NACIS 2018

A love letter to cartography.
Presenter: Kenneth Field, Esri / ICA
Dear cartography, I’ve been busy writing love letters to you: a book and a course to educate, and for others to share my passion. I'm going to lift the covers to reveal the process of sharing that love. I’ll tell everyone what you mean to me: my deepest thoughts; the trials and tribulations, and the often fraught relationship I’ve had with you, My feelings are expressed in every page and every map. Please remember how much I love you. I loved you the minute our scribe coat first met. Ken

Re-imagining the Cartography Textbook
Presenter: Brandon Plewe, Brigham Young University
It is clear that Cartography Education is about to change, along with the rest of the University. The rise of online courses and the impending demise of the textbook industry are just two of the trends that we can either resist or lead. In a future cartography course, what role will learning materials play, and how can we rethink the form, content, and business model of textbooks to take advantage of the future landscape to help students learn cartography better?

Creating Space to Create: Teaching technologies you don’t know
Presenter: Ashley Nepp, Macalester College
As a practitioner it is difficult to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of web-mapping platforms, programming languages, and data visualization tools. As an educator, there are even more challenges when teaching new technologies; it can be overwhelming to try to learn them all, or choose which one(s) to use in your course. Macalester College is a small liberal-arts school, where students have vastly different skill and comfort levels with technology, and a strong desire to tailor course projects to their interests. A one-size-fits-all approach often limits the creativity and learning potential of our students.

Making cartography education practical in the GIS&T Body of Knowledge
Presenter: Jeff Howarth, Middlebury College
This presentation describes the Cartography and Education contribution to the GIS&T Body of Knowledge. The main objectives are to outline instructional dilemmas that educators may encounter at different levels of instructional design and to describe different practical strategies for solving these problems. General methods for encouraging active learning in lectures and problem-based learning in labs are also illustrated with examples, including content from the GIS&T Body of Knowledge. The presentation aims to encourage conversations between academics and practitioners about instructional design strategies for teaching cartographic principles through cartographic practice.

Aesthetics and Design in the GIS&T Body of Knowledge
Presenter: Chelsea Nestel, UW - Madison
What is aesthetics? What is design? And how do we "do" them? Teaching students how to develop skills in design and aesthetics is a critical part of cartography education. This talk summarizes the approaches advocated by a spectrum of cartographers in the field to help educators and students structure their opinions on design and aesthetics, as well as to explore the core of our thinking on this topic. The talk will conclude with a series of proposed learning objectives and bibliography on the topic.