school on the cloud: lessons from digital earth, karl donert

Karl Donert, President EUROGEO, Director: European Centre of Excellence: digital-earth.eu

eurogeomail@yahoo.co.uk

Scientix conference, Brussels, BE, October 22 2014

School on the Cloud: lessons from the Digital Earth network

EUROGEO

• European Association of Geographers legally based in Belgium

• International NGO – established 1979 by the European Commission to network geographers

• A professional association for geo- scientists and related areas

• Strong expertise in networking, evaluation, research

• Networking: Digital-earth.eu

• Tools: I-Use

• Training: iGuess & iGuess2

• Concepts: Spatial Citizenship

• Careers: GeoSkills Plus

• Leadership: GeoCapabilities

EUROGEO: geo-education projects

European Journal of Geographyhttp://www.eurogeographyjournal.eu

“A fine journal with excellent and widely cited papers on European geography”The SCOPUS Evaluation Team (2014)

Translating the vital work of geo-scientists into the policy arena

Varga, A., & Parag, A. (2009). Academic knowledge transfers and the

structure of international research networks. University knowledge transfers

and regional development: Geography, entrepreneurship and policy. Edward

Elgar Publishers, 138-159.

“ Our results indicate that the quality of

international network connections matters for

academic knowledge transfers. ….. not only is the

distribution of public research expenditures across

different research projects important but also the

position from which researchers enter international

networks and the level of knowledge accumulated in

those networks.”

• like minded people – similar interests

• widely dispersed initiatives, share a common infrastructure (Kemp, 1998)

• essential for the adoption of innovation and implementation of change (Murgio et al., 2002)

• networking critical to improve quality (EC, 2003)

• establish visions for the future – new projects

Digital Earth and Networking

Kemp, K.K. (1998), What's missing? What do we need?. http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/ige98/report/missing.html

Building our School on the Cloud Network

Four characteristics (Hausman and Goldring, 2001)

• shared values among members,

• common set of events that promote face-to-face interaction between participants,

• collaboration among stakeholders and

• commitment to the network and its actions

Hausman, C. S. and Goldring, E. B. (2001), Sustaining Teacher Commitment: The Role of Professional Communities, Peabody Journal of Education, 76(2): 30-51

Karl Donert, President EUROGEO, Director: European Centre of Excellence: digital-earth.eu

eurogeomail@yahoo.co.uk

Scientix 2014 conference, Brussels, BE, October 24-26 2014

Digital-earth.eu NetworkConnecting education to the ‘geo-science’

needs of Europe

Digital Earth

Gore A (1992; 1998), The Digital Earth: Understanding Our Planet

Developing rapidly and pervasively

Digital Earth provides crucial links between nature and society

Nature: Physical equations

Describe processes

Society: Decisions on how to

Use the Earth´s resources

1

3

Competences and spatial citizenship

Donert K, Gryl I and Jekel T (2010), GI & Spatial Citizenship, In Jekel T, Donert K, Koller A and Vogler R,

Learning with GeoInformation V, Berlin, Wichman Verlag

Spatial Citizenship

• way of mind, to help navigate the world - visualisations

• how we use/organise space around us

• crucial to solving problems, big &small

Spatial thinking

• Infrastructure issues: soft- hard-ware,

• Low knowledge of teachers, low confidence

• No time in the curriculum, curriculum too full

• Not in teacher training curriculum

• Decision makers unaware of importance

• No guidelines what students should be able to do(Needs Analysis, digital-earth.eu Project, 2011)

Needs Analysis: Main issues

Not many teachers involved

Too few young people with the necessary awareness, skills, knowledge and experience

Need 1: support for grassroots actors – teachers and educators

Need 2: target key decision makers – politicians (EU /national), Ministries, ICT coordinators, curriculum developers, geospatial industry etc.

Networking Digital Earth

• Shared resources, ideas and activities

• Introduced new concepts - geographic (geo-)media – spatial citizenship

• Created an infrastructure (Centres of Excellence) (cross-border)

• Raised awareness – politicians, industry, decision makers, education

• Connected with major European initiatives –Digital Agenda - Open Data – Europe 2020 – New skills, new jobs

Project outcomesdigital-earth.eu outcomes ….

http://bit.ly/12nB4Ad

Digital-earth.eu Project outcomes ….

…..EDU Project

01.05.2013 – 31.10.2014

YouthMap 5020: „Entwicklung einer Kartenapplikation für Salzburg für und

durch Kinder & Jugendliche“

This project develops a youth-specific web-based map for Salzburg based on ArcGIS online. Pupils from 6 partner schools participate the entire application development process and bring in their specific requirements. FFG “Talente Regional”

Project-Nr.: 839717http://www.ffg.at/2-ausschreibung-talente-regional-gefoerderte-

projekte

with support from &

Attendance: over 4.800 participants in 220 events, …

360 teachers / trainee teachers

110 student teachers

3700 students with 241 accompanying teachers

Coverage: Participants from 241 educational

institutionsSpread in further schools through participating

trainee teachers

Course offering: For all types of school and teacher training

GIS-Station, Heidelberg, Pedagogical

University

Bulgarian Centre

GI Analytics, SME

IFE-ENS Lyon French Digital Earth Centre of Excellence

Geoliteracy

Using geolocalization

for creating tales Sonic mapping:

Using audio data for

creating maps

Collaborative mapping:

Using AGOL for creating

collaborative maps

Learning with

Games: Introduce

serious gaming

into the learning

process

Tactileo

Using mobile devices to learn

Digital Earth: the future

• New projects / initiatives–Crowdsourcing

–Citizen Science

–Hazards Education

–Spatial Planning

–Teachers as leaders

–Geo-VET

Digital-earth.eu Project outcomes ….

Digital Earth: the future

• Research through Centres of Excellence• H2020 proposals

• Further networking– School on the Cloud

• Industry / Policy Partnerships – ESRI - ArcGIS Online for organisations

– Founder members of European Citizen Science Association

– EEA ‘Eye on Earth’ stakeholder group

Digital-earth.eu Project outcomes ….

School on the Cloud Network

http://www.schoolonthecloud.eu@schoolon_cloud

https://www.facebook.com/SchoolOntheCloudLinkedin group schooloncloud-7426807

Society is different today..

The Future of Technology, Matt

Britland, The Guardian: 19 June 2013, http://tinyurl.com/o65bvcr

The Future of Technology, Matt

Britland, The Guardian: 19 June 2013, http://tinyurl.com/o65bvcr

The Future of Technology, Matt

Britland, The Guardian: 19 June 2013, http://tinyurl.com/o65bvcr

SoC: State of the art results

• Partners could not define what the Cloud was

• They were not aware of Cloud Computing characteristics 4/57

• They confused reality with perception in characteristics

• They used the Cloud themselves

• But not their organisations

SoC State of the art: Why should the Cloud be used in education? (n=57)

Easy access.Stability.Security.

Shareability.Trackability.

Collaboration.No more photocopying

Chances of losing content are quite small.

Role of teachers and the Cloud

-1.50

-1.00

-0.50

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

Degree of impact

FacilitatorMentor/coachInformation managerCatalyst for changeLearner

0

SoC: Four Working Groups

WG 1 Lead/manage the Cloud: transition

WG 2 i(nnovative) Teacher

WG 3 Learner focus: personlaisation

WG 4 Future scenarios for education?

Transition to the Cloud

iTeachers: Getting Smart?

iLearner(s)

Dealing with the Future

The cloud has extended our resources. Today scientists instantly share their research findings among colleagues; digital images of constellations are accessed by students and astronomers and electronic funds exchanges are routine between government treasuries. These applications all have indications for expanding the virtual education experience today. The goal is ...to expand campus education to meet the demands of our global culture

School on the Cloud

Citizens as prosumersproducers + consumers of data

Cloudy Conclusions for education

Amazing

Challenging

Persuasive

Disruptive

UbiquitousCartoons from: http://cloudtweaks.com/category/cloud-computing/cartoon/

Karl Donertwww.innovativelearning.co.uk

kdonert@yahoo.com@karldonert

Cloud Characteristics

0

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4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Cloud charateristicsnumber of replies

Examples of Cloud-based tools or approaches

Pitfalls or concerns about Cloud-based education

Barriers to use the Cloud (for education) in your organisation

5.80

5.90

6.00

6.10

6.20

6.30

6.40

6.50

Issues affecting Cloud takeup, scale 0-9

Challenges in using the Cloud for personalised learning

Karl Donertwww.innovativelearning.co.uk

kdonert@yahoo.com@karldonert