Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be a powerful way to teach students in schools about spatial distribution. When I was at the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore, I was at the forefront of the Educational Technology Division’s (ETD) attempt to encourage teachers to use GIS software as a teaching and learning tool.

While most of the teachers who took part in our workshops and projects involving the use of GIS software have generally found the tool to be powerful, I do not think we have been very successful in encouraging the widespread use of GIS even among the teachers who were involved in our workshops and projects.

In my view, there are a few reasons why GIS has not caught on among teachers in Singapore schools then. I believe one important reason for this is due to the fairly steep learning curve with regards to the use of GIS software. Many of the teachers found the software quite intimidating. This was at a time when the Masterplan for IT in Education (MPITE) was in its first phase. Teachers were still struggling with incorporating ICT into their lessons. Many of these teachers are veterans of the teaching service and generally less ICT-savvy. This made learning GIS software difficult for them. A lack of exposure to the software meant that they never acquired adequate mastery of the software for it to be useful. The lack of exposure to GIS software is also due to the relatively high costs of GIS software. Schools and HODs were reluctant to spend limited budgets on expensive software acquisition especially if the software is seen as useful only for a small portion of the examinations-oriented syllabi.

In addition to the software, to use GIS effectively, it can be argued that it needs its partner which is Global Positioning Systems (GPS). using GPS will also imply the need for GPS hardware like GPS receivers and also GPS software. This again increases costs. Effectively this means that few schools actually bought the software and hardware for using GIS and GPS for teaching and learning. Many teachers are limited to using the software only during workshops and projects undertaken in conjunction with the ETD, which admittedly were at best only sporadic.

Another reason for the lack of enthusiasm for GIS (and GPS) in schools is because the teachers have not undergone a fundamental change in the way they approach teaching. Teachers in Singapore still adopt a very traditional  approach to teaching. It is made worse, by teachers teaching only to the exams. This is largely due to Singapore’s over-emphasis on high stakes examinations that not only decide the academic fate of students but also the professional fate of teachers. Content is over-emphasized as opposed to the acquisition of skills or appropriate attitudes that will lead to independent learning. If perhaps, the emphasis had been on the learning of skills and the inculcation of proper learning attitudes, GIS might not have been seen as useful for only a small portion of the school syllabi. For example, if correct attitudes like getting students to learn to ask good questions for investigation and learning to analyze, gets the proper emphasis in Singapore schools, teachers and school administrators will probably not see the use of GIS as just a niche and expensive thing.

However, all is not lost I hope. There is available for free, legal GIS and GPS software. These are Open Source Software (OSS). They are a viable alternative to the expensive, proprietary (usually) Windows-based GIS software. This would make cost issues no longer relevant. More importantly, their ready availability means that teachers will have the chance to get properly acquainted with GIS and hopefully master the software. Alternatively, the availability of Google Earth offers an interesting alternative option for teachers to use. GPS receivers are also getting cheaper and easier to use too. Perhaps the more difficult aspect of promoting GIS use among schools is the mindset of the teachers and perhaps the policy makers. As long as learning is seen as only for the examinations, teachers will not change their view of tools like GIS to enhance and deepen learning despite its clear real-world application. Hopefully this will change with the influx of new trainee teachers exposed to GIS at the university level especially at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. They can act as the catalyst for the widespread use of GIS in Singapore schools.

Teachers today have many ICT tools which are available freely. Many of these tools are found on the internet.  One of the most interesting and potentially educationally rewarding is the use of Google Maps.

Google Maps if used in conjunction with a simple Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver can give good spatial data that can then be interpreted by the viewer. This ability is due to the ability of Google Maps to be tagged. The advent of relatively cheap digital cameras also mean that photos can be added at various points of the map with appropriate tags. Fairly detailed description can be made together with the photos.

If the tags are done properly, one can locate for example all the restaurants in an area. If a search is done with the appropriate tags, all the markers pointing to the location of restaurants in the area will appear. This will make for interesting interpretation. From the location and number of restaurants, we can infer whether that area is an area with a retail space which is mainly allocated for the food and beverage industry. To look for changes in land use, a similar project undertaken some time later can indicate whether the retail space used in that area has changed for other purposes. Here patterns of distribution can be studied for a particular point in time or even over a period of time. Students can be asked to interprete the data and infer as to the causes of any change or stability in data.

Another interesting project that can be done is to disperse teams of students to various parts of an area to photograph human activities at various times of the day. Digital photos of human activities can be taken at various locations at agreed upon time intervals within the day. The photos and the GPS data can be uploaded to Google Maps. Students can then study the photos for the different time intervals and “watch” the rise and ebb of human activities in a given area over the time period that was covered. Again students can using the photos and knowledge of the kinds of buildings shown on Google Maps, draw their own conclusion about the changes in human activity over time for a given area. Here GPS data and Google Maps help to tell the story of a day in a life of a community.

These are just some ways to use GPS data and Google Maps for educational purposes. GPS data does not have to belong as the preserve of experts or used only for vehicle navigation. If used properly and with a  lot of thought, it can become a fun way of using ICT to learn about the real world for  students. Learning becomes not only fun but also relevant and menaingful to students.

“Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. There is even a tendency to view it as “fluff” learning. Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. A complex process is involved when individuals attempt to convert information and data into useful knowledge. Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions, and different levels of questions. Well-designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.”

- Thirteen Ed Online

GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers today have become more popular with consumers. They are now commonly found in phones and cars as part of navigation systems. Today, teachers and students can use simple and relatively GPS receivers with built-in dataloggers into the “classroom” to make learning interesting. With these receivers teachers can encourage their students to undertake inquiry-based learning of their own using sophisticated but relatively inexpensive tools. GPS receivers, and its usual partner, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can help teachers and students integrate ICT tools into the educational process.

Students can use GPS receivers like these to also map routes, mark locations and record their observation of things along the route digitally through their digital photographs. Of course the photographs can be tagged accordingly (see here for an example of how photos are tagged to Google Maps) and using these tags students can actually try to discern patterns of spatial distribution with great accuracy. Field work and inquiry becomes easier without losing the discipline that comes with serious inquiry. With such data, it becomes easier for other students to build on data that has been collected earlier and compile new layers of data using GIS for greater in-depth study.

The inquiry-based learning process engages the students innate curiosity to spur their own learning. In inquiry-based learning students learn need to learn what data to collect, how to get that data and make sense of the data that they have collected. This represents a shift from the traditional emphasis on rote-learning, memorization and traditional Trivial Pursuit-like pen-and-paper assessments. Postman and Weingartner wrote about this approach in their biting critique of modern day education, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”, written about forty years ago.

The inquiry-based learning is not dissimilar to the scientific approach. It begins with deciding what is it that is to be discovered? What are the questions that need answering. The second part of the process is deciding what data is to be collected and how it is to be collected. The third part of the process is the actual collection of the data. Fourthly, the analysis of the data is done to draw the appropriate conclusion of the inquiry based on the data already collected and analyzed. A reflection of the whole process as the last stage is vital too because the reflection is feedback about what went well or otherwise in the whole process. It may also lead to the need for another round of the whole process to be carried out.

Using GPS for inquiry-based learning, teachers and students will undergo the same process mentioned above. The only difference perhaps is that the information will take on a spatial dimension. Students using GPS devices can now log where, for example, different species of butterflies are found. The location where digital photographs of these butterflies are found can be automatically tagged to a very specific location through the GPS receivers.The data distribution patterns can then be studied spatially using GIS software or by displaying them on Google Maps.