The Wild Wild West

As I write this blog entry, I am sitting in row 12B of flight 1209 American Airlines to Redlands, California.  It’s been a total whirlwind since my last blog post, which I must apologize…I’ve been pretty lax with keeping this updated.  However, that will change this week, due to a special visit to the Esri Campus for the next few days.

In a nutshell, EAST at Sonora Elementary has surged in the last 6 months with amazing opportunities and wonderful connections through worldwide clients.  I’m actually still very much in disbelief with how amazing things have been in and outside of the classroom the last few months.

If you would like a detailed look at our recent journey, please read Dr. Regina Stewman’s latest blog post listed as Sonora Elementary EAST Heading West!  As our principal and friend of our program, she presents a very thorough description of our program’s recent success.  It’s been an amazing ride.

Link - Sonora Elementary EAST Heading West

After checking out Dr. Stewman’s post, I hope you tag along for the rest of this blog entry.  The reason for the trip to California is that two of our students, Rikki and Kylie, will be presenting live to an international audience of over 15,000 GIS users about three of the projects we have worked on this year.  Myself, Dr. Stewman, the girls, Peyton Stewman, and Rikki’s Mom, Tracy, are heading to Redlands to work with the Esri staff to enhance our GIS maps a bit and fine tune a presentation that will be given on Monday July 14th in San Diego, California.  Much of the content that the girls will be presenting on is well above my head, but I’m excited to get the opportunity to introduce the girls and let them own the show.

Esri User Conference is a worldwide Global Informational Systems conference that Esri hosts each year in San Diego.  Over 30,000 users across the globe tune in to the conference to hear keynote speakers talk about recent trends in technology, observe educational opportunities that occur across the world, and even get a chance to witness the latest and greatest software that Esri plans to roll out in the calendar year.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking…what can two 9 year olds present at a professional technology conference that would be worth listening to?  I invite you to watch the following YouTube video.  It is a longer video we created to share some GIS info we received back in late April - its a tutorial how to share layers in ArcMAP.  It is nearly 20 minutes, so you may want to skip ahead a bit to where the girls are walking through their exporting process...I want you to watch how the girls interact with the software and explain how proficiently they understand the tool that they are using.  Like I said, outside of adding a layer or two or changing a basemap, I’m lost with what they are doing.  Both girls have about 8 months experience with the software and are fearless with trying new things and learning new concepts.  Check it out…

Sonora EAST YouTube Video - How to share/export ArcMap layers to ArcGIS Online



We’re just scratching the surface with what the girls have planned for their presentation.  We’re honored to be invited to attend this amazing convention and we’re very thankful that Esri approached us with this opportunity.  Charlie Fitzpatrick, Lead Esri Educational Manager, has been an amazing and enthusiastic friend of all EAST programs looking to expand their horizons with GIS opportunities.  Without him, we wouldn't be here.

The User Conference can be viewed live here, which our presentation will also be available to view anytime from the Esri website (so if we screw up...we'll be cemented in time as screw ups...forever.  Ha!)    I think the coolest thing about this presentation is that Jack Dangermond and Esri have pledged $1,000,000,000 nationally to any and all K-12 school interested in adding Esri software to their classroom.  This was recently reported by President of the United States, Barack Obama, in a recent Connect-Ed address about 2 months ago.  We hope that our presentation will not only impress, but inspire GIS pros, classroom teachers and students to give kids with GIS a try.  For every GIS student graduating college this year, two well-paying jobs are available.  Esri hopes to surge the GIS interest with young people and watch the industry grow exponentially more with our youth.

Stay tuned for more blogs, vlogs and posts from Esri Campus in the following days.

Cya soon!

Josh