Calendar 2013

One learns computer applications not by reading or listening to lectures, but by doing. The course is basically a 600 page walk-you-through-it-tutorial. The thing is, though, YOU have to do the walking through. And what I've found over the years is that the most effective walking through is done under a fairly rigid temporal discipline (under the guidance of the zen master or the drill sergeant, which ever works better for you).

Below is a schedule for completing the exercises in this course. You will not turn in the results of every exercise, but you will be responsible for keeping a log of when you do them (and how many times you do them — repetition is strongly advised). Your grade will depend heavily on your timely completion of exercises.

As mentioned in the syllabus, the best way to approach this stuff is to realize (1) that sheer hours in front of the software is the biggest predictor of success, and (2) that repetitition (see below) and frequency (better many 1-2 hour sessions per week than a few longer ones) are the next best predictors. Thus, just dive in and power through these. Do NOT waste emotional energy memorizing steps or time writing down commands. This is about training mental muscle memory and mouse-clicking memory and getting a sense of how things fit together. You should expect to repeat most of these exercises (and at least parts of all of them) multiple times.

The learning goal is not just to get through the exercises and say you did. It is to learn how to do EVERYTHING contained in them.

You should anticipate spending approximately 2 hours outside of class for each our inside of class. This class meets for 2.5 lecture hours per week and 2 lab hours per week. Correspondingly, there are 5 hours of "lecture homework" and 4 hours of "lab homework" per week. In the syllabus these are all broken up into 30 minute blocks. Lab homework is almost always working through tutorials using GIS software. Total time commitment is expected to be approximately 13.5 hours per week.

Week 1 (1-7 September)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday (H1) (H2) (H3) (LHW1) (LHW2) Lecture Part 1 Lecture Part 2 Lab Hour 1 Lab Hour 2 (LHW3) (LHW4) (H4) (H5) (H6) Lecture Part 1 Lecture Part 2 (H7) (H8) (H9) (H10)

1. Week 0 (29-31 August)
   1. TH1: What is a map?
   2. TH2: What we will learn and how we will learn it
   3. Set up Google docs/site, etc.(H8)
   4. Sign up for Social Explorer account and watch intro video (H9)
   5. (H10) Exercise 1: Make 5 different maps (Oakland, Bay Area, California, the Western US, and entire US) using any data at all.
   6. EVAL: Saturday midnight: 8+9+10=A,
2. Week 1 (1-7 September)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
3. Week 2 (8-14 September)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
4. Week 3 (15-21 September)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
5. Week 4 (22-28 September)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
6. Week 5 (29 September-5 October)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
7. Week 6 (6-12 October)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
8. Week 7 (13-19 October)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
9. Week 8 (20-26 October)
   1. (H1)
   2. (H2)
   3. (H3)
   4. (LHW1)
   5. (LHW2)
   6. C1
   7. C2
   8. LH1
   9. LH2
   10. (LHW3)
   11. (LHW4)
   12. (H4)
   13. (H5)
   14. (H6)
   15. (H7)
   16. C3
   17. C4
   18. (H8)
   19. (H9)
   20. (H10)
10. Week 9 (27 October-2 November)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)
11. Week 10 (3-9 November)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)
12. Week 11 (10-16 November)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)
13. Week 12 (17-23 November)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)
14. Week 13 (24-30 November)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)
15. Week 14 (1-7 December)
    1. (H1)
    2. (H2)
    3. (H3)
    4. (LHW1)
    5. (LHW2)
    6. C1
    7. C2
    8. LH1
    9. LH2
    10. (LHW3)
    11. (LHW4)
    12. (H4)
    13. (H5)
    14. (H6)
    15. (H7)
    16. C3
    17. C4
    18. (H8)
    19. (H9)
    20. (H10)