Geographic inquiry and geographic
information system (GIS) technology are important tools that help educators,
students, and their institutions answer personal and community questions with
local to global implications. More and more schools are including GIS in their
curricula to help their students gain valuable background knowledge and skills
with which to face global challenges. School administrators have turned to GIS
for help with facilities management, vehicle routing, district boundary
mapping, safety and preparedness, and more. Staff and administrators analyze
data to improve efficiency in the district. Some of the practical uses of GIS
in the district apply to school attendance zoning, growth planning, and bus
routing. With GIS technology, those in charge can use the existing database of
student information to place students on a computer-based map, and we can
generate maps illustrating the information we choose to assign to the students.
Using GIS for attendance zoning or boundary planning, administrators can
visualize and quantify the balances or imbalances of each elementary, middle
school, or junior high zone. Facilities capacity planning can be matched not
only to numbers of students living in a specific area but also to any unique
needs of those students we serve. The school district must anticipate and plan
for growth so it can continue to serve the community's K-12 educational needs.
New developments in one school attendance zone can affect attendance throughout
the district. Also, new roads change the dynamics of bus routes. By mapping
potential and imminent housing starts, the district can develop an idea of
where an increasing student population might be located within the school
district. In addition, by using GIS to pinpoint this growth, planning for new
school buildings becomes much more precise with regard to the development and
maintenance of the neighborhood school.
Among the possibilities for GIS to
improve education micro planning, the following are identified by DeGrauwe
(2002, pp. 10-12):
1.
GIS helps make the presentation of data more attractive than traditional static maps.
2. Projecting tabular data onto maps helps in recognizing “unexpected” situations.
3.Through considering geographical (spatial) factors, the analysis becomes more precise, increasing the likelihood that ensuing strategies will be more pertinent.
4.More flexible assistance can be provided in prospective planning at multiple levels or units of analysis: national, regional, district, and local.
School level data can be made instantly available for use in a course or workshop session.
Schools around the world are beginning to see the possibilities of using GIS
for teaching and learning in not just Geography. GIS have been identified as
one of the 21st Century Tools for Communication, Information
Processing and Research which will help to develop student abilities in
investigating, evaluating, integrating, creating and analyzing issues and
information at various scales and locations (Partnership for 21st Century Skills,
2014). GIS use in education will develop students’ information and media
literacy, preparing them well for the digital age.
GIS MAPS for Guilford County Libraries
No comments:
Post a Comment