11:15 AM - 11:30 AM
[O04-09] Supporting school teachers with GSI’s Toolbox for geography education in the era of Society 5.0
★Invited Papers
Keywords:Toolbox for geography education, cross-curricular learning, GIGA school, STEAM education
It is important for children to develop ICT skills in daily life as well as learning opportunities in the era of Society5.0: a new society which incorporates advanced technologies into every industry and social life, seeking for balanced solution between social agenda and economic development. GIGA school, which realizes a classroom provided with high-speed internet connection and individual ICT device such as tablet, and STEAM education, which enriches cross-curricular learning by integrating each subject such as Science, Technology, Engineering, liberal Arts, and Mathematics for solving the problems in the real world, have been well recognized for developing children’s ICT skills. Realizing GIGA school is further hoped as online teaching has imperatively prevailed in response to COVID-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, increased burden on teachers for preparation is concerned, if online education contents are not sufficient, resulting in insufficient learning experience of children. In this regard, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) launched the Toolbox for geographic education (https://www.gsi.go.jp/CHIRIKYOUIKU/) (here in after “the Toolbox”) in support of school teachers in June 2016. In this article, we report the advantage of educational contents in the Toolbox, with a view to fully utilizing them in GIGA school and STEAM education.
First; data and cross-media accessibility. We posted all the contents on the Toolbox website so that anyone can easily download them through a web browser: an anticipated environment in GIGA school classrooms. We provided the contents as images and PDF files so that teachers can easily prepare their teaching materials for an online class. With easy links to "GSI maps" included in the contents, we also help teachers develop adequate story-telling for their teaching subject. Further, embedding attractive SNS postings in the contents is intended to make students feel closer to geography subjects.
Second; contents classification according to national school curricula. We first classified the contents into grade levels (3-4G(grade), 5G, 7-9G and 10-12G). Further we classified those according to themes such as neighborhood, Japanese landform and natural disasters in Japan. This classification help teachers find appropriate contents easily and quickly.
Third; contents for cross-curricular learning for STEAM education. Geography should not only be regarded us a subject, but can also be used as a connector to promote cross-curricular learning. For example, we developed a content which relates a section of a three-dimensional object (mathematics) to topographic sectional profile (geography). Another one relates three primary colors of light (visual art) to topographic/cartographic representation (geography).
Fourth; contents with story-telling aspects. These contents are intended to attract students for animating class teachings. For example, a character in a content poses a question toward students about the important points in understanding a hazard map. Another example is a cartoon style content where student can learn relationship between disaster and landform.
We asked 28 teachers about the possibility of utilizing contents in the Toolbox. Most teachers answered that the contents can be useful. Some respondents suggested the possibility of saving time for class preparation by using the contents in the Toolbox.
GSI will continuously support promotion of geography education through the Toolbox and introduce features and effectiveness of the contents in the Toolbox in various opportunities to help school teachers.
On the other hand, increased burden on teachers for preparation is concerned, if online education contents are not sufficient, resulting in insufficient learning experience of children. In this regard, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) launched the Toolbox for geographic education (https://www.gsi.go.jp/CHIRIKYOUIKU/) (here in after “the Toolbox”) in support of school teachers in June 2016. In this article, we report the advantage of educational contents in the Toolbox, with a view to fully utilizing them in GIGA school and STEAM education.
First; data and cross-media accessibility. We posted all the contents on the Toolbox website so that anyone can easily download them through a web browser: an anticipated environment in GIGA school classrooms. We provided the contents as images and PDF files so that teachers can easily prepare their teaching materials for an online class. With easy links to "GSI maps" included in the contents, we also help teachers develop adequate story-telling for their teaching subject. Further, embedding attractive SNS postings in the contents is intended to make students feel closer to geography subjects.
Second; contents classification according to national school curricula. We first classified the contents into grade levels (3-4G(grade), 5G, 7-9G and 10-12G). Further we classified those according to themes such as neighborhood, Japanese landform and natural disasters in Japan. This classification help teachers find appropriate contents easily and quickly.
Third; contents for cross-curricular learning for STEAM education. Geography should not only be regarded us a subject, but can also be used as a connector to promote cross-curricular learning. For example, we developed a content which relates a section of a three-dimensional object (mathematics) to topographic sectional profile (geography). Another one relates three primary colors of light (visual art) to topographic/cartographic representation (geography).
Fourth; contents with story-telling aspects. These contents are intended to attract students for animating class teachings. For example, a character in a content poses a question toward students about the important points in understanding a hazard map. Another example is a cartoon style content where student can learn relationship between disaster and landform.
We asked 28 teachers about the possibility of utilizing contents in the Toolbox. Most teachers answered that the contents can be useful. Some respondents suggested the possibility of saving time for class preparation by using the contents in the Toolbox.
GSI will continuously support promotion of geography education through the Toolbox and introduce features and effectiveness of the contents in the Toolbox in various opportunities to help school teachers.