An Assessment of Student Use of Blogs in the BITS Program

itsrg working paper number four 11.01.08

Fatima Abbas

Introduction

In August 2006, David Sifry Founder and CEO of Technorati, a leading blog search engine and indexer updated his quarterly, “State of the Blogosphere” report with the announcement that the “tracked” Blogosphere had grown 100 times larger than its initial size in 2003. [1] With the Blogosphere doubling every 200 days, the amount of blogs online is expected to hit the billionth mark by 2010. [2] Though blogs are a relatively new phenomena, Burstein (2005) sees antecedents of this communicative technology as far back as Paleolithic cave paintings, which he argues acts as visually archived cross generational conversations, enabling the group to memorialize and institutionalize knowledge.[3] More recently blogs gained mainstream prominence during the 2004 presidential elections resulting in its formalized addition into our lexicon via Merriam Webster. [4]

Blogs

Blogs a shortened form of the word “weblog” are websites featuring a series of relatively short and dated entries listed in reverse chronological order. The salient features of a blog are its use of hyperlinked content, permalinks (individual link per an entry), archived entries, and entry-commentary options.[5] Hosted blog software (as opposed to independent blog software) is the feature largely responsible for increasing the spread and application of blogs by enabling users to operate a blog without knowledge of HTML which is usually required to operate an independent site. [6]Another feature responsible for the continuing growth of blogs is RSS, an acronym for Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary[7]. RSS, an XML file enables blog syndication by acting as a news or update aggregator allowing a user to receive site updates on numerous blogs or websites. [8]

Educational blogging

Most attention on blogs has been centered on its antagonistic relationship with journalism (Wall 2005) (Blood 2004)( Reynolds 2003). The media and academic concentration on this journalistic genre has somewhat obscured the increasing use of blogs in the business and educational fields. The use of blogs in business as a tool for internal knowledge management as well as a collaborative tool for capturing knowledge construction has had a large influence on educational blogging which focuses on similar theoretical issues concerning knowledge development and dissemination (Röll 2004) (Williams and Jacobs 2004). Though academic studies concerning the interaction of blogs within the business industry outnumber those documenting the benefits of this technology applied to the educational sector, the use of blogs within education has been gradually growing.

Educators’ support of blogging draws heavily from the educational theory of Vygotsky (1978 Chap 6), which holds that social processes and interactions are vital in facilitating knowledge acquisition (learning) and developmental progress. Vygotsky takes a social constructionist view of development believing it to be contingent on largely discursive forms of learning involving language and social specificities rather than biologically predetermined stages. Vygotsky’s emphasis on the nonlinearity and the discursive and relational nature of knowledge construction as it relates to language has served as the theoretical underpinnings in the educational use of blogs. Ferdig and Trammell (2004) hold that “as students appropriate and transform knowledge, they must have authentic opportunities for publication of knowledge”.  They argue that the blog is an excellent tool for this publication of knowledge. According to Ferdig and Trammell (2004) publishing with a blog enables the students to easily document and publish their construction and internalization of knowledge, as well as enable feedback through the use of commentary buttons appended to each blog post.

Discussions on educational blogging are usually partitioned into three sectors: blogging about educational issues, teacher education, and student-centered blogging. Out of this tripartite, student-centered blogging garners the most concentration. (Ferdig and Trammell 2004) (Dron 2003)(Repman et al 2004).  Blogs as a form of social software are enticing to instructors for its potential ability to enable student publishing, develop/improve literacy and writing skills, and enhance critical thinking/reflection (Wang 2005) (Ferdig and Trammell 2004). Huffaker ( 2005) credits the blog as an exemplary medium to enhance two forms of literacy: verbal and digital. Verbal literacy is defined as the crucial skills of reading and writing while digital concerns the comfort of use of technology. Because blogs do not require cursory knowledge of programming wit their pre-formatted software, Huffaker argues that the blog is the perfect medium for stimulating more in-depth programming and technological skills by introducing students to the basics of HTML which are often tinkered with by users to format margins and side–bar links.[9]

Bruns and Jacobs (2006) describe the blog as tool for the mass produsage of knowledge. They define “produsage” as the consumption of existing knowledge (usage) and the simultaneous production of new knowledge as a result of this transaction. While Bruns and Jacobs (2006) employ this term largely in the context of media transformation via blogs, these concepts have proved fungible across disciplines. Williams and Jacobs (2004) refer to the collaborative enhancement of learning through commentary as one function that the blog performs. They also credit the blog with serving as a tool for the social creation of knowledge by enabling knowledge contextualization through hyperlinks and collaboration by bloggers through tools such as trackback and RSS feeds. Building on this concept of collaboration, Efimova (2005) argues that blogs can be used for “knowledge sharing” and as a Knowledge or Content Management System (CMS) as the technology not only “captures” knowledge but also archives it. The ability to quickly archive, aggregate, annotate, disseminate, and consolidate information at the organizational and individual level makes the blogs an appealing knowledge management system for businesses as well as educators which have recently begun to use the technology for this function. Carraher (2003) argues that teachers and students could use blogs to manage and record thinking over time facilitating researchers in understanding processes of knowledge creation for specific subjects such as math and science.

Purpose

The focal point of this research paper is to address the question of whether blogs can be used as a technological medium for developing basic geographical skills among high school as well as an apparatus that enables the concentration of targets in the creation of a Community GIS (geographic information system). These two questions focus on the blog as largely a content management system (CMS), as well as a technological tool to enhance the acquisition of geographical skills. Though the potential that blogging has to play in verbal literacy and collaborative student learning enhancement is acknowledged, the focus of this paper is not on these aspects of blogging. “Collaborative learning” however, is investigated in the context of the ability of the blog to link different concepts such as imagery, map-making, field trips etc, into coherent posts and help aid the student in contextualizing, constructing and articulating this knowledge.

To address these two questions, 16 open-ended interviews were conducted with high school students in the Building Information Technology Skills summer program at Temple University. Interviews were followed up with an analysis of blog development according to three criteria. The second question queried by the paper concerning the use of the blog in the centralization of targets for a community GIS is briefly explored in the remainder of the paper in light of the sparse literature on the subject and the on-going GIS project by the BITs program.

GIS

McHarg (1998) defines geographic information systems (GIS) as the coordination of a diverse spatially connected data set which can be used to record environmental inventories, document temporal processes, and facilitate predictions and analysis. Wood and Keller (1996) define this technology as a form of analytical cartography which enables the user to geographically code data (geocode), manipulate and integrate data as well as spatially cross-reference information within various data sets. GIS is often separated into tracks describing its intended use such as Land Management, Business, Health GIS’, etc. Encompassing these tracks is a form known as Community GIS, which features the involvement of a “community” (usually non-professionals) in the collection of data and the creation of a GIS. [10]

Community GIS applications have been increasingly employed by schools that teach GIS as a way to introduce students to spatial analysis using project based learning. Project based or inquiry based learning is a social constructivist method increasing in popularity in the educational and geographical fields (Kerski 2003).[11] This form of theory seeks to change students from passive to active learners thus enabling them to be participants in the process of knowledge creation by involving them in real-world problems (Johansen 2003). [12]Operating under the concept of project based learning, GIS has been lauded by educators as a tool to enhance collaborative learning and the spatial reasoning of students as well as develop digital manipulation skills (Alibrandi).[13] Additionally, GIS has been shown to improve student’s attitudes toward technology by increasing their scientific self-efficacy compared to traditional methods of spatial analysis such as non-digitalized Cartography, which is a more cumbersome method of teaching spatial analysis (Baker 2002). [14]

Though GIS technology has been increasing in popularity within educational academia, as of 2001 only 2% of schools were utilizing this technology (Kerski 2003). The reasons behind the slow employment of this technology among schools are usually due to three factors: lack of time, skills, and money. Studies (Meyers et al. 1999) (Kerski 2003) have indicated that one of the two of the major impediments to GIS application in schools is lack of knowledge and teacher training about the technology. Additionally, the lack of time needed to learn the software and the steep learning curve is often cited as another factor hindering its implementation. The high cost of GIS software estimated at around $6-10,000 has played another large role in hindering implementation of the software within schools (Johanssen 2003) (Kerski 2003). ESRI (environmental systems research institute), the main GIS software provider has attempted to tap into the educational market by releasing free software (AEJEE) specifically targeted toward schools which the intention of them eventually using a paid application.[15] Though this step and other programs such as Adopt a School[16] and school rebates are commendable, further reduction in the price of GIS software is required to continue to convince teachers and educators of the feasibility of this software in schools as well as extend this technology to urban schools which often are excluded from these company sponsored special programs.

Web-based computer applications have begun to reduce some of the financial impediments to GIS-use by enabling people and organizations to access low-cost or free software that performs (with the exception of analysis) many of the visual functions of GIS. Mainstream applications such as Google Earth and Maps, and MSN Maps along with open source GIS software are being used to develop GIS by communities and researchers (Boulos 2005)[17]. In addition to being free, these applications have gained popularity due to their ease of use by adults and children. Google Earth, a satellite-imagery mapping application released by Google has gained enormous popularity since its June 2005 release. [18] Though it enables image overlays, layer mapping, and external data input (via hacking and special programs), the program does not perform spatial analysis, a standard function of GIS. Though, the lack of an analytical function is usually perceived as a limitation of the application, it can be educationally beneficial. Meyer et al. (1999) caution in their research that the teaching of GIS without the requisite geographical knowledge needed to spatially analyze map productions leaves students with “drafting” skills, not a greater understanding of geography.By serving as a simple interface to the introduction of students to geographical concepts such as scale, attribute data and layers using real world imagery, Google Earth can serve as a preface to teaching standard GIS without exposing students to digitalized spatial analysis before they have adequately developed these skills.

GIS in the Program

Google Earth was used by the Building Information Technology Skills (BITs) program as an inexpensive and educationally comprehensive tool to introduce students to the concepts underpinning geographic information systems. Using Google Earth, students performed weekly mapping exercises of their field activities in conjunction with hand-drawn maps. The students gathered data for their maps within their notebooks and used pictures which were uploaded to their respective blogs. To construct a standard GIS, an application entitled “BitsyBeta” was developed by the program to enable conversion of the student’s Google Earth KML maps into ESRI’s ArcView; the construction of this Google Earth-fed GIS is currently in process.  The purpose of this paper is to examine the role the blog can play in enhancing the development of a Community GIS by enabling the centralization of targets and attribute data. The GIS section of the paper is focused on discussing the function the blog can perform in serving as a data synthesizing medium; it is not concerned with children learning standard GIS, but rather how they learn the concepts that comprise GIS and how open access tools such as the blog facilitate this process.

Program

Research was conducted in the context of the Building Information Technology Skills (BITs) program at Temple University. Funded by the National Science Foundation’s ITEST (The Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) program, BITs is a three year research project that seeks to provide inner-city public school students with basic geography skills and knowledge, create a community GIS, and expose students to career exploration in science, engineering and math fields. The program employs project based learning in its use of weekly field trips to structure activities, as well as more traditional forms of learning such as weekly lectures which provide background for learned content. The program is broken into a Fall and Spring semester which consists of 90 students, and an intensive Summer semester which consists of 120 students. Students are usually grouped 15 to a class under the instruction of a mentor. A typical week within the program involves an introductory lecture on a subject such as healthscapes, associated activities, field trips to identify healthscapes, use of Google earth to plot and add attributes data, and a weekly description of work in the form of a blog post or report. During the Fall of 2005 and Spring of 2006, participants used a blog for weekly write-ups. A typical blog consisted of a description of the field trip, pictures, Google Earth map, as well as an initial post of each student’s hand-drawn “Community Map”.

Sample

Using cluster sampling, research participants who had previously been in the program during the Fall and/or Spring semesters and built a blog were chosen from six groups in the intensive summer 2006 program. Three group clusters were obtained, of which every student having built a blog in previous semesters was interviewed. The products of this sample yielded 8 females and 8 males, of which 81.25% were African American, 12.5% Asian, and 6.25% Puerto Rican. The students were from four schools within inner Philadelphia with ages that ranged from 14-17. Thirteen students had been in the program for two semesters while three had participated for three semesters.

Design

As a mentor for a group of 15 students, I chose to fully design my research after two weeks in which I had become acclimated to the students and had gained their trust. I had initially considered using questionnaires as a method of data extraction, but after interacting with the students, I concluded this was not the best method to gather data, as their answers depended on their moods and their level of annoyance with the plethora of program questionnaires. I chose interviews, specifically open-ended interviews, as the key method of data collection. I felt this method conveyed a greater sense of seriousness than the questionnaires and gave a greater weight to their personal opinions, which could be expressed more fully in speech than in writing. I interviewed each student separately over a period of two weeks. During the interviews the students were seated in front of a computer with their blog on the screen. The interviews consisted of three questions broken into sub-parts inquiring into their pre- and post program level of geography, the role of the blog in facilitating their acquisition of geography skills and their comfort of use with this medium. The questions are as follows.

1. A. What was your previous experience with geography and map-making?

1. A. Describe your level of comfort in building a blog.

B. Were you previously exposed to or aware of this technology?

C. Do you believe the blog enhanced your understanding of geographical skills via your journal entries and map-building exercises?

D. Did the blog structure your learned lessons i.e. making the purpose of the lectures, field trips, map exercise, and other activities seem more cohesive?

1. A. Did the program enhance or expand your understanding of geography?

B. Did it enhance your understanding of community and/or the facets that compose it?

C. Do you believe the development of a blog played a role in this expansion?

Accompanying these interviews Blog development was evaluated according to three criteria: post of a Google Earth Map, use of pictures, and post descriptions. The remaining method for analyzing the role of the blog in the creation of a community GIS work is largely qualitative consisting of an exposition on the role the Blog played in centralizing targets for the GIS.

Interview Results

Question 1.

No Geography  in High School	Some Geography in High School
56.25%	43.75%

Question 2. A: Blog Ease of Use

Easy	Medium	Hard
87.5%	12.5%	0%

Questions 2. B- 3. C

Yes	Partial	No
2.B              68.75%	6.25%	25%
2.C               87.5%	0%	12.5%
2.D               93.75%	0%	6.25%
3.A               81.25%	12.5%	6.25%
3.B                93.75%	0%	6.25%
3.C                  62.5%	0%	37.5%

The above results of the interviews confirm the hypothesis that the blog would enhance the acquisition of geography skills among high school students with sparse exposure to geography. As the table above illustrates, the majority of students felt the blog enhanced their understanding of geography (87.5%) and helped structure their lessons (93.75%). Additionally, 62.5% felt the blog was central to the expansion of their geographical knowledge and their conceptualization of community and the facets that comprised it.

The results of the interviews reflect one of most important uses of the blog as a tool to centralize information. The ability of the blog to host pictures, maps, and descriptions played an important role in threading lessons for students, making the information appear more cohesive, and thus facilitating its conscious retainment for students. Student B’s comments emphasize this point:

“The Blog was useful for entries describing pictures because it (the picture) was directly in front (of the entry) and it was our original commentary on the blog with the community map rather then having questions asked as we did this semester. The Blog made the lesson more cohesive; maps, commentary, and pictures were all on the same page. When you read through you can see the theme. It would be cohesive for this semester (because) it would bring the theme together.”

One of the recurring responses to question 2 C/D stating why the participant perceived the blog to be beneficial was its ability to combine words and pictures on one page, thus combining the different activities and learning that engaged the students.  Ware (2004) posits that visualization functions as a cognitive tool enhancing the acquisition of knowledge. Interactive visualizations, Ware argues, are the interface between the human visual system and computational power. Employing this thesis, the Blog appears as an interactive interface harnessing computational and spatial data from maps and pictures while simultaneously hosting visualization which acts as a cognitive tool to develop and retain knowledge. This illustrative enhancement of knowledge is also important in catering to the different learning styles of students. Two female students mentioned the ability of the blog to cater to their specific learning style over traditional instruction as a beneficial aspect of this technology. The following comments provide an explanation:

Student P: “Yes it made it seem more cohesive because I’m visual minded so by taking pictures and seeing work it made it easier.”

Student:G “If we had the blogs this semester it would make the work easier to understand because you get to see and read what you are talking about.—–‘ If we had it this semester it would structure it (the lessons) because it goes hand in hand with each other, it (the blog) makes it easier for our understanding because some people can only visualize , so it would make it more cohesive.”

This last comment is particularly interesting from student G, who was the only student not to have answered affirmatively to question 2. D  which asked whether the blog helped structure lessons. Because of a failure to complete her work during the spring and develop her blog , the student G, answered negatively to 2. C/D and 3.C, but appended each answer with the statement that if the blog had been used in the summer program the information would have been easier to acquire. This student’s responses illustrate one of the central uses of the blog as a tool in content/knowledge management.

Arguing for the use of blogs in education Carraher (2003) posits that they facilitate original thought in students by allowing them to document their raw cognitive processes in posts as well as enabling other students to interact and reflect on their thoughts, thus enhancing knowledge creation and integration. Adding to this postulation is the creation of the blog itself, which reflects the level of integration of learned concepts by a student and is reflected in their information management. Participant B notes this function in her response:

“Yes it did help with the expansions (of knowledge). The blog enhances originality because it’s your thoughts, when you know more about the subject you can build the site (blog) better which shows that it helped enhance your understanding.”

Blog Analysis

Inclusion Criteria

1. Google Earth Maps

2. Pictures

3. Post descriptions

Yes		No
1.	47 %	53%
2.	87%	13%
3.	93%	7%

During the process of evaluation one student’s blog was unable to be recovered, thus reducing the sample size for analysis of the blog development to 15 student’s blogs. Due to this decrease, the tabular results are not wholly representative of the entire group, but they do present a generalized picture of the groups’ blog development. During the process of blog analysis, I chose not to count the numerical number of posts by students as it is a reflection of sheer quantity, not the quality of each individual post. The tabular results provide a glimpse of student’s adherence to certain standards that were established during the semester; they do not however, provide a comprehensive analysis of each individual blog.

The results above indicate that about half of students posted their Google Earth maps while the majority included pictures and accompanying post descriptions of these items as well as their thoughts on their field trips. The high percentage of students inclusion of pictures along with accompanying post descriptions reflects the importance that students attributed to these two items within their interviews, in which the majority of students made an allusion to the importance of being able to “explain pictures”. As student “R” noted:

I like the Blog format better. The Blog is easier, looking at the pictures more things come to you writing wise, rather than doing it separately.

During the process of reviewing the blogs I noticed a correlation between some of the students who were idlers within class and those whose posts lacked all expected content (maps and pictures) except for post descriptions. I found it interesting that some of these students during their interviews had mentioned the ability of the blog to bring lessons together as a reason why they wish they were using it during the than current summer semester, yet the content of their blogs from previous semesters was so sparse that they could not possibly have used it to organize lessons as the other students had done. I suspected that one of the students who had answered positively to the use of the blog (but had not actually adequately developed one) was biased by my possible expectations which he had somehow deduced. However, reviewing his interview responses I noticed another possible explanation.

“Yes it enhanced my understanding of geography skills by allowing you to see what others thought and wrote”.

As the underlined sentence indicates the student was essentially a “lurker” on the blogs. The blog structure by allowing students to review each others reflections is a particularly conducive medium for lurking. Taylor (1998) notes that lurkers online often correlate with non-participatory students within the classroom; a phenomena I also noticed.[19] While lurking often has negative connotations attached, it can be viewed as a positive form of passive cognitive learning by enabling reluctant or non-participatory students to review and learn information through the mental processes of others. Additionally, as Williams and Jacobs (2004) argue, lurkers may have a positive affect on active participants because these bloggers anticipate lurkers and may write more constructive and critical posts for this “audience”. Student “D” appears to indicate this phenomena of writing for an audience in her answer to 3 D. regarding a role the blog played in increasing her knowledge about geography and community.

“The Blog played a role in this expansion because it let other people see your views.”

Blogs and GIS

Community GIS has roots in Critical Cartography (Crampton and Krygier 2006), a field which challenges the “elite” intertwined academic and political underpinnings of cartography past and present. The field seeks to critically analyze the way power is spatially maintained as well as examine the cultural and political construction of the science of spatial analytics. Crampton and Krygier (2006) argue that Cartography has become gradually undisciplined as access to the map creation process i.e., data collection and map construction has become available via open source software such as Nasa’s World Wind[20] or mainstream software such as Google Earth. Blogs another form of free mainstream software/application can serve as a complementary tool to GIS/Cartographical democratizing agents such as Google Earth.

There exists an extremely sparse amount of literature on the potential uses of the blog in GIS construction and/or cartographical mapping. However, services and applications intertwining blogs and maps have been growing. Geo-tagging blogs, a process that involves geo-coding and mapping blogs is a phenomena growing in popularity over the net with free sites such as Feedmap which uses Google Maps to display coded blogmaps.[21] The research of Tezuka, Kurashima, and Tanaka (2006) investigated the mechanics behind mining blogs’ attribute data for spatially and temporally referenced local tourism and the encoding of these blogs into a GIS. Employing the concept of geo-tagging Tezuka, Kurashima, and Tanaka (2006) argue for a closer integration of web search applications via blogs with applications (ex. GIS) that provide greater geographical depth than simple mapping interface software like Google Maps.

While Tezuka, Kurashima, and Tanaka’s research on the relationship between Blogs and GIS’ was focused on algorithmically mining tourism data from blogs, the idea of using blogs as information databases in mapping can be applied qualitatively. Efimova (2005) in her description of “Professional” blogs, argues the blog can serve as a personal knowledge repository. Employing Efimova’s idea, the blog can be viewed as a knowledge warehouse; a tool which enables simple organization of thoughts and materials as well as automatically archives temporal information and knowledge.

Students’ blogs within the Fall and Spring semesters of the BITs program were used as aggregators for attribute data for the program-GIS currently in progress. Additionally the compacted display of visual, spatial and analytical data compiled by the students on their respective blogs enable a greater explanation of attribute data found within their Google Earth maps. Thus a placemark tagged Philadelphia Vision Center by participant “L” on his Google Earth Map is accompanied by a picture and explanation of this entity. This compilation of accessory information enables the blog to act as a complementary tool to a GIS which lacks depth-descriptive data, similar to the way a Census Data PDF provides greater details on tract shapefiles.

Conclusion

The data garnered through this research suggests the blog can be a useful educational tool within the classroom and in geographical fieldwork. The blog is an attractive medium for hosting learning by its ability to combine spatial, visual, and written information. This hosting of various forms of information is especially attractive in its ability to cater to the different learning styles of students as well as cognitively engage students who are non-participants within the classroom. Particularly within the field of  geography the blog can be a useful tool for teaching children concepts such as gentrification and healthscapes as well as scale, location, and layering. Accordingly a student’s blog may feature a themed map on “ healthscapes” displaying a grasp of layering by the decision by different students to include road names and hotels, alongside pictures which bring a specific entity into an altered scale. The ability to structure and “theme” lessons was one of the benefits of blog-use consistently noted by students within their interviews. Additionally, combined with the ability to structure information, the blog can act as a warehouse of information and knowledge serving as a PDF-like appendage to a GIS which lacks the ability to store in-depth content. In the context of a Community GIS, the blog can serve as an accessible free tool assisting open-source GIS tools such as Nasa’s World Wind and Google Earth which are reducing the barriers to the spatial sciences.

The blog as an entity is simply a tool to accomplish an end; this obvious point is often lost in educational literature on blogs which frequently appears to enthusiastically ascribe to this technology a range of abilities ranging from increasing children’s critical thinking and writing skills to stimulating group collaboration. My research on this medium indicated the exact opposite. Children’s writing skills appeared to decrease to short posts and visible online group collaboration was null, aside from two students who linked each other’s blog on their posts. Though these observations appear negative, they do no negate the beneficial aspects of the blog, rather they serve as a caveat for its implementation within education: the tool is only as good as the instruction. Many students were familiar with the Blog through its similarity to their Myspace accounts; due to this familiarity students transferred their casual and parse writing styles to the blog. Additionally, the students were not instructed, due to lack of program time, to engage in online collaboration via the commentary buttons. Future utilization of the blog within the classroom should provide clear instructions and expectations to students as it is presumptuous to ascribe to children the initiative to improve their own writing qualities and styles.

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Click Here to view the Powerpoint
Presentation that was shared at the
Race, Place and Ethnicity Conference
in San Marcos, Texas in 2006.
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[1] http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000436.html

[2] http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/2005/12/terrifying_inte.html

[3] Burstein book page 2 of intro

[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4059291.stm

[5] http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp?bhcp=1%20

[6] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050714gardner/

[7] Burnstein book.

[8] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss / http://www.rss-specifications.com/what-is-rss.htm

[9]http://www.editlib.org//index.cfm/files/paper_5680.pdf?fuseaction=Reader.DownloadFullText&paper_id=5680

[10] Community GIs Book

[11]http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/outreach/articles/implementation_and_effectiveness_of_gis_in_education.pdf

[12] http://www.scangis.org/scangis2003/papers/20.pdf#search=%22GIS%20in%20the%20K-12%20Curriculum%3A%20A%20Cautionary%20Note%20-%22

[13] http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss4/currentissues/socialstudies/article1.htm

[14] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:INVmqa8SO90J:tbaker.com/papers/dissertation/public_release/Lichens_as_bioindicators.pdf+GIS+in+classrooms

[15] http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/education/software_options.html

[16] http://www.gisvisionmag.com/vision.php?article=200207%2Ffeature2.html

[17] http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/4/1/22

[18] http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_earth.html

[19] http://library.athabascau.ca/thesis/taylor.pdf

[20] http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

[21] http://www.feedmap.net/BlogMap/

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This paper was originally presented on November 1, 2006, at the Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference of the Association of American Geographers held at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. This work was supported with funding from the National Science Foundation.

© Fatima Abbas 2009 All Rights Reserved

This post and updates are also published on the ITSpace Blog at: http://itsrg.org/itspace.html.

May be distributed freely under ITSRG Working Paper’s Creative Commons License.