Meeting Notes
@prof-dev
In attendance
- Josh Carlson
- Chris Merino
- Britney West
Drop In Tech Help at the Annual Conference
Possible Topics
- Python
- Arcade / Web Maps
- Dashboards
- Experience Builder
- Survey123
- ArcGIS Pro
- QGIS
- Spatial SQL
Depending on the size of the room, topics don’t necessarily need to be one at a time, could have topics in the room.
Tech Helpers
Let’s try to find some “generalists” who can help with different topics. Would be good to have a generalist at any given time, then have other “area experts” who can rotate in.
TO DO: Reach out to known experts, ask if they are willing to be part of the tech support room.
Need information about the room. Will there be a projector? If shared questions arise, could be useful to turn one person’s question into an ad-hoc presentation.
Buttons
I’ve seen at other conferences buttons that say things like “Ask Me About Python”. We could make some nametags or something for tech folks to have on, so it’s clear who’s there to help.
Bonus points if it was something the helper might want to keep, but I don’t know.
Sign-Up Sheet
Rather than having set hours per topic, let’s have a sign-up sheet that our helpers can put themselves on.
Sign up would mirror the agenda. Say an expert wasn’t interested in any topics in a given block, they could come sit in on tech help. Posting the tech help schedule publicly, too, would help members know when someone will be there for a given topic.
What are we offering our members?
Mostly, webinars. But the general sense is there’s a lot of that kind of stuff out there already, having a webinar is losing its draw. We’ll continue doing them, but we should think about different things we can be doing.
Course Catalog
There are TONS of resources online for folks to learn about GIS. (Like the ILGISA MOOC!)
People do seem to like Esri’s training, where they can pick up and complete things as they have time. Some of those offerings are a bit intro-level.
Near-term, let’s get a sort of “index” of different places where people can find virtual courses on GIS. Bonus points if there are little “certificates” for doing it.
Pipe Dream: Moodle?
Moodle is an open-source, self-hostable online learning platform. It would be a TON of work, maybe too much, but what about making our own courses?
Nothing big like “GIS 101”! What about something small, like a “course” about “Using ArcGIS Pro Alignment Tools”. It could be fun to have a hyper-specific microcredential from ILGISA.
Small courses would be quicker and easier to put up, less likely to fall out of date.
How-To Snippets
Short informationals about common tasks, shortcuts, tricks.
Screen recording? GIFs along with text?
Getting a List
I’ll create a new topic specific to this. We can come up with a list of useful things, maybe vote on them, each of us take one?
Workshops
We are tasked with scrounging up some workshops for the conference. Reach out to folks you might know who would be able to give a workshop, approach them directly and just ask.
Basically, same topics as the drop in tech stuff.