Group Admins
Description
Many delegates to the Annual Conference will have used Google Maps on mobile devices to help navigate on their journey because maps are a well-known media by which characteristics of real space can be effectively represented. In line with the development of crowd sourcing on the web, maps can now be created by students with low IT skills and this talk discusses those developments.
Creating maps is a core skill for Geologists and Geographers, however, recent developments in web mapping software have simplified cartography to such an extent that other topic areas (e.g. arts, biology, history, architecture, engineering) can use student map making as part of teaching (Newcombe, 2013) including the creation of interactive maps.
Further to this, software has also appeared that enables students to produce:
- Atlas Tours (Monmonier, 1990) that utilise elements of presentations, animations and maps in a web format (Treves and France, submitted)
- Their own VR environments (maps linking to 360 degree photos)
What will you get from the session? Firstly understanding the general benefits of the use of maps in teaching non geo topics will be examined, e.g. Google Lit trips which maps stories from ‘road movie’ literature. Secondly, I will both advocate student produced Atlas Tours as an appropriate activity/assignment for non geo teaching and outline how it can be done technically. Thirdly, I will reflect on the general links that exist between maps and VR in a teaching context.
In support of this the following literature will be synthesized and evaluated:
– Lessons learnt from students producing Atlas tours in two courses in HE (Treves and France, submitted)
– Suggesting how to produce effective Atlas Tours based on empirical evidence (Treves and Bailey, 2012; Treves and Skarlatidou, 2016)
– Exploring the combination of maps and virtual reality both in Atlas tours (Treves and France, submitted) and other formats (e.g. Houghton, Lloyd, Robinson, Gordon and Morgan, 2015.).
References
Houghton, J.J., Lloyd, G.E., Robinson, A., Gordon, C.E. and Morgan, D.J., 2015. The Virtual Worlds Project: geological mapping and field skills. Geology Today, 31(6), pp.227-231.
Monmonier, M., 1990. Strategies for the visualization of geographic time-series data. Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, 27(1), pp.30-45.
Newcombe, N.S., 2013. Seeing Relationships: Using Spatial Thinking to Teach Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies. American Educator, 37(1), p.26.
Treves and Bailey, J.E., 2012. Best practices on how to design Google Earth tours for education. Geological Society of America Special Papers, 492, pp.383-394.
Treves and France, D. Submitted. Atlas Tours: Story MapsTM or Google EarthTM Tours as Geography Assignments.
Treves and Skarlatidou, A., 2017. What path and how fast? The effect of flight time and path on user spatial understanding in map tour animations. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, pp.1-12.
