Monday, August 8, 2016

Getting out and about with spatial technologies - from Victoria


Image above: The Spatial Technologies and Fieldwork from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA).

Related links to Spatialworlds
GeogSplace (a teaching blog for Year 12 geography)
Geogaction (geography professional learning blog)
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
manning@chariot.net.au







This really useful spatial technology and fieldwork resource is the product of a 2015 VCAA pilot project that trialed evidence-based practice of digital learning through the use of personal mobile devices and spatial technologies. Teachers and students from two Victorian schools, Werribee Secondary College and Bayside P-12 College participated in the pilot.

The site contains an application guide, and cases studies on Levels 7-8 Landforms and Landscapes and Levels 9-10 Geographies of Interconnections.




The case studies show how students used their personal mobile devices in the field with free apps utilising global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers, to collect their fieldwork data. This became the basis for post-fieldwork analysis tasks using cloud-based data sharing and mapping using a basic Geographic Information System (GIS).

Thanks to Stephen Matthews for this information - a great Australian based resource Stephen, congratulations.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Citing cities


Image above: Viewing urbanisation over time.

Related links to Spatialworlds
GeogSplace (a teaching blog for Year 12 geography)
Geogaction (geography professional learning blog)
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
manning@chariot.net.au


The rise and fall of great world cities: 5,700 years of urbanisation – mapped

Recent research, published in the journal Scientific Nature Data, transcribed and geocoded nearly 6,000 years (from 3700BC to AD2000) of human population data. The report provides a gargantuan resource for scholars hoping to better understand how and why cities rise and fall – and allowed blogger Max Galka to map the changes on his site Metrocosm.

Over the years the Guardian has produced some great resources on cities for us to learn about and consider. Go to The Story of Cities, a 51-part history of urbanisation from Baghdad to Beijing, Dubai to Dadaab