conferences in one weekend is where I went...driving to San Antonio
from GeoTech in Dallas. After stopping by Baylor University, my alma
mater, to say hello to the bears (Yes, we have real bears in the bear
habitat on campus). Shannon White and I headed on down to San Antonio
to meet up with Randy Kilian-Smith. With the theme "Critical
Transformations" ASCD (www.ascd.org) offered a great opportunity to
inform folks on the possibilities with geospatial technologies. Linda
Mariotti, ASCD President, says "As relationships, systems, economics
and societies are being redesigned and refashioned in ways that
challenge the status quo, new dimensions of learning and teaching must
also be boldly envisioned. Everyone with a stake in learning must be
engaged in better meeting the complex needs of 21st century
students." Doesn't it make sense to put geospatial technologies in
this discussion?
We presented "Transforming Curriculum with Geospatial Technologies."
Geospatial technologies facilitate a learning environment for students
to discover the whys and hows of their curriculum, to engage multiple
intelligences, and to think spatially. These technologies offer
unique opportunites to incorporate 21st century skills by expanding
the scope of curriculum to tap into cognitive research strategies
through studying local and global issues across all content areas. We
shared research-based pedagogical approaches to classroom-tested
geospatial tools, ready-to-use resources, lesson plans, software
recommendations and experience.
It's always a challenge to include everything we need to say in 60
minutes! But we gave it a go and enjoyed having our beloved leader,
Charlie Fitzpatrick, in the audience. You can have a look at the
presentation online at http://www.barbareeduke.com/
Special thanks to ESRI who provided us with books and GIS in education
materials for the participants and to the GeoTech Center for
sponsoring my travel needs. We're looking forward to next year's
conference. I encourage you all to get involved in local, state,
regional or national events where you can share your perspective on
being spatially aware and impacting students.
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