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Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority Spatial Technology Resources

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.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

A perfect place to explore place

Image above: An advert for a new store that highlighted that a space is only a space until it turns into a place! By the way the new shopping area was to be called 'Rundle Place'.

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

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it
Just real interesting Scoop.it

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:

manning@chariot.net.au

“Our relationships with places are as necessary, varied, and sometimes perhaps just as unpleasant as our relationships with other people.”
Place and Placelessness, TedRelph 1976

This posting is dedicated to the blog, called 'Placeness, Place and Placelessness'.
It is the blog of Ted Relph in which he explores the concept of place, sense of place, spirit of place, placemaking, placelessness and non-place, and almost everything to do with place and places. Ted started the blog in 2015 and has put together some fascinating postings that reinforces and challenges our understanding of the concept of place. There are numerous Spatialworlds posting on the concept of Place but I was very excited when I came across Ted's blog because it takes the concept to the next level and beyond a simpleview of the concept.

Place in my experience is not a simple, centred and enduring phenomenon.

Ted, as placeaphile (not sure if this is a word but Ted makes up plenty of place related words in his blog), has been writing about place since 1976, a long time before we started to write the Australian Curriculum: Geography in 2009. His writings certainly makes one think about the fact that there is much more about the study of place than meets the eye. Coupled with the wonderful writings of Yi-Fu Tuan on Topophilia back in 1970, the blog just adds new dimensions, perceptions and complexities to the study and concept of place. Most importantly the blog makes us very aware of the richness of the concept for students and teachers.

Place is a fundamental concept in the Australian Curriculum: Geography - in fact it can be argued that the emphasis on the modern interpretation of place is what makes the Australian Curriculum: Geography a 21st Century Geography curriculum. As the writings on the Ted's blog show, the concept of place is a complex and multi-dimensional one that goes way beyond the traditional view of place in geography.

As Ted says:

“Our relationships with places are as necessary, varied, and sometimes perhaps just as unpleasant as our relationships with other people.”

It is this human construct of the relationship of individuals and groups with place that makes the place concept what it is - in fact it can be argued that a location is only a place when it has been given a name and/or people relate to a location and give it a sense of meaning that links into their identity.

The blog provides discussion on topics such as: topophobia, topophila, spirit of place, place names and mobility and place.

As a new blog I look forward to what postings Ted creates in months to come. Ted has been quiet since November 2015 (maybe he is in another place?) but he says that he plans to write entries on topics such as the experience of place, pride of place, power of place, displacement, border and boundaries, art and place, nostalgia, site and situation, gender and place, ecology of place, placenessness, books about place and experience of place - they sound fascinating and I look forward to read them in 2016 - what this space (or is it place?).

Place has changed for ever

Whilst on about Place, this interesting Ted Talk from David Houle, a futurist, thinker, and speaker, who explains how technology, specifically cell phone ubiquity, has radically altered the notion of place in modern society.

A sense of Place from Space

This talk from Joseph Allen, a retired NASA astronaut who flew aboard space shuttles Columbia and Discovery makes us think about the sense of Place on a broader scale .

Saturday, December 26, 2015

The world but not as we know it!

Image above: The if it were my home website to show global difference.

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

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it
Just real interesting Scoop.it

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:

manning@chariot.net.au

The geographical fascination with difference

The nature and extent of global difference is an important aspect of Year 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 in the Australian Curriculum: Geography. For example in Year 6 the curriculum states that students:

"... learn about the diversity of peoples and cultures around the world, the indigenous peoples of other countries, the diversity of countries across the world and within the Asia region. They reflect on cultural differences and similarities ..."

Further country comparisons are implicit in the Year 7 Place and liveability,Year 8 Changing nations, Year 9 Geographies of interconnections and Year 10 Human wellbeing units of the the geography curriculum. In essence, the curriculum supports the view that it is important for students to learn that it is the 'lottery of birth' that is responsible for much of what we have, how we think and who we are - for students to realise that if they were not born in the country they were, what would their life be like? Would they be the same person or would they be the person they are presently cautious of and possibly unempathetic to? The empathy of the plight of refugees and migrants is a pertinent example of poor geographical knowledge and understanding about the conditions in the places where these people have come from.

The If It Were My Home website is described 'as a gateway to understanding life outside of the world' students know and inhabit every day. The site has a country comparison tool to compare living conditions in the users country to those of another. Based on data from the CIA Factbook, the site describes comparisons on factors such as birth rate, life expectancy, healthcare, wealth, disease, resources, employment, class and incarceration.

As shown in the map above, the site also provides visualisations of spatial comparisons i.e. how large is the land area of Azerbaijan compared to Australia.

As well as maps and information on countries, the site provides students with a visualisation tool to help them understand the impact of disasters - the Pakistan Flood and BP Oil Spill are currently featured. This component of the site provides visualisations of the comparative size of the disasters to any country chosen i.e. the size of the BP oil spill to the land area of Australia - again a useful spatial visualisation.

The power of maps to show difference

Whilst on about the power of geography to develop the understanding of difference from place to place, I thought the following ESRI webpage would be worth considering. In fact, maps are the tools that geographers normally use to visualise data to see and analyse differences across space. The site is called '6 things that modern maps do' and it is certainly an interesting discussion on the power of maps to develop understanding of differences between places.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

The politics of geography curriculum

Related links to Spatialworlds
GeogSplace (a teaching blog for Year 12 geography)
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website