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IDRISI chosen by National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education for its GIS Initiative Clark Labs is proud to announce that the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) has selected IDRISI for use in its programs that target the effective integration of GIS across the liberal arts curriculum. NITLE, courtesy of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was established in 2001 to promote the use of technology in liberal arts institutions via three regional technology centers:
NITLE is the culmination of nearly ten years of support by the Mellon Foundation for projects involving technology implementation. NITLE's constituent colleges have identified GIS as a priority area for the next phase of collaborative regional and national development of technology-enabled curricula. NITLE envisions both regional and national GIS programming, targeting faculty, technologists, librarians and students at various levels of expertise, beginning with the two introductory GIS workshops hosted last summer by the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College. IDRISI was one of several software packages featured at these workshops on "GIS Across the Curriculum," geared towards individuals with little or no GIS experience. Instructor Bob Churchill explained that IDRISI allowed him to emphasize conceptual frameworks and problem solving in his teaching, not just "button pushing." He also introduced capabilities not found in other software packages, such as the unique decision support tools and extensive image processing capabilities. Through a combination of lectures and labs, participants in "GIS Across the Curriculum" gained an understanding of basic map and GIS concepts as well as software-specific procedures. They were also introduced to the breadth of analysis that is possible with such technology, including statistics and modeling. Attendees ranged from librarians to professors of art and sociology to those involved in the field of environmental science. The Associated Colleges of the South Technology Center will be hosting a similar session in January 2003. For more information about NITLE's implementation of GIS technology, visit http://www.nitle.org. For further information, please contact the Clark Labs, Worcester, MA. Tel: 508-793-7526. |
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