Abstract


Paper
Designing GIS Tools to Address the Needs of Educational Users
Track: Educational Research and Teacher Education
Author(s): David Smith, Matthew Brown, Danny Edelson, Eric Russell

The GIS implementation rate in K–12 classrooms remains frustratingly low. Prior efforts to address this low rate have focused on curriculum and professional development. The NSF-funded My World GIS Project is investigating a third approach: software design. We are investigating three categories of challenge for educational use of GIS that might be addressed by software design:
  • Conceptual challenges: the difficulty of understanding and using GIS at a conceptual level.
  • Usability: the difficulty of understanding and using the user interface to achieve one’s goals.
  • Infrastructure compatibility: mismatches between software requirements and the technical and human infrastructure in the setting.
In this presentation, we will describe the findings of research we have been conducting to identify the key challenges in these three categories and develop strategies to address them through the redesign of GIS tools. We will describe GIS software we have developed using MapObjects—Java and other development tools.

David Smith
Northwestern University
Education
2120 Campus Drive
Annenberg Building room 330
Evanston, IL 60201
US
Phone: 847-467-5272
E-mail: dasmith@northwestern.edu

Matthew Brown
Inquirium
1235 W. Norwood St.
Chicago, IL 60660
US
Phone: 773-743-0679
E-mail: matt@inquirium.net

Danny Edelson
Northwestern University
2120 Campus Drive
Annenberg Building
Evanston, IL 60208
US
Phone: 847-467-1337
E-mail: d-edelson@northwestern.edu

Eric Russell
Northwestern University
School of Education and Social Policy
2120 N. Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-2610
US
Phone: 847-467-1013
E-mail: eric-r@northwestern.edu