The goal of this lab is to teach the new ArcGIS interface to people who took GIS I using ArcView 3.X. ArcGIS is very different than ArcView 3.X and if you do not have some familiarity with the new software then you will not be able to do the analytical exercises during this term.
Log onto the ESRI Virtual Campus at http://campus.esri.com/ . Set up a new user account by clicking "Create a Global Account" and then follow the instructions. After you have set up a new account log onto it and click the "Catalog" tab. Then click "Free Training." Find and click the "Migrating from ArcView GIS 3.x to ArcView 8" course and click "Try It Now." Then click on "My Courses" and you will see that the new course has been added. Click on the course title to start the course. Courses on the Virtual Campus are divided into learning modules, which include written material and exercises. Each module takes a couple of hours to do if you do the entire thing. The modules for this course include: (1) Basics of ArcView 8, (2) Displaying Data in ArcView 8, (3) Working with Spatial Data in ArcView 8, (4) Working with Attributes in ArcView 8, (5) Querying your Database in ArcView 8, and (6) Presenting Data in ArcView 8. Read all of them and do the tutorial exercises as necessary to learn how to use the software. Some people learn better by just playing with the software so if you do not want to go through each of the exercises then that is fine. Just make sure that you can display data, manipulate spatial and attribute databases, query databases, and make maps in ArcGIS.
* Note that our labs have the newest ArcGIS, which is version 9. The GUI of ArcGIS 9 is a little different from that of ArcGIS 8. However, the procedures of the basic tasks described in this training module are quite similar in ArcGIS 8 and 9.