A Scoring Guide for Assessing Issues-based Geographic Inquiry on the World Wide Web

Abstract

Inquiry-based learning has a long tradition in geography education, and many faculty members are using inquiry to tap the constructivist potential of the World Wide Web. This paper reports on the development of a scoring guide that assesses the degree to which teaching materials support issues-based geographic inquiry. The scoring guide was tested in a content analysis of geographers⁷ Web-based teaching materials. The results of the preliminary analysis suggest that relatively few geography teaching materials on the Web bear the characteristics of inquiry. Additional research is needed to determine whether teaching materials on the Web are facilitating a shift toward constructivist practice in the discipline.     

Using the World Wide Web in Undergraduate Geographic Education: Potentials and Pitfalls

Abstract

The World Wide Web is being increasingly utilized in geographic education. Conceptualizations of how the Web should be used in education tend to vary, reflecting a number of different goals. This article discusses the benefits of incorporating the Web into undergraduate geography courses and benefits it may confer on higher education. It highlights potential uses of the Web and discusses claims that Web-based education may lead to a paradigm shift in higher education. A number of questions about the efficacy of Web-based teaching, the desirability of an educational paradigm shift, its cost-effectiveness, and the role of corporations in sponsoring Web-based education are considered. Future prospects for Web-based geographic education are discussed.     

Curricular Changes in the Teaching of Geography in Swiss Upper Secondary Schools: An Attempt to Develop Skills for Lifelong Learning

Abstract

This article is an overview of the curriculum reform in Switzerland in the 1990s. It describes the grass-roots reform process in geography education in upper secondary schools and its impact on the development of new teaching materials. These ancillary materials are based on teaching methods and strategies, the effectiveness of which are empirically shown by results. The teaching units complement the thematic and methodological aims in the national curriculum and the federal regulations and were designed through a partnership of teachers, teacher educators and scientists. They can be translated directly into the practice of teaching and are available free to teachers through the World Wide Web.     

《世界地理》教学中应用Webquest模式的实践与思考

Webquest是一个以探究为取向的学习活动。在高校《世界地理》教学中应用Webquest有利于丰富教学资源、及时更新教学内容,有利于培养学生综合分析区域地理问题的能力。教师可与传统的课堂教学相结合．采取多种途径灵活运用Webquest,提高学生使用信息分析问题、解决问题的能力。     

Mentoring Early Career Faculty in Geography: Issues and Strategies*

Early career geography faculty in colleges and universities in the United States are positioned at the leading edge of a challenging period of change in higher education. Demands brought on by new technologies, new administrative and research pressures, and an increasingly competitive campus climate, may make it difficult to balance teaching, research, and service while also trying to maintain a personal life. This article argues that many geographers could benefit from the support of mentoring. Using ideas generated by participants in the Association of American Geographers' recent project, the Geography Faculty Development Alliance, I provide both pragmatic and personal suggestions for establishing these all‐important mentoring relationships to help cope with the pressures facing early career faculty.     

POLITICS AND MEDIA RICHNESS IN WORLD WIDE WEB REPRESENTATIONS OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

ABSTRACT. Media-richness theory is applied to World Wide Web sites to demonstrate how Web-page designers are using hypertext markup language to shape conceptions of place and to provide competing visions of the events that have transpired in the former Yugoslavia. We argue that Web sites vary in their interactivity, strategically, to reduce equivocality surrounding conceptions of space and territory. Media-richness theory as applied here allows the development of a heuristic to understand how Web pages communicate information about geographical entities and help to shape perceptions of place.     

Learning to do geography? University students posing questions in GIS laboratory exercises

In many higher education curricula, pre-structured step-by-step laboratory exercises in introductory courses in geographical information systems (GIS) are an important part of the training of future geographers. The reasons for this approach to teaching GIS are manifold, such as large numbers of students, off-the-shelf desktop software that is often complex, technical challenges, and scarce faculty resources. Often the reasons are well agreed upon by members of a university faculty and among the students. Research in other fields has shown that the use of a controlled manual for laboratory work often provides low learning potentials. However, not much empirical research has dealt with this issue within a GIS learning environment. Inspired by research on the value of student-generated questions within science education, the authors take a closer look at the type of student-generated questions and their relation to students' self-image of their learning approach in two pre-structured GIS laboratory settings at two Danish universities. They conclude that the vast majority of student-generated questions are of a basic information type and independent of the students' self-image of their learning approach. Further, it is found that wonderment questions, i.e. questions that are reflective in nature and show students the process towards acquiring extended geographical knowledge and software proficiency, are rarely asked.     

全球性汉语热的区域反应－近年来印尼华文的教育

二战后，印尼曾经兴旺发达的华文教育事业于1960年代中期被禁止。中断了32年的华文教育使印尼严重缺乏汉语人才。1990年代逐渐兴起的全球性的“汉语热”推动了印尼华文教学的发展。本文从政治、经济、文化诸因素分析近年来印尼华文教育、教学的变革，并指出目前的华文教学热潮对印尼华人族群争取保持自己文化的合法权益、对促进印尼经济与文化建设以及中印（尼）两国关系的发展，都有着特别重要而深远的意义。     

高师《世界地理》教学内容与方法探索

高师《世界地理》教学需要教师有效实施探究式教学策略,扮演课程学习的组织者、引导者和合作者的角色,以期达到调动学生在学习过程中的积极性、主动性和研究性的目的。本文基于曾必修《肚界地理》的高师地理科学（师范）专业的本科在学、硕士研究生、中学地理教师的访谈与问卷调查,探索以学生为主体的教学改革,对近年来《世界地理》教学效果进行总体评价,廓清现今教学内容与方法面临的主要问题,并尝试提出优化调整方案,以提高《世界地理》教学效果。     

中美高校地理学专业课程设置特点比较及启示

如何优化课程结构一直是我国高校地理科学专业不断探索的问题。本文通过比较美国近十所重点大学和我国5所大学地理专业本科生的课程体系,总结了美国大学地理学专业课程设置具有方向划分相对自由、区域地理和乡土地理特色突出、紧密结合全球变化和突出人文关怀、强调地理技术类课程和重视实践、门数繁多且授课灵活多样等特点。以此为鉴,提出我国高校地理科学课程体系改革和人才培养的若干建议。     

Putting the census on the web: lessons from two case studies

Summary This paper addresses the digital dissemination of geographically referenced census information in the UK. A number of important weaknesses in the 1991 model of data access are identified, and the possibility of future access to census information via the World Wide Web is then addressed in detail. Two case studies demonstrate the potential to overcome some fundamental weaknesses in earlier access models, including the provision of integrated data and metadata, graphical interfaces to geographical datasets, and an integrated interface and analysis environment.     

基于GIS的铁路地质灾害信息管理与预警预报系统

地质灾害对我国铁路建设及其正常运营所带来的负面影响日益显著,利用GIS技术对铁路地质灾害进行有效的管理与控制是减少灾害损失的一条重要途径。针对铁路地质灾害信息管理中数据的标准化、可视化、信息化和网络化的发展与要求,基于GIS技术构建的铁路地质灾害信息管理与预警预报系统实现了铁路地质灾害多源海量数据的统一存储与管理,集铁路灾害信息“数据采集-查询检索-预警预报-Web发布”功能于一体,具有较好的智能化与自动化能力。本文介绍了该系统的总体架构和功能特征,并详细讨论了系统实现中的三个关键问题:铁路地质灾害多源海量数据的采集与存储;铁路地质灾害分析评价与预警预报模型与GIS技术的耦合;铁路地质灾害信息Web发布系统的设计。该系统的最终实现及运行将对我国铁路部门减灾防灾产生重要的积极作用。     

How much information is geospatially referenced? Networks and cognition

The aim of this article is to provide a basis in evidence for (or against) the much-quoted assertion that 80% of all information is geospatially referenced. For this purpose, two approaches are presented that are intended to capture the portion of geospatially referenced information in user-generated content: a network approach and a cognitive approach. In the network approach, the German Wikipedia is used as a research corpus. It is considered a network with the articles being nodes and the links being edges. The Network Degree of Geospatial Reference (NDGR) is introduced as an indicator to measure the network approach. We define NDGR as the shortest path between any Wikipedia article and the closest article within the network that is labeled with coordinates in its headline. An analysis of the German Wikipedia employing this approach shows that 78% of all articles have a coordinate themselves or are directly linked to at least one article that has geospatial coordinates. The cognitive approach is manifested by the categories of geospatial reference (CGR): direct, indirect, and non-geospatial reference. These are categories that may be distinguished and applied by humans. An empirical study including 380 participants was conducted. The results of both approaches are synthesized with the aim to (1) examine correlations between NDGR and the human conceptualization of geospatial reference and (2) to separate geospatial from non-geospatial information. From the results of this synthesis, it can be concluded that 56–59% of the articles within Wikipedia can be considered to be directly or indirectly geospatially referenced. The article thus describes a method to check the validity of the ‘80%-assertion’ for information corpora that can be modeled using graphs (e.g., the World Wide Web, the Semantic Web, and Wikipedia). For the corpus investigated here (Wikipedia), the ‘80%-assertion’ cannot be confirmed, but would need to be reformulated as a ‘60%-assertion’.     

Promoting Lifelong Professional Development in Geography Education: International Perspectives on Developing the Scholarship of Teaching in Higher Education in the Twenty‐First Century*

Whereas the global march towards the professional development of geography teachers in schools was, perhaps, the major achievement in geography education of the twentieth century, promoting the professional development of faculty teaching geography in higher education is one of the major challenges that faces us in geography education for the twenty‐first century. What little educational development is currently provided for faculty teaching in universities is largely generic. There is a need for a disciplinary specific component in educational development, both for the initial training of faculty and for their continuing professional development. This article explores how the professional development of faculty is related to the international debate about developing the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. It reviews some recent initiatives, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom, and examines the role of national associations and international networks in supporting faculty teaching geography in higher education. Some of the challenges involved in professionalizing teaching geography in higher education are discussed. The article ends with some suggestions for promoting lifelong professional development in geography in higher education nationally and internationally.     

Observational Work for Children

Abstract

Geographic information systems (GIS) are computer-based tools for geographic data analysis and spatial visualization. They have become one of the information and communications technologies for education at all levels. This article reviews the current status of GIS in schools, analyzes the requirements of a GIS-based learning environment from constructivist perspectives, and discusses the major issues in the design of a constructivist GIS-based learning environment based on experience from the development of World Explorer, a GIS-based learning environment that provides a theme-oriented data and information base, supports multiple representations and multiple linkages of information, and facilitates interactive learning and knowledge construction.     

国外教育地理研究回顾与借鉴

教育地理研究作为地理学和教育学的交叉研究出现于20世纪中叶,早期教育地理研究主要是借助地理学的视角和工具解决教育的空间问题,包括教育规划、教育土地利用、学校选择以及与居住地相关的教育机会和结果差异等;1990年代以来的教育地理研究注重从社会空间的角度来解析教育,关注教育与社会、经济、政治和文化等的内在联系,并建立起了以尺度为框架的研究体系。在最初的研究中,教育空间被当作既定的客观空间;1990年代以来,受社会科学空间转向的影响,教育空间被看成是与经济、社会、文化、政治等相互塑造的空间。当前,教育地理研究已经建立起了知识体系和研究框架,研究尺度包括微观(学习者、学习空间、学校与社区等)、中观(区域、国家等)和宏观(国际)的空间尺度研究,教育地理的研究范围得到扩展。国内教育地理研究可以从不同尺度上加强空间的研究以及空间之间的联系讨论,扩展非正式教育这一广阔的领域,加强教育公平的社会空间解释。     

Critical GIS pedagogies beyond ‘Week 10: Ethics’

Over two decades after the scholarly interventions that coalesced into ‘critical GIS’ as a field within GIScience, critical GIS remains underdeveloped in conversations on teaching and learning. The literature on GIScience education has emphasized content more than pedagogies – what to teach versus how to teach to move students toward particular learning objectives. This emphasis is reflected in dominant curricular approaches to critical GIS, in which questions around the complicated origins and complicit social, political, and economic relationships of GIS are taken up as discrete topics, tacked onto instruction that otherwise prioritizes technical dimensions of GIScience. We argue that GIScience coursework must resist such modularization by approaching critical GIS not as a set of topics, but an orientation to GIS praxis that ‘does’ GIS from within a questioning stance, to ask how we know. We outline specific curricular shifts and teaching practices we have used to foster this orientation in GIS students, offering ways of continually engaging students in practicing this orientation as they learn strong technical GIScience content. Finally, we trace the successes, challenges, and tensions sparked by these critical GIS pedagogies, drawing on student evaluation comments from our courses and reflecting on broader implications for GIScience instructors and geography faculty.     

全球化背景下的《世界地理》教育教学改革探索

《世界地理》是一门从自然和人文相结合的角度认识世界的区域科学,是地理学科的重要组成部分。随着全球化的持续发展、当代地理学科发展呈现新趋势及我国素质教育改革的不断深入,我国高校《世界地理》教育教学面临着严峻的挑战。因此,《世界地理》课程必须从教学思想、教学目标、教学计划、教材体系、教学手段和教学评价等方面进行全方位的改革,才能摆脱目前严重滞后于时代和学科发展的困境,以走上健康发展之路。     

Asian Labor Recruitment and the World Wide Web

International labor migration is produced and patterned through the activities of government and private institutions, such as labor recruiters and government officials. Recently, labor recruitment agencies have utilized the World Wide Web as a means of facilitating the procurement of foreign employment contracts. The purpose of this research is to examine the institutional usage of the Web as a means to facilitate the global flow of labor. Based on a qualitative assessment of 27 recruitment-related Web sites, I suggest that Web-based recruitment reinforces global patterns of gendered, racial, and occupational segregation. Moreover, Web-based recruitment offers the potential for revolutionizing patterns and processes of international labor migration.