Practicum 1 Journal 5 - November 27, 2013 - Continuing with the Map Making

This is going to take a while. Working on maps can be fun and all, but trying to get 8 maps transferred into Microsoft Word with different maps can be a little tough. I like reading maps, especially with a compass and some fellow Scouts working on trying to find a point for a race. I am not (along with most people) able to sit down for several hours and work, I have to get up and do some other work every so often.

Luckily between 2 of the front desk clerks I am kept busy whenever I needed to get out of my chair. 

Practicum 1 Journal 4 - November 26, 2013 - Map Making

So today I didn't get to work on ArcGIS, I got to work in Microsoft Word. Yesterday I was working on GIS getting used to it and getting to know the program but today I was working on adding arrows and boxes to a couple of large TIFF exports of ArcGIS.

One person in the office was a little behind with her reports (from what I understand) and waits till the last moments then asks the person that normally does the maps for his part of her report. It wasn't very hard, it is just going to be quite tedious.

Practicum 1 Journal 3 - November 25, 2013 - Learning to map

So today I got to try something that is similar to Google Maps. It is called ArcGIS. Cities such as Vancouver have been using it for a while now and have set it up with all of the crazy expensive addons. The one I was using is technically the minimal version that they had purchased, but they have been integrating it with almost every system they have, and if it isn't hooked up to it, it is probably in the works. It is really cool, I was even able to look at where the fibre lines were laid under the streets connecting the city buildings together. So we will see what they are wanting me to do tomorrow.

Practicum 1 Journal # - December 5, 2013 - Practicum 1 - Trailer Park Boys?

So today I started the second part of my first practicum where I went from being at my little corner office into being in a trailer with 4 other people, definitely a change. So now I have a desk as well, and a small laptop (bigger than a netbook) that I am doing my work on for them.

I am going through our city's website and helping to make it W3C compliant because there is one person on our city's council that is blind, and the person that is the head of the IT department for the city would like everyone to be able to use the website.