Friday, September 28, 2007

Why spatial education as an area to investigate



Spatial Worlds website
Spatial technology in the classroom has been happening in various schools around Australia since 1997 in a disparate and ad hoc way dependent on groups of motivated and passionate educators keen to see the introduction of spatial technologies into the classroom for their students. In the early days there was much discussion about why we should bother with spatial technology in the classroom and the impediments for it to happen. Today the world has changed and there are few who argue that we shouldn’t use spatial technology in schools and the impediments of cost and resources available have rapidly diminished. The acceleration in interest in spatial technology has been further enhanced by the increasing accessibility of GIS orientated materials on the Internet such as Google Earth and the accelerating all pervasiveness of GIS technology in our everyday life’s. In short educators are starting to open their eyes to the possibilities of spatial technology in schools to enhance spatial literacy and are looking around for support and expertise from those in the know. The purpose of this project is to explore what can and has been done around the world to enhance and support the uptake of spatial technology in schools.

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