ICT for education is now a popular catch phrase. Schools use it to advertise the progressive nature and vendors of “educational” ICT tools also jump on the bandwagon to sell their products to schools. Some even promote themselves as consultants to schools to sell these ICT tools to schools. But ICT for education is not just about tools. It is also about how to use ICT tools in a very pedagogically sound manner. To be sure, ICT for education also includes its use for  the administration and monitoring of a school’s activities. However, here I will limit the discussion to the use of ICT for learning.The knowledge of the technical aspect of the ICT tool is important but for it to be used as an educational tool, great thought must be given to what learning is to take place with it and how that learning is to take place

Schools, therefore, have to be aware of this important element in using ICT for education, especially when they are dealing with vendors masquerading as consultants. Many of these vendors are only keen to sell their products to the school but cannot advise the schools on the quality use fo the tools for learning. Schools keen to use ICT can fall prey to such vendors because often schools themselves have little expertise in the use of ICT for learning.

Among the questions that schools need to ask vendors or consultants are:

a) how the tools are to be used;

b) the frequency of use, the learning goals that can be achieved with the tools;

c) the limitations of the tools;

d) the kind of training that is required for the teachers;and

e) the learning curve for mastery of the tool

Consultants claiming to have expertise in ICT use for education should also be quizzed on their understanding of learning as a process and not only as an ICT platform. Schools owe it to themselves to do these because usually not only are the ICT tools relatively expensive but all too often it is being pushed only for its promotional and novelty value and not due to some real educational objectives.

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.