I've just had a new resource published on the TeachIt Geography website.It's a set of 20 short ideas for using technology in the Geography classroom.
Hopefully there's something there for everyone to explore, and you can read my Webwatch column in the GA's Magazine if you are member, for more tips on websites and apps for Geography teachers.
You can join the TeachIt community, by subscribing, or contributing your own resources (for which you will receive a small payment per download)
Here's a short piece that I wrote to accompany the ideas and put them into context.
Using
technology in the Geography classroom
First of all, it’s worth saying that it’s
possible to teach without technology, although all classrooms in the UK will
have electricity. This electricity will probably power a classroom PC or laptop,
a projector, possibly an interactive whiteboard (which may not be used very interactively)
and other devices including tablets. When your job as a geography teacher is to
introduce young people to the world and help them understand it, it makes sense
to use the available technology to show
them the world (using images or Vimeo videos), map the world (using digital mapping from the Ordnance Survey, ESRI
or others), visualise the world
(using Ben Hennig’s cartograms, Dollar Street’s stories of families around the
world or innovative data tools like Earth Null School), connect with the world (through social media and Skype) and tell the story of the world (using a
range of tools including Google Earth, blogs and Virtual Reality expeditions)
There are many options for geographers to
use websites, apps and new devices including home assistants, digital cameras
or environmental and weather sensors to bring up-to-date information into the
classroom. Young people are often keen to explore these technologies, but the
teacher’s role is to see the pedagogical value in them, and appreciate how they
might be helpful in developing students’ geographical capabilities and subject
knowledge (see http://www.geocapabilities.org
for more on this).
Classroom activities should take students
beyond the way they use their phones for social media, or their laptop for
gaming. Geographical tools such as GIS and VR offer creative opportunities for
exploration, and GIS is a tool which offers the potential for future
employment, and a way in to analysing data for fieldwork as well as answering
some of the world’s important challenges.
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Earlier this year, I updated my chapter for
a 2nd edition of Routledge’s ‘Debates in Geography Education’, and
reminded teachers that often they act as a ‘gatekeeper’ between students and
technology, but that a gatekeeper can decide to open as well as close the
gate.
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