software only. Open Principles are key for enabling this . Open Principles in Geoeducation will ensure that our future generations are not at the mercy and dictates of any proprietary GIS vendor.
Let me make this very clear, we are not interested in any proprietary GIS vs open debates BUT it is very important that we keep our eyes open on any developments that undermine Open Principles in education and make sure that is corrected . Other wise it will have long term implications. That is exactly why we had to take action when we realised that there was efforts to undermine Open Standards in LiDAR [3]. Any direct or indirect efforts for creation of monopolies is not good for the wider economy or consumers and it is essential that there is always healthy competition.
I have been advised by some colleagues to ignore this development as there will be consequences as the proprietary GIS vendor is very powerful and influential and opposing thier wrong actions and policies are not "adviceable". But i had to take action on this key geoeducation initiative as it is the future of thousands of schools and our future generations and we just cannot afford to close our eyes and be silent.
I strongly believe access of good quality education is everyone's birthright and now we are for first time in history getting opportunity to make this possible. We will not accept putting artificial barriers like high cost Proprietary software which will continue denying quality education opportunities for millions of students globally (both in developed and developing countries).
So why should i care ? Because i learned one of the most important lessons in my life in my childhood from my grandmother (who though did not get the opportunity of "proper education" herself taught me the importance of the values of sharing and about "Vasudeva Kudumbam" which means "We all belong to one large Universal family" and " Geo for All" is for my Universal family and i will do everything in my abilities to make sure education opportunities are open to all. I do not have the money or power to even dream of matching any proprietary vendor but i have God on my side and that is my greatest strength.
Thank you for your support on this important matter. Together we can help enable good quality education opportunities of all our future generations.
Best wishes,
Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org
[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-June/014310.html
[2] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2015/06/open-gis-academics-and-educators-please-apply-to-aag-call-before-june-15th-2015/
[3] http://www.osgeo.org/node/1518
________________________________________
From: Murray, Dave [DMurray at CityofWestminster.us]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 3:43 PM
To: 'Suchith Anand'
Subject: FW: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
Suchith,
We got caught in the proprietary vendor's trap a couple of years ago. Our public works department adopted the vendor's online service. We had a number of business operations running that were critical to our success. Then the vendor told us the service would cost $15,000 + per year to continue. Quite a shock and after we even promoted their service at conferences. After that, I have real questions about what I can believe from them.
Thank you,
Dave Murray, GISP
GIS Coordinator
City of Westminster
4800 W 92nd Ave
Westminster, CO 80031
(303) 658-2140
dmurray at cityofwestminster.us<mailto:dmurray at cityofwestminster.us>
Hours: M-Th 7:00am -6:00pm
-----Original Message-----
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Suchith Anand
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 5:07 AM
To: Michael Solem
Cc: ahlqvist.1 at osu.edu<mailto:ahlqvist.1 at osu.edu>; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
Hi Michael,
I would appreciate if you can provide answers to my main queries below that i also asked Diana (maybe you are in a better position to answer them in your role in AAG)
* What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing free service for the long term?
* If the proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of thousands of students? Can AAG or anyone give us any guarantee.?
* If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or 10 years time? Will it be the schools who have to pay or will AAG give them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
* If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program ?
* What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?
Thanks to Anthony for the info. on the source of learning objectives in GIS&T is the Geospatial Technology Competency Model http://www.careeronestop.org/competencymodel/competency-models/geospatial-technology.aspx
If i understand correctly, the set of training materials in Creative Commons licence that GeoAcademy colleagues have already developed (and running a very successful MOOC program) that includes these five GIS courses are based on the Geospatial Technology Competency Model. Phillip and others can provide you more details if needed.
GST 101 Introduction to Geospatial Technology Using QGIS 2.8
GST 102 Spatial Analysis Using QGIS 2.8
GST 103 Data Acquisition & Management Using QGIS 2.8
GST 104 Cartography Using QGIS 2.8
GST 105 Remote Sensing Using QGIS 2.8 & GRASS 7.0
All the course materials are available at https://github.com/FOSS4GAcademy
As i informed you before, these will be a great platform for AAG to make use of for new AP course in GIS&T and use as the "Train the Trainer" program for this course. Teachers can not only make use of the Open Educational materials but more importantly they can get the Free and Open Source Geospatial Software for their needs.
Sterling Quinn course on Open Web Mapping is also really good pointer https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog585/ (Thank you Anthony).
The aim of "Geo for All" is to empower academics and universities worldwide by using Free and Open Source GIS for education. What is the point of teaching GIS to students and taking away the tools from them after the course and telling them that now you need to buy these expensive proprietary software licenses if you want to continue using them after their course (which is what the proprietary GIS vendors would like!)
The key message from all this is there are many Open alternatives now available for educators to make use of as per their needs. The focus of Geo education should be on the Science and understanding of the geospatial concepts and principles NOT on any particular software only. Open Principles are key for enabling this.
Thank you for your kind understanding.
Best wishes,
Suchith
________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Suchith Anand [Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:41 PM
To: Diana Sinton; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>; tucker at mapstory.org<mailto:tucker at mapstory.org>
Cc: Michael Solem; Ola Ahlqvist
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
Hi Diana,
Thank you for sharing your inputs. We want to make sure this AP course is successful in its intent and hence from the beginning making sure that steps are taken so that the students have meaningful learning experience each and every year (in the long term). Hence it is important to think about the long term implications as there is "a heavy technology component" for this AP and the cost/sustainability implications of relying on any particular proprietary vendor ONLY.
Your reference to AP in Computer Science (which has a similar substantial technology component) and why and how Java became the choice ( inspite of many other options ) is very important factor for AAG to look into carefully and make sure they do learn lessons from this . The vision and farsightedness of AP in Computer Science colleagues in choosing Java (over other options) in making sure there is GNU General Public License and cross-platform criteria in the choice of AP Computer Science course is important to note for the planned AP in GIS &T also as this is very key for the cost/sustainability and long term implications as well empowering educators so that they are not at the mercy of any vendor alone due to any changed conditions later.
I understand from Dr. Christopher K Tucker (Chairman of the Board of Trustees, The MapStory Foundation) that when MapStory [3] is relaunched later in June, it will be an openly licensed data commons, an Open Educational Resource, that is OGC compliant, built on open source geo . It is intended explicitly for students to be able to organize and share what they know about the world spatially and temporally. And, in the redesign, they will open up distributed versioned editing of change over time, so that students can collaborate on data collection projects, and then tell their own stories with this data. This is exactly the kind of spatial learning platform we need for expanding geoeducation for schools and empowering educators and also help design, implement, and analyze solutions to problems that have a geographic or spatial component.
We will be in discussions with Map Story Foundation and other learned societies like The American Geographical Society (AGS) and we will do our best to support this excellent initiative for Open Principles in Education. I hope AAG will keep other learned societies like AGS in the loop and involve them and initiatives like MapStory in this AP in GIS&T initiative.
Also for info, I have not yet got a clear answer or guarantee from anyone to my basic question i asked
* What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing free service for the long term?
* If the proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other conditions in say 5 years time what will happen to these hundreds of thousands of students? Can AAG or anyone give us any guarantee.?
* If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 years time? Will it be the schools who have to pay or will AAG give them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
* If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program ?
* What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?
It is important that AAG really ought to discuss full details about this before any software choice is made.
Vendors can change their mind any time and the poor schools ,teachers and students will be left on thier own. Either they have to pay and buy (maybe they will get some discount) but the fact of the matter is academics , teachers and students are at the mercy of the vendor. If the properitory vendor decides to change the costs or terms, the schools and students will suffer.
I clearly highlighted this problem when i recieved info. from one list member (Randal Hale, USA ) informing of proprietary GIS software update problems faced by a high school in USA [1] and that example was a real eye opener of the long term costs/sustainability issues of properitory GIS software in geoeducation and hence i decided to take action and contact AAG on this. In fact, i would think there are many more schools in the same situvation which we dont even know of.
Education means empowerment of educators and students and that is very important to keep in mind. That is why it is important to have open discussions and debates on this. I hope AAG will not attempt to do any decisions under closed doors with any proprietary GIS vendor (because of sponsor pressure etc) as it not good for educators and students interest in the long term .If a particular proprietary GIS vendor wants their software to be the ONLY one to used for this program that is not real education but just a software training program designed to building their user base and agenda in the name of widening geoeducation.
I am clear that as Educators we have to keep focus on Open Principles in education. For us, who are supporting Open Principles in Education , we do not have the money or power as the vendors, so it is educators like you all who have to make sure the right choices are made as it affects hundreds of thousands of students.
Let me make this very clear, we are not interested in any proprietary GIS vs open debates BUT it is very important that we keep our eyes open on any developments that undermine Open Principles in education and make sure that is corrected . Other wise it will have long term implications. That is exactly why we had to take action when we realized that there was efforts to undermine Open Standards in LiDAR [2].
I have been advised by some colleagues to ignore this development as there will be consequences as the proprietary GIS vendor is very powerful and influential and opposing thier wrong actions and policies are not "adviceable". But i had to take action on this key geoeducation initiative as it is the future of thousands of schools and we just cannot afford to close our eyes and be silent.
I believe this new AP course in GIS&T is a huge opportunity not only for expanding geoeducation opportunities for students across USA but also providing professional development for teachers and empowering them. We will strongly support this excellent initiative.
Best wishes,
Suchith
[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-June/014310.html
[2] http://www.osgeo.org/node/1518
[3] http://MapStory.org
________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Diana Sinton [dianasinton at ucgis.org<mailto:dianasinton at ucgis.org>]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 6:03 PM
To: 'Anthony Robinson'; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Cc: Ola Ahlqvist; Michael Solem
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
These suggestions, agendas, and realities will somehow eventually blend if this AP course is ever actually launched AND successful in its intent. The desired outcomes are likely shared among GENIP, AAG, and all of these other voices discussing this (that hundreds of thousands of high school students have a positive experience learning how and why mapping, geographical thinking, and spatial analysis, through the use of modern and exciting technologies, can inform and support their knowledge, skills, and abilities to address local, global, societal issues and situations, etc.). But a clear vision for the curriculum and logistics for supporting it are going to be a super challenge, and opportunity.
1) The College Board's system of Advanced Placement courses must necessarily be highly structured and externally validated so that universities will be willing to accept the academic credit that a student may try to transfer, IF the student earns a high enough grade on the exam or other type of course evaluation. Currently, there is much more agreement across higher education in the US about what a student ought to know in "Biology 101" or "Spanish 101" than "GIS&T 101." This is the list of current AP courses that the College Board supports<http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/descriptions/index.html>.
2) The only Geography-related AP class is Human Geography<https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-human-geography/course-details>. First introduced in 2001, it's become very popular and in 2012, over 190,000 students took the test<http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/courses/teachers_corner/220797.html>. The class is often perceived to be an "easy" one, and it's not uncommon for schools to allow or even encourage 9th graders<http://www.ncge.org/aphg> to take it. I couldn't find the stats quickly online, but I believe that many more 9th and 10th graders take it than 12th graders. What will it mean for 9th or 10th graders to be taking GIS 101? How would that affect credit-transfer rates? If many students take the class, and get only a 1 or 2 on the exam, will that still contribute to the overall desired outcome?
3) The only other current AP class that has a substantial technology component is Computer Science (pdf<https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-course-overviews/ap-computer-science-a-course-overview.pdf> of its overview). At some point along their curriculum design process, it was decided that Java would be the programming language of choice, so that's what students use, and schools must be able to provide "at least 3 hrs/week of access to a computer lab for students" to be able to apply what they learn. Who knows why and how Java became the language of choice, but I imagine there were people who promoted others then too. There may be lessons learned available from the experience of those who currently support the Comp Sci AP.
But more importantly, the first stated goal for the Comp Sci AP class is that students "design, implement, and analyze solutions to problems," and use of Java specifically falls much lower on the list. I imagine that's the approach that we hope this new GIS&T course takes, that students "design, implement, and analyze solutions to problems that have a geographic or spatial component." Right?
4) Somehow, there will have to be some kind of hands-on activities that are part of a GIS 101 class. Maintaining a computer lab with machines that support Java scripting is obviously a more trivial matter than ones that can run desktop GIS programs. If you have any experience with computer labs in US high schools, you will know that the individual machine capacity is only one of many issues. Access, permissions, bandwidth, data and project storage, etc., will all become part of the complicated details about how something like this will be handled across thousands of different school districts. Why is one reason why browser-based solutions will be critical if this course has any chance of success.
5) In order for any particular school to offer this course, they will have to identify existing (or new) teachers within their district willing and able to lead it. Ultimately that might mean the need for many, many hundreds of teachers with the confidence and competence to do this. Geography and GIS are very under-taught and under-learned subjects by educators in the US, and the current cohorts of such teachers is not nearly adequate, to put it mildly. How teaching and learning GIS is specifically connected with traditional measures of "spatial ability" is a complicated topic, but meanwhile, one undeniable characteristic of our current population of educators is that they are not, as a group, known for their spatial abilities<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201208/three-reasons-why-schools-neglect-spatial-intelligence>. What are the implications of this for helping build their confidence and competence at teaching about coordinate systems, projec
tions, methods of data overlay and intersections, least cost path routing, deriving slope and aspect from digital elevation models, etc.? These are some of the more "spatial" things involved with many GIS 101 courses.
6) Expecting teachers to have confidence and competence knowing and teaching across multiple GIS applications will be exponentially challenging for them and, frankly, will likely discourage some from taking on this teaching assignment. This will be a *huge* opportunity and need for professional development for teachers.
7) Students take AP classes so that they can get transferrable credit. That's variable by the test score results and the colleges & universities considering the transferring in of that credit, and whether the credit is a general one or for a specific requirement at that university. They are of little use at 2-yr schools<http://www.collegefinder.org/what-colleges-accept-ap-credits/>, and these days, a few selective schools don't take these AP credits at all<http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/education/more-colleges-stop-giving-credit-ap-exams>. So important conversations will have to take place with universities who currently offer "GIS 101" to get a sense of what type of credit they would grant, if any. There will be much scrutiny of the course content and the exam itself by lots of departments. Articulation issues about GIS credits between 2-yr colleges and 4-yr colleges is already challenging, and this will be so too.
Just a few thoughts to keep in mind as the discussions continue. The authoring team will have its work cut out for them with this exciting and worthy opportunity.
Best,
Diana
p.s. I share these perspectives based on my own knowledge: my own 3 teenage & young adult children have collectively taken almost 20 AP classes since 2008; I've been teaching intro GIS to non-geographers for almost 20 years; I have run GIS workshops for middle- and high-school teachers in their own computer labs before; I designed and taught in the University of Redland's Spatial Literacy for Educators<http://www.redlands.edu/academics/school-of-education/10237.aspx#.VX8Bx_lViko> program (currently on hiatus); and I also taught in Elmhurst College's program to provide PD to people teaching AP Human Geog<http://www.elmhurst.edu/admission/school_for_professional_studies/certificate_programs/ap_human_geography>. I am a regular user of both proprietary and FOSS programs, and I trust the authoring team will be taking these kind of issues into account as it makes recommendations for the course design. This email message contains my own thoughts and does not necessarily reflect those of
my employer.
______________________
Diana S. Sinton, Ph.D.
Executive Director, UCGIS
PO Box 612
Ithaca, New York 14851
607.252.6851 (v)
dianasinton at ucgis.org<mailto:dianasinton at ucgis.org><mailto:dianasinton at ucgis.org<mailto:dianasinton at ucgis.org>>
dianasinton at gmail.com<mailto:dianasinton at gmail.com><mailto:dianasinton at gmail.com<mailto:dianasinton at gmail.com>>
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Anthony Robinson
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 11:28 AM
To: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
I'm sure you've seen this stuff before, but for others watching this thread, a lot of ground is already covered by the existing GIS&T body of knowledge, which is currently under revision to provide new foci around web mapping, dealing with big data, etc... The pre-revision BoK is still highly useful for course development, in my opinion: http://www.aag.org/galleries/publications-files/GIST_Body_of_Knowledge.pdf
Here's an interesting network viz of the BoK, too: http://carto.byu.edu/bokviswiki/
Another source of learning objectives in GIS&T is the Geospatial Technology Competency Model, which has also been recently revised (Tiers 4 and 5 are most relevant for this discussion, I think): http://www.careeronestop.org/competencymodel/competency-models/geospatial-technology.aspx
I know Sterling Quinn struggled with this notion when developing his new course for us on Open Web Mapping. We worked hard to try and sort out objectives around learning design patterns while making use of open source tools, anticipating that while the individual tools may change over time, the fundamental need will probably still be there to understand how to use libraries to create web map tiles/vectors, do spatial computing on the server-side, and make the leap from desktop GIS into layers that will work for web mapping.
Cheers,
-Anthony
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>> [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Charles Schweik
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2015 2:09 AM
To: Cameron Shorter
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>>
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to AAG call before June 15th, 2015
+1...
I am starting to develop a web-GIS class with some colleagues and it is my hope that we can separate out conceptual/theoretical from technology-explicit content. It is interesting to try and thing of what the pure learning objectives are in this area. If anyone has ideas on this let me know off-thread...
Perhaps obvious, but the separation of conceptual and tech training examples s is important for OSGeo too, for, for example, there are multiple desktop packages.
Cheers,
Charlie
On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 10:38 PM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com><mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>>> wrote:
On 13/06/2015 1:14 am, Anthony Robinson wrote:
So what I mean is that the
learning objectives should be pure learning objectives. For example:
YES to "Students should be able to explain projections and choose an appropriate one for making a thematic map."
NO to "Students should be able to explain projections and choose an appropriate one for making a thematic map using QGIS (or ArcGIS Online, or whatever)."
+1 to this explanation Anthony.
Once learning objectives have been created, it will make it much easier to develop relevant training courses for specific products, which can reference back to the training objectives.
And if the development of base course material is set up along similar collaborative principles to Open Source development, then the relatively high effort of maintaining training material could be absorbed by the product's community (probably through a combination of developers, users and trainers).
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>, W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com><http://www.lisasoft.com>, F +61 2 9009 5099<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
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http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ica-osgeo-labs
--
Charlie Schweik
Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and Administration
Personal website: http://people.umass.edu/cschweik
Publications: http://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/
Author, Internet Success: A Study of Open Source Software (MIT Press, 2012) - see http://tinyurl.com/d3e4545
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