[GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS-user] Basic GIS course ideas

[M S]

so glad to see GRASS/QGIS Iopen source GIS) being taught!  keep up the good
work gentlemen!

On 10/6/06, Michael Barton <michael.barton at asu.edu> wrote:
>
> I regularly teach a course in spatial technologies for anthropology grad
> students. I have to start with an assumption that people know no GIS and
> go
> from there. But I also want the students to be able to use GIS and related
> tools in their research, not just to be able to push buttons and make
> maps.
> This is consistently difficult, of course.
>
> Beginning in 2004, I started to use GRASS in the course. I did both GRASS
> and ESRI (both ArcView and ArcGIS in that year) as the software I
> discussed.
> This was overly complicated and I probably will not include ArcGIS next
> time.
>
> In 2005, I did a similar course at the U. Valencia (Spain) with only
> GRASS.
> This past spring, I co-taught a remote sensing course that included GRASS
> (along with other software) as recommended tools. (The PDF's are available
> on my website and can be used by anyone who wants to).
>
> The one biggest issue in using GRASS has been that most students use MS
> Windows and GRASS was difficult to install for them--and consistently had
> Windows related problems of access and permissions. This has been
> magnified
> in a lab setting.
>
> GRASS works great for teaching fundamental GIS and image processing
> concepts--if you can get it to run on your Windows machine. I also
> strongly
> recommend QGIS for beginners. However, it is more limited for teaching GIS
> research concepts--especially on Windows where (at least until recently)
> the
> GRASS plugins were either unavailable or complicated to install.
>
> The new Windows native GRASS will make a HUGE difference in this. One of
> my
> doctoral students just did a 2 afternoon workshop for other grad students
> on
> GRASS and GIS. Huidae Cho and Glynn Clements did the new WinGRASS just in
> time and deserve a tremendous thanks. Although it is still an alpha
> version,
> 90+% works which is enough to teach with. Everyone used it in the
> workshop.
>
> I've looked at QGIS 0.8 and it is very nice. With the continuing work, it
> should also be an excellent teaching tool. When I next teach spatial
> technologies in a year, I will be using 100% GRASS and QGIS. Students can
> walk away from the course with full-featured software that they can use
> for
> the rest of their careers--and possibly contribute to improving. This is
> wonderful.
>
> Michael
> __________________________________________
> Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
> School of Human Evolution & Social Change
> Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
> Arizona State University
>
> phone: 480-965-6213
> fax: 480-965-7671
> www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
>
>
> > From: Benjamin Ducke <benjamin.ducke at ufg.uni-kiel.de>
> > Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 10:41:53 +0200
> > To: GRASS devel <grass-dev at grass.itc.it>
> > Subject: [GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS-user] Basic GIS course ideas
> >
> > Hi Maning,
> >
> > I taught a combination of QGIS and GRASS a little while ago
> > and I think it went alright.
> > About one third of my students had no idea about GIS at all
> > and one third had GRASS GIS skills.
> >
> > So I started by demonstrating some basic mapping, GIS file
> > format issues, projections, georeferencing etc. using QGIS.
> >
> >  From there, it was easy to start the GRASS plugin and introduce
> > students step-by-step to the underlying power of GRASS GIS.
> >
> > The transition was quite smooth, as many tricky GRASS concepts
> > (like the region) have direct visual feedback in QGIS via the
> > plugin and things like data import and export from/to the GRASS
> > database get quite a lot easier using the GRASS toolbox.
> >
> > I would recommend using GRASS GIS 6.2 and QGIS compiled natively
> > for Windows (there are some instructions by Radim Blazek
> > somewhere on the Wiki site).
> >
> > For 3D-visualization, I used ParaView and that worked well, too.
> >
> > For an extended course including things like point patten analysis,
> > you could also add R.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Benjamin
> >
> >
> > maning sambale wrote:
> >> 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
> >>
> >
> > --
> > Benjamin Ducke, M.A.
> > Archäoinformatik
> > (Archaeoinformation Science)
> > Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
> > (Inst. of Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology)
> > Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
> > Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6
> > D 24098 Kiel
> > Germany
> >
> > Tel.: ++49 (0)431 880-3378 / -3379
> > Fax : ++49 (0)431 880-7300
> > www.uni-kiel.de/ufg
> >
> >
>
>
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