In previous posts, we've followed the development of a new instructor-led training course that supports ArcGIS Mobile users. The first post in this series mentioned the Blog Cabin TV show. On Blog Cabin, a team of home improvement experts comes together and builds a house from the ground up. At the end, some lucky viewer gets the keys to the new house.

In the case of Authoring and Serving ArcGIS Mobile Projects, a team of education experts came together to design and build the course from scratch. After months of hard work, the team is now at the point of wrapping up and handing off the course—to the Educational Services instructors who will teach it and to the ESRI software users who come to class. If we were actually building a house, this would be the time for the final walk-through, or, as they say on reality TV shows, "the reveal."

So let's take a virtual walk through the course.

The Vision

The beginning of a course development project is called the envisioning phase because the team's task is to set a vision that will lay the foundation for all the work ahead. In this phase, the team created the course mission statement, target audience, learning objectives, and outline.

Series flashback:

• Mission statement: Design and build out-of-the-box ArcGIS Mobile enterprise solutions to support the field collection of real-time geographic data.
• Target audience: GIS analysts or others with a similar set of knowledge and skills.
• Learning objectives focus on applying a best-practices workflow to create an out-of-the-box ArcGIS Mobile project.
• The course outline (blueprint, if you will) directly supports the learning objectives. In each lesson, students learn how to do individual steps in the recommended workflow. At the end of the course, they've completed the workflow and created a realistic mobile GIS project.

Deliverables and the Moment of Truth 

With blueprint in hand, the team set out to bring their vision to life. Storyboarding, writing, reviewing, testing, presenting—and what seemed like a meeting schedule that stretched out to the horizon—all culminated in the project deliverables: lectures, exercises, data, and demonstrations are the required collateral for an instructor-led course.

Throughout the project, "change" was a theme and kept things interesting. As author Kris dryly commented, "There were twists and turns along the way." 

A few weeks ago, we held the prototype class in the Redlands learning center. The students were a mix of ESRI employees—a few technical experts on ArcGIS Mobile and some with no ArcGIS Mobile experience at all. The feedback was that the class works well, great news (and a big relief) to the project team. Students especially liked the exercises, so teaching how to incrementally build an out-of-the-box ArcGIS Mobile project from start to finish turned out to be the right decision.

And Now...The Future

The hard work is over, and the team will soon be moving on to other projects. It's fitting that this is the time of year for graduations and commencements. As with a commencement ceremony, the end of a project typically creates mixed feelings in the people involved. There's relief that the work is done and an eagerness to tackle something else. There's also a tinge of sadness that the group's close collaboration is over. That meeting schedule is now just a memory. Kris summed up her feelings:

And course advocate Ben said, "It should be a really solid class." Ben is teaching the first public class next month. If you're going to that class, be sure to tell Ben if you think the team's hard work paid off.

Producer's note: And so dear readers, this blog series is also coming to an end. No worries, we'll be back with a new lineup next season, er, week.