Reflections on Five Years of Teaching CartographyRobert Roth, UW-Madison Cartography has changed, is changing, and always will be changing. Arguably, cartography's innate state of flux is what makes our profession both unique and valuable: as we engage in the design process, we tinker, adlib, and innovate across a wide array of tools and techniques. Yet, this creative and rapid adaptation does not always translate well to instruction. In this presentation, I discuss my anecdotal experiences over the past five years to restructure the cartography curriculum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in order to adapt to sweeping shifts in conceptual framings, web mapping technologies, and professional expectations. I discuss the pedagogical philosophy guiding the revised curriculum, the reorganization of design concepts and technical skills approached in each course to account for the changing profession, and lessons learned for keeping curriculum malleable as cartography continues to evolve conceptually and technologically. The presentation is pitched to educators, students, and industry leaders.
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Teaching New CartographyRich Donohue, New Maps Plus, University of Kentucky, Department of Geography
Andy Eschbacher, CARTO
New mapping tools and needs continue to converge, producing stunning ways of visualizing data and gaining insights. Both industry and the academy are eager to embrace these emerging trends. Yet the challenge remains how to provide sufficient education and training to a growing population of mappers, as well as how to keep these materials current and useful. This talk explores mapping education from two complementary perspectives. CartoDB stands at the forefront of integrating frontend tools like D3 and Leaflet with backend services supported by PostGIS, enabling a web-based solution to traditional desktop GIS processes. New Maps Plus (U of Kentucky Department of Geography) blends the skills required to harness the web platform with traditional cartographic education.
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From button pushing to problem solving: modern geospatial technology in the classroomLyzi Diamond, MapboxThe world of mapping technology moves fast. Even cartographers in industry have trouble keeping up with the newest trends in geospatial software, libraries, and programming languages. This presents a nontrivial problem for instructors in higher education: students want to be prepared for jobs after college, which means they want to learn the latest and greatest tools. How are teachers supposed to keep up? In this talk, I will present some ideas on how instructors can help students stay on the bleeding edge of geospatial technology without putting in hundreds of extra hours. The talk will factor in perspectives from industry while focusing on the real challenges of working in an academic environment, using real world examples from a university that is overhauling its geospatial technology program this year.
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Cartographic Curiosity: Promoting Interdisciplinary Thinking in General Education through MapsJoy Santee, McKendree UniversityThis presentation reports how introduction of cartography in general education courses can help university students combat limits of subject-specific thinking and embrace complex interdisciplinary critical thought. In an age where students often resist complex thinking in favor of finding answers through a quick search on their phones, introducing them to maps and cartographic practices can prompt social awareness, problem-solving skills, and citizen-engagement. The presentation begins with a brief overview of how the presenter has introduced cartography in general education courses after developing materials during a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar. It continues with vignettes of student engagement with maps and ends with a call for cartographers to make their work visible, particularly their decisions about design and content and the social and institutional contexts that impact map-making, so students can use cartography as a way to identify how they can contribute to making the world a better place.
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