Abstract
Utilizing Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure and Social Networking for GIS Education
Track: Teaching with GIS in Higher Education
Author
This paper will introduce successful examples of adopting geospatial cyberinfrastructure (Web portals, ArcGIS on-line) and social networking services (Facebook, on-line forum) for teaching GIS courses and providing an active learning environment for college students.
For a lower-division general education course (geographic information science), we create an open course website by utilizing on-line mapping tools, mashups, and Java applets. For a graduate-level Internet Mapping course, by utilizing ArcGIS Servers and remote desktop connections, we can teach students important key technologies and skills for web mapping services and Internet GIS.
To provide an interactive and informative GIS learning environment, we also created a Facebook “Page” for our GIS students. The “Page” function in Facebook is more appropriate for education activities because it is more independent and separated from students’ personal Facebook contents. By adopting geospatial cyberinfrastructure and social networking services, students can be more engaged in learning GIS technologies.
Ming-Hsiang (Ming) Tsou
Department of Geography, San Diego State University
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, California 92182-4493
United States
Phone: 619-594-0205
Fax: 619-594-4938
E-mail: mtsou@mail.sdsu.edu