Lab Section Guide
Instructors:
Professor Tim Nyerges
Smith Hall
402
206.543.5296
e-mail: nyerges@u.washington.edu
Alex Wagner, Teaching Assistant
Office hours: location and time to be announced
Yanning Wei, Teaching Assistant
Office hours: location and time to be announced
Computer Lab Policy
The Smith 401 Sherman Lab is divided into two seating areas. One area is called the “window-side” and the other is the “printer-side”, with an aisle separating the two. All students attending a course section are to sit on the window-side of the room when in lab section. The printer-side of the room is for drop-in use.
The lab section enrollment is based upon the number of workstations on the window-side of the room. Learning proceeds better with fewer distractions. When a lab section is in session, only students in that section will be permitted on the window-side of the room. All other students should move before the section starts to the drop-in (printer-side) area.
Students in the drop-in area should not talk when a lab section is in session. If students must talk then they should use workstations in the Smith 411 Commons Area or the Smith 415C Collaboratory area, as these were set up for those purposes. Should students not abide by these guidelines, an instructor has the authority to ask a student to leave the lab.
The instructors would like to make the Geography learning experience as effective as possible, and we thank you for your cooperation in helping us do that. Please do not hesitate to ask Prof. Tim Nyerges if you have any questions about this policy.
No food or drink is allowed in the Sherman Lab (or the COLLAB or at the machines in The Commons). Cell phones must be turned off in the computer labs. Please keep the areas around your workstation clear so your TA can walk between the rows of computers and other students can move around the Lab. Students are expected to work patiently and quietly in the lab.
You have been provided a printing quota to print out materials for this class. You are asked to help control printing costs by not printing unnecessarily. Use Print Preview as much as possible to review your work before printing. Do not print out Web pages unless absolutely necessary and check your files to be sure you aren’t printing widow blank pages with your documents (common problem is an extra paragraph return or page break at the end of a document that forces a blank page). One easy work-around is to highlight and copy material from the website and paste it into Word.
Lab
Performance Expectations
The emphasis in the lab sections for this class is on
each student taking his/her own responsibility for
learning. Your responsibilities
include:
·
making sure that
you have finished the lab that is due for the day prior to coming to your lab
section;
·
a willingness to
use all resources available, including the handouts, user guides and
computerized help – not just the TA;
·
and most importantly, curiosity and interest in the
labs.
This class will be a great deal of work, and will
require additional hours in the lab outside of your scheduled section meeting
times.
The lab component of this course is meant to give you
an opportunity to practice using GIS concepts through applied assignments. It
provides an opportunity to construct a deeper understanding of the ideas presented
in lecture and demonstrates how the fundamental concepts of GIS are implemented
in a software programs (in this case ArcGIS). The lab assignments provide a
chance for you to think about how these concepts can be applied. The long-term goal of the lab experience is
to help you construct a framework for applying GIS in other contexts outside of
this class.
To facilitate this experience, the lab component is organized as a realistic social and technical experience.