digital mapping tools to support teaching and learning in colleges - jisc digital festival 2015

Digimap for Colleges

A new online mapping service for the FE sector

Anne Robertson, Edina

Hannah RoweThe Sixth Form College Farnborough

David ScottKirklees College, Huddersfield

09/03/2015 Jisc Digital Festival, 9-10 March 2015, ICC Birmingham 4

» Why another Digimap?

» Service design

» Support materials

» Service features

» What people are saying

» Use within Farnborough Sixth Form College

» Use within Kirklees College

Session outline

Jisc Digital Festival, 9-10 March 2015, ICC Birmingham 5

Extending the product line to bridge the gap…

OS, Historic, Geology, Marine, Environment online mapping + data download for use in GIS/CAD requiring individual user registration

OS and historic online mapping for schools + Key Stage 1 - 4 curriculum materials

OS online mapping for colleges + GCSE & A level curriculum and vocational course materials available campus wide

09/03/2015

Result – an online mapping service designed for the sector


» Online mapping service

» Ordnance Survey digital map products for all of GB

» Variety of zoom levels inc. OS MasterMap, building footprints

» Annotate maps with text, markers, areas, photos, graphs

» Measure distances, areas, buffer points and lines

» Save annotations

» Create maps as pdf and jpg for printing and insert

» Variety of help materials

Key features


» Whole of college resource – vocational and cross curricular

» Not just for Geographers! Starting point for presentation of many types of information and use of ICT in learning

» Browser based, no software installation, no data management

» Most popular current browsers Chrome, IE, Safari, Firefox

» Smartboards, desktop pcs, laptops

» Touch enabled – Safari on iPads

» Easy campus IP access, click Start and you’re off!

Key features


Learning resources


How to videos


Annotating to present their own information


Example annotations


Example annotations


Figure 6: Land Use Map - Dunlop

Example annotations


Students using maps to present information


And even for your college use too



“We added a direct link (and banner) to Digimap on the Public Services Course in our VLE. In addition we promoted the resource to all relevant teaching staff and offered training as required (we haven’t had to do any training as Digimap is very intuitive).

They appear to be delighted with the service. I believe they are using the maps for outdoor expedition/orienteering related activities.”

Graeme Hodge

eLearning Resource Manager

North East Surrey College of Technology

Happy users …..

What people are saying

Happy users …..


“I know that our public services staff have been using it, I think they were making maps for expeditions with their students. Our Geography staff also use it, we even have a childcare assessor who has used it with her students to check amenities close to their placements.”Melanie Cook, Gower College Swansea, 20 February 2015

What people are saying

Hannah Rowe David Scott


Senior curriculum manager -Geography

The Sixth Form College Farnborough

Head of learning centres and financial support

Kirklees CollegeHuddersfield

How the service is being used

Hannah Rowe

Senior curriculum manager - GeographyThe Sixth Form College Farnborough


» Context - college of 3600+ students

» Geography Department – 430 students

» Current use of Digimap is largely class focused (22 A-level groups) and evolving

» Currently no A-level coursework – will be reintroduced in 2016 when the A-levels return to a linear format. Therefore there is huge scope to expand our use of Digimap at this time

Using Digimap for Colleges in the Geography Department at The Sixth Form College, Farnborough

Accessing Digimap for Colleges



An amazing tool to build students sense of place

» Local river investigation – The River Blackwater, Aldershot

» Investigating inner city Canning Town

» Researching the impacts of urban change on the UK’s settlements – e.g. the gentrification of Notting Hill and the impacts of counter-urbanisation on Fleet, Hampshire

A selection of departmental activities that have benefited from Digimap for Colleges


Why use Digimap for this?

» It is a local case study that we use to help students build their understanding of processes in a familiar environment to them

» As such all case study resources must be generated ourselves

» Allows the use of both overview base maps and detailed analysis of the area

An example of the use of Digimap for Colleges: investigating the impacts of counter-urbanisation on Fleet, Hampshire


» Firstly a base map is selected for students to annotate (using map interpretation only) why Fleet might be destination for counter-urbanisation

» Digimap allows me to select the exact area that I want my students to focus on

» Not only does it develop their urban understanding, but it also promotes geographical skill competency

Selecting the map area

Selecting areas for further investigation



» We could just use local OS maps – but the ability of selectable areas and printable maps facilitates much easier teaching

» Plus! All the other features that are then able to be used as a teaching tool

The next stage

David Scott

Head of learning centres and financial supportKirklees College

» 20,000 students

» 13 curriculum areas

» Vocational no A’ level’s

» 10% of courses include on-line (FELTAG) module

Kirklees College


Promoting Digimaps


Digimap for Colleges Online This new resource has already has positive feedback from a number of tutors. If you haven’t already, have a look via this link http://digimapforcolleges.edina.ac.uk/about and watch the short video to see how it works.


When students are doing a project we teach them about the impact of the construction work on surrounding areas for instance:

» We can get them to upload a 'suitable' site for their proposed development and we can get them to consider things like site constraints, access, services in the road to be avoided, planning traffic routes while the work is in progress, information to be supplied to the Planning Authority (Block Plans, Location Plans etc.)

» Students can also see the orientation of buildings relative to North South so important these days when allowing for solar gain

The construction department have been early adopters of Digimaps

Examples of usage


» Students can also see the orientation of buildings relative to North South so important these days when allowing for solar gain

» By looking at maps they can also consider whether the area has been well planned in their view or if they can deduce compelling reasons why the layouts are as they are

» They can also try and think why certain plots have been left vacant (access, geology, mining, heavily wooded)

» They can also be used to explain the use of grid references aspart of surveying

The construction department have been early adopters of Digimaps

Examples of usage


» Digital literacy

» Relevant to course work

» Take the resource back in to industry and the work place

» Interesting content for on-line learning encouraging student take up of blended sessions with regard to FELTAG

Benefits

Benefits to students and the future


» Targeted promotion to other curriculum areas (e.g. land based and travel and tourism)

» Use cross-college as an example of best practice re: FELTAG and blended learning

The Future

Benefits to students and the future

» Targeted promotion

» Excellent resource

» Well received and used in Construction

» Links to FELTAG

» Digitally literate students

» Potential in other areas

Summary


Improving the spatial literacy of tomorrow’s workforce


Find out more…

Contact…

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND

Anne RobertsonGeodata Services Manager, EDINA

[email protected]

digimapforcolleges.edina.ac.ukPod demo 1-2 today

http://digimapforcolleges.edina.ac.uk/

digital mapping tools to support teaching and learning in colleges - jisc digital festival 2015

Education

historic online mapping

new online mapping service

body copy

icc birmingham4why

icc birmingham5extending

os mastermap

gap os

college resource vocational