This is great practice and having plenty of time to work on it, make mistakes, correct mistakes, etc... really makes a world of difference in my understanding of the process necessary to complete the project. Practice and lots of it is the key to doing well in this course.

Querying Data, Joining and Relating Tables

Querying data was familiar since I have done this before in other programs. Creating reports likewise. Just need to go over the steps again to feel really comfortable with it in the ERSI software. When I was completing the Bent Creek Map, I was curious to see the trail info more organized so I created reports and queryed the data for the fun of it. I was surprised to see that their were so few hike only trails. The two short hike only trails are connectors and it doesn't make sense why these were designated so. I'll have to check out the trails to see if their is a good reason why. The Bolstad chp. on this really was a hard read. I completed and saved the listing in ex. C, but could not get the doc. to open. Although it shows as I saved it, I could not open to load to Blog.

Chp 9 exercises are great examples of the environmental / natural resource use a GIS. Having the ability to compile info from various sources, relate or join the sources, really drives home one aspect of the useful complexity of the software in analysis of such large regional issues.

On Georeferencing and Heads Up Digitizing

This lab activity wasn't really difficult to understand, just time intensive. I had to restart the project numerous times to get the 1st part right. Nothing like doing something over and over to better understand it. Part 1 needs more attention to get it right. Of course, the data was provided to us in a very useable form. I'd like to take this a step further and learn how the data layers were produced. After doing the project, the readings from ESRI made a whole lot more sense. Tried to access the study questions link, but the link page didn't load - error instead.

The snapping tool really does make a big difference. Much easier, quicker.

ESRI Podcasts

I listened to the ESRI podcasts, but the 1st time through, didn't get much from them. The fellow who is presenting speaks rather fast and I found it a challenge to keep up with the transitions. After I finish Chp. 16, I am going to listen to them again and hopefully I can make a little more sense of the presentations then.

Test Week

The book chapters were very helpful with the review questions. I particularly appreciated having the PP presentations to view and use for test prep. Topology was the topic I needed to focus on the most. Yet still, come test time, I still felt like it was jumbled in my brain. Discussing this topic with our instructor when we reviewed test answers helped clarify a few things about this topic for me. Overall, the amount of time spent preparing for the test proved beneficial.

15 a,b

My first time through with 15b, the new parcel was not positioned in the correct place. I'm not quite sure what happened. So I did it over and the second time it worked. So, two parcels on the map. I attempted to remove the first incorrect parcel but no success. Doing this exercise over numerous times really helped me understand what was happening and why the order. 15a was pretty simple and straight forward.

Chp. 13 and 19 journal notes

Both labs, 13 and 19, were enjoyable. Chp. 19 practice laying out a map and adding features felt familiar due to my work with publishing software. I quickly realized how easy it is to make a map look professional. I am playing with the chp. 19 map to use some of the other features not used in the lab just to see more of this software's amazing ablities. In Chp. 13, and in class on Wed., Feb. 6, exploring all the different projections was really eye opening. With all the options available, and the software's ability to "know the equations forward and backward for hundreds of projections", really drives home the mathematical underpinnings of this software and the vast number of options afforded to a user. I understand why one needs numerous courses just to scratch the surface of potential.

ESRI Presentation Questions

1. What is re projecting on the fly and why is it such a concern?

2. Concerning the x/y domain designations, when speaking of precision, when is this issue most likely to be encountered by me the beginning student?

A couple of the topics in the ESRI presentation I felt required more familiarity with the software to adequately understand it. I will have to view the presentation again toward the end of the class or 121 and see if it fits into my brain's x/y domain at the time.

Regarding Chapter 2 / lab 14

As I look through the modules, I am finding that having the PP presentations available for repeated reviews is really helping me better organize the abundance of information relavent to this course. Some terms seem to be very synonomous with only slight variations in their meaning An example would be a data model's two components - coordinate data, geometry, spatial - non-spatial, attribute data, entities - all referring one to the other. I think I will make concept maps to organize the main terms. I truly want to understand want I am doing, not just point and click stuff. I have tried repeatedly to get the ESRI lecture to run on my C but no luck yet. I did read through the PP slides for the lecture and that did help some.

I ran through the lab ex. for 14 again and it helped immensely to understand what I had completed the first time around. The GIS Fun. chapter reading really helped solidify things also.

I've never had any interest in the blog frenzy, seems a bit of a time waste in general. Using it for class makes more sense. But I will never personally find this activity something I would choose to do over something really productive and healthy such as gardening, hiking, walking my dog, spending time with friends or the like. Such musings must have a very specific reason other than blogging for blogging sake.