ALMS final hours

ALMS course comes to an end. It has been quite a journey, and not the way I thought it would be. I was planning to get the four credits from ALMS, but due to many other courses I had to change my plans and do the two credits instead.

The most important lessons I feel I have learned in Kenneth’s academic writing and presentation courses. In academic writing we had plenty of homework and we wrote an academic text ourselves. In presentation class I prepared a presentation about studying geography and different fields of study in geography. I got good feedback and useful tips on how I should improve my presentation skills for next time. The presentation was about 15 to 20 minutes long and I had to practise reading it aloud for many times.

Here are the hours that I have not marked on the blog:

BBC news 2 hours

TED talks 2 hours

Espresso tales= 30 min + 30 min= 1 hour

I was planning to read an entire novel. I read the first couple of chapters, but I feel like the book was not for me. I am more of a holiday reader. I read so much in University that I feel like I don’t have the motivation for it in my “free time”.

 

Film: What just happened without subtitles 2 hours

https://areena.yle.fi/1-3908881

A comedy with black humour. Ton of great actors including Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn and Bruce Willis.

Planet earth: the complete collection with English subtitles 3 hours

-seasonal forests

-great plains

-shallow seas

-ungles

 

Kate Humble: Living With Nomads without subtitles 1 hour

A documentary about nomads and their lifestyle. In this episode Kate Humble travelled in Nepal and studied the nomad people’s habits.

 

In total=44

Interpolating surfaces, a course supportive reading in English

I have a course in this period about geoinformatics. We have some course supportive reading in English that is non mandatory to pass the course or to get the required credits. I decided to get familiar with the English terms and vocabulary of geoinformatics.

Geoinformatics studyes spatial information using the geographic information system (GIS). Spatial information is basically information that has location connected to it. For example, Google Maps, Instagram, Facebook and other social media channels all contain spatial information. Google maps shows us a way to quickly get from point A to point B, and Instagram let our followers know where we had been the moment when the photo was taken. Facebook can advertise us content based on our current location.

I read the article “Interpolating Surfaces in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst”, written by Colin Childs (2004). Interpolation is a way of visualising and analysing spatial data. Spatial data can be points, lines or areas. Data can be vector based or raster based. Interpolation is a tool that can predict what information is around a spatial data point. For example, most of large weather forecasts are made with interpolation. No one can measure the exact temperature everywhere in Finland, but with interpolation one can guess what value the surrounding areas contain.

Interpolation is never completely accurate, and there are plenty of different ways to do interpolation. Spatial autocorrelation is an important aspect to know before analysing the data any further. Spatial autocorrelation defines whether the data and values have any connection or correlation between them. For example, values that are close to each other are usually more similar than values that are far away.

 

When choosing the appropriate method, the user must know what is the best way of interpolation for the user’s data. Some interpolation methods are local like the TIN and IDW methods, and others are global like, for example, the trend surface. Local means that only the nearby values affect a point’s value, and global means that by changing one value, the others are also affected.

Here are a couple of maps I have made using interpolation.

 

Hours: 30+3=33

Presentation skills, What is geography?

 

I made a presentation about geography and what it is like to study geography. The presentation was about 15 to 20 minutes. I got some great feedback from Kenneth on how I could improve my presentation skills etc. Here are a few screenshots from my slides, because the original file was too large for this blog.

 

Hours= 15+8+7= 30