Thursday, January 28, 2016

GIS3015 - Cartographic Skills - Student Spotlight

Instructor: Mrs. Penelope Bishop Mitchell

Module 2: Introduction to CartoGraphic Design with Adobe Illustrator

Lab Overview: Module 2’s lab assignment reinforced introductory map design concepts learned in the previous week by allowing students to draft their first map of the class.  The assignment involved creating a basic map of Florida for a children’s encyclopedia.  However, the difficulty of the task  was related to learning and using graphic design software Adobe Illustrator to leverage the map content generated by ArcMap to create a publishable quality end product.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Create and export a map from ArcGIS  
  • Examine the basic Ai tools  
  • Utilize Ai Help Features  
  • Add/change basic map elements in Ai  
  • Utilize script to improve Ai functionality  
  • Demonstrate competency in Ai  
  • Summarize and present lab activities and outcomes

And the First 2017 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARD goes to...

Melissa Thrush! Melissa nailed this assignment with her effective map design and attention to detail, thus showing proficiency with graphic design software Adobe Illustrator.  
Melissa is a new student in the Certificate program. She is currently in her first two courses. Melissa effectively ran the provided script in Ai to replace all ArcMap generated city symbols.  She also used the drop shadow tool on the state of Florida so the mapped content would pop out of the page.  She correctly displayed Florida’s surface water with intuitive color choices and ensured clear and correct legend presentation. The map frame line and background color do a great job complimenting map content and map space is effectively utilized within the frameline with map element placement and size.  Lastly, Melissa ensured quick and easy data acquisition with her user friendly scale bar.  Well done Melissa!! Keep up the good work! 

Follow Melissa's progress at her student blog: http://melissathrush.blogspot.com/


Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The 2016 Certificate cohort is where it's at!

This is the second week of the semester and we hope our students are settling in to their course work. Next week starts our "Student Spotlight" series where we will highlight a student from one of our courses for their hard work and awesome GIS ninja skills. 

Until then, we have chosen to celebrate our new students with this cool Infographic that demonstrates some cool facts about the newest additions to our program. 


Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Welcome to Spring 2016!

The journey for our 2016 cohort begins now!
We encourage peer-to-peer interactions in as many ways as possible. Blogs are just one way GIS Online supports a strongly student-centered learning environment. Blogging promotes learning, professional networking and portfolio building.

Since our courses are 100% online we lack a laboratory setting where students can peek over shoulders and ask each other questions, student blogs allow an informal avenue to view other's work, ask questions, share ideas and provide feedback to their peers.

The Program blog is used to share useful resources, tips, and most importantly, to showcase students' work, innovation, and achievements.

Find the latest student work from our courses this semester including: GIS4043 Geographic Information Systems, GIS3015 Cartographic Skills, and GIS4944/5945 GIS Internship. Instructors from these courses will choose students to showcase or spotlight here on the GIS Program blog based on stellar work throughout the semester.

Online GIS staff also point potential employers (for regular and internship positions) and prospective students to the program blog on a regular basis.

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the blog to our students and program as a whole.

Cheers to a new year and the start of a new journey in GIS!