Tweet Me Your Talk: Geographical Learning and Knowledge Production 2.0

We are in a Gutenberg moment in which we are migrating from book reading to Internet browsing. We are subtly shifting to more ephemeral, summary methods of learning and producing knowledge, shaped by how we consume information on the Web. Thus, a strong determinant of learning might be the very technology that hosts the information, such that technology is both the arbiter of our understanding of the world and how we come to gain that understanding. Based on recent evidence that the Internet is reshaping our learning processes, I argue that geographical knowledge production and translation are not so much products of individualism but rather shaped by rapidly changing work styles that favor concise and highly accessible methods of academic production. I offer examples of changes in journal formats, academic social networking, and academic reviewing to reveal that we are catering to shorter attention spans that prefer to browse.     

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.     

Restructuring of Australian higher education: information technology in geography teaching and learning

Australian higher education has experienced substantial change since the early 1980s, with a transition to mass higher education, closer alignment to national political objectives, increasing Federal Government control, a growing emphasis on ‘quality’ and ‘value for money’, and organisational restructuring with manifestations ranging from the creation of the Unified National System to the merger or closure of individual departments. At the same time, evolving conceptions of learning and new patterns of demand, with growing emphasis on lifelong learning and flexible access to education, pose new challenges for educators. Now, the policies of the new Federal Coalition Government are likely to engender further change, with growing differentiation of universities a probable outcome. Information technology has so far played a relatively peripheral role in teaching and learning in higher education, but important changes there, including rapid shifts in the relationship between cost and computing power, and the explosive emergence of the World Wide Web, are now providing the basis on which information technology can become increasingly central to teaching and learning. Higher education is close to the limits of incremental adjustment to pressures for change and it seems likely that it will experience major restructuring, with its eventual reconstruction around the capabilities of information technology. Geography has already been much affected by restructuring pressures, including above‐average growth in teaching loads and threats to its disciplinary identity because of internal reorganisation of many universities. Despite a tradition of innovative, high‐quality teaching, geography has not generally been a leader in the development and application of information technology. Nevertheless, a case study of an experimental use of the World Wide Web provides an example of directions that teaching and learning in the discipline might take.     

The Politically Incorrect Mutual Fund: A Web-based Activity Focusing on Transnational and the Environment

Abstract

Geographers are challenged to find tools to enhance students' appreciation of the environmental implications of the development process. This paper discusses a novel method of engaging students in the analysis of the environmental impacts of transnational corporations (TNCs) by having them create a “politically incorrect mutual fund.” The goal is for students to determine whether it is financially rewarding to invest in the stocks of TNCs with poor environmental records in developing countries compared to the returns possible from other types of investments, including socially responsible mutual funds. The project involves intensive student use of the World Wide Web, including creation of their own Web sites.     

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.     

The Value and Development of Irrigation in Louisiana Purchase Tract

Abstract

This issue brings to a close my 10 years as editor of the Journal ofGeography. It has been ajob that, with very few exceptions, I have enjoyed. Many of my colleagues have offered me sympathy for what they perceive must be the huge workload and responsibility associated with editing ajournal. Depending on one's preferences and abilities, however, many aspects of the editor's job are rewarding. Forgive me for beginning with a few personal observations about the last 10 years.     

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.     

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.     

中国主要自然致灾因子的区域分异

依据１０２种自然致灾因子分布图，以县域为统计单元，建立了全国自然致灾因子数据库。在此基础上，绘制出中国自然致灾因子多度、相对强度、被灾指数图，进而分析了它们的区域分异，为进行中国自然灾害区划提供依据。     

Internet与我国旅游业

旅游业在Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ上开展商务活动,将引起传统运作模式的重大变革。我国地域辽阔,旅游资源丰富,利用这些独特的资源在Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ上建立优质的面向世界的旅游业网站,并走联合经营之路,将为我在的发展和我国经济的腾飞做出重大贡献。     

Confidence and Trust in Public Institution Natural Hazards Management: Case Studies in Urban and Rural China

This research aims to investigate the extent to which urban and rural residents trust grassroots-level institutions and how this might affect community resilience to environmental change in China. It focuses on the commitments of institutional actors and their capacities to manage natural hazards and coordinate the community's response. Semistructured interviews were conducted with megacity (Tianjin) and remote village (Wolong) residents in China. We found that public confidence in grassroots-level institutions is limited due to inherent constraints on resources and power. Residents of Wolong tend to recognize the commitment and role of those institutions in connecting individuals with one another, whereas their urban counterparts in Tianjin remain skeptical. Issues of solidarity might account for this difference. These findings will have implications for state–society cooperation and disaster risk comanagement in both urban and rural China.     

中国自然灾害的区域组合规律

中国自然灾害多种多样，按直接致灾因子划分为２０个基本自然灾害类型，其中旱灾、洪灾、涝灾、地震灾、滑坡和泥石流灾为主要基本自然灾害类型。宏观地貌格局及其引起的自然环境的分异对大多数自然灾害类型的区域分异有决定性影响。自然灾害的区域组合规律反映在自然灾害地域差异上。本文根据地学区划的一般原则，以及孕灾大环境与自然灾害类型宏观区域组合，将中国划分为东部委风平原山地重度灾害大区、西北干旱高中山盆地中度灾害     

自然地理学研究前沿

自然地理学的研究前沿是在学科发展和社会需求的共同驱动下形成的.对资源环境问题的全球性关注和我国可持续发展面临的重大问题对自然地理学提出了一系列需求.国际地圈生物圈计划、全球环境变化人文因素计划、世界气候研究计划、生物多样性计划以及地球系统科学联盟中的许多领域包含着自然地理学的研究前沿,我国国家重点基础研究发展计划、国家自然科学基金委员会地球科学部优先发展领域、科技支撑计划等也提出了一系列自然地理学的研究前沿.若干自然地理学的新方法和技术已被应用于数据采集、模型模拟、实验室分析、自然地理过程研究、环境变化研究、全球自然地理学研究.本文概括了所有这些前沿领域和论题.     

Tree-Ring Analysis And Natural Hazard Chronologies: Minimum Sample Sizes And Index Values*

Tree-ring dating is employed to reconstruct chronologies of occurrence for a variety of natural hazards. The number of trees sampled varies greatly as does the minimum number of tree-ring responses. The number of trees to be sampled and an acceptable tree-ring response index should be dictated by the nature and geographical extent of the specific hazard under study. Repetitive sampling of different numbers of 30 avalanche-damaged trees showed significant differences in number of tree-ring responses over a 55-year-period. More sampling and use of a higher minimum response index allowed greater confidence in the chronology constructed from tree-rings and compared to historical records. Three geographic scales of analysis that can confound tree-ring responses are identified, and three guidelines for choosing sample size, given variations in processes, are suggested.     

The Victorian Bushfires of 2002–03 and the Politics of Blame: a Discourse Analysis

This paper identifies contrasting environmental discourses on bushfire from the public debate that followed the Victorian fires of 2002–03. Submissions to the inquiry into the 2002–03 Victorian bushfires provide a particularly rich source of documentation. It is argued that environmental events such as bushfire only become political issues, or problems, when they are constituted as such through environmental discourse. Through the analysis, three contrasting discourses on bushfire are identified—here labelled the ‘conservationist’, ‘ruralist’ and ‘wise use’ discourses. In examining how different ‘constructions’ of bushfire have led to conflict, each discourse is shown to consist of a range of actors who draw on shared storylines. Having established a better understanding of the different attitudes, beliefs, interests and values that underpin debates about bushfire, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the prospects for compromise among the discourses and the potential for improved land and fire management outcomes.     

Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Tornado Path Direction*

Common perception is that tornadoes travel in paths from the southwest quadrant of directions toward the northeast. This study examines path directions for 6,194 tornadoes that occurred in the eastern two‐thirds of the United States during the twenty‐three‐year period 1980–2002. At the national scale, nearly 70 percent of tornadoes included in the study propagated from the west, west‐southwest, and southwest, with west‐southwest being the highest frequency origin direction. Nevertheless, distinct seasonal and regional variations were found. In central and northern areas of the country, a more westerly or northwesterly path origin prevails during late spring and summer. The midtropospheric flow, convective typology, and synoptic patterns of tornado outbreaks are thought to contribute to the distributions observed in the climatology.     

Community resilience,natural hazards,and climate change: Is the present a prologue to the future?

ABSTRACT

The nexus of natural hazards, climate change, and community resilience poses both conceptual and methodological challenges. One key consideration is the underlying notion of dynamic change or transformation in the systems that affect community resilience—social systems, natural systems, technological systems—and the degree to which the interdependencies influence who is resilient, to what, where, and to whom. The article examines community resilience from the broad perspective of affluent societies and illustrates the considerable variability in both the temporal and spatial nature of community resilience to natural hazards in the short term, and climate changes in the longer term, especially in more affluent societies. The author finds that, given the rapidity of environmental, social, economic, political, technological, and cultural changes, present circumstances and remedies may not be adequate predictors or precursors of future conditions. She concludes that the challenges associated with community resilience, natural hazards, and climate change require transformational thinking and action if achievements are to be made in terms of significant disaster risk reduction and any semblance of a sustainable future when extreme weather events will be the norm, not the exception.     

Coping with the 1996 Tornado in Tangail,Bangladesh: An Analysis of Field Data

On May 13, 1996, a disastrous tornado hit the Tangail district of Bangladesh, killing more than 700 people and causing extensive damage to homes, crops, and livestock. This paper explores and analyzes how tornado victims adjusted to this destruction. Data collected from two study sites show that victims received emergency assistance from people both in neighboring areas and from more distant areas, as well as from government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). At both sites, NGOs played the leading role in minimizing the hardships of victims through extraordinary disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts. Because of the extensive support received, the tornado victims were able to return to their “normal” lives very quickly. This study concludes with several recommendations to help cope with future tornado disasters.     

Coping with the 1996 Tornado in Tangail,Bangladesh: An Analysis of Field Data

On May 13, 1996, a disastrous tornado hit the Tangail district of Bangladesh, killing more than 700 people and causing extensive damage to homes, crops, and livestock. This paper explores and analyzes how tornado victims adjusted to this destruction. Data collected from two study sites show that victims received emergency assistance from people both in neighboring areas and from more distant areas, as well as from government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). At both sites, NGOs played the leading role in minimizing the hardships of victims through extraordinary disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts. Because of the extensive support received, the tornado victims were able to return to their “normal” lives very quickly. This study concludes with several recommendations to help cope with future tornado disasters.