EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY, SHIFTING EXPECTATIONS Cultivating pedagogy for a rapidly changing GIS landscape Jim Thatcher & Britta Ricker University of Washington - Tacoma
Talk Outline • The circumstances • Master’s in Geospatial Technologies; CyberGIS Fellowship • The problem • What GIS education has been • What it’s becoming • Our solution (one amongst many) • A CyberGIS informed pedagogical framework
UWT Master’s of Science • Geospatial Technologies • Not GIS • A wider purview, but also a less defined • Specifically South Sound Serving • Urban Serving
What the heck is CyberGIS? • CyberGIS is the application of GIS to CyberInfrastructure • Cyberinfrastructure: • Computational power • Data storage and repositories • Instruments and tools of analysis • CyberGIS integrates: • Spatial analysis and modelling • GISystems • GIScientific approaches • CyberInfrastructure (Wang & Armstrong, 2009; Wang et al., 2013)
CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER! • CyberGIS is the CyberApplication of CyberGIS to CyberInfrastructure • Cyberinfrastructure: • CyberComputational Cyberpower • CyberData storage and Cyberrepositories • CyberInstruments and tools of CyberAnalysis • CyberGIS integrates: • CyberSpatial analysis and CyberModelling • CyberGISystems • GIScientific CyberApproaches • CyberInfrastructure Words matter Skilled in steering or governing
GIS Education • GIS is something one does • A purported gateway to a secure, middle- income lifestyle • Learn GIS, work for the city, become an analyst, etc.
GIS Education – what it’s becoming… • Technologies constantly evolving • Job space changing • Constant pressure on teaching tools vs. concepts • What concepts for what tools? • What tools for what concepts? • Teaching GISystems vs. teaching about GIScience
GIS Education – at UWT • These changes play out unevenly across space • Opportunities available in some areas, not the case in others • Constant tension between: Where the job market will be in 5 to 10 years vs. The need for a job now • “Open-source is great and all, but I need to know ArcServer.”
The Merry-go-round of GIS • Constructivist approach to pedagogy • Built on existing (GIS) skills • Attentive to existing (spatial) interests • Highly interactive • Able to ‘jump on’ at any point • Build from existing technologies • To emergent ones • Through core concepts
The Merry-go-round of GIS • Reflective of student goals: • Position inside the academy = concepts and research • Position in traditional GIS = traditional tools • Position in wider geospatial industry = open-source, open-data • CyberGIS framework helps bridge these divides
Our Curriculum by numbers… • GIS Concepts • Formal training required for every student • Tool training • Formal training varies by student goals • Informal training occurs through professional development, etc.
So… what does it all mean? • GIS is changing, but you already knew that. • GIS education must change as well, but you knew that too. • Different students will have different goals and different opportunities • The uneven development of spatial data and spatial analysis matters • A precarious balance amongst GIScience, GIS as job, and what spatial jobs will and are becoming • CyberGIS can help • On the one hand, CYBER! as questionable framing • On the other, focus on high-end, distributing computing recognized by national agencies • Constructivist pedagogy and the Merry-Go-Round of GIS
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