presentation rieffel

Using VGI to create a child suitable map

Investigating cognitive aspects in

digital maps

Who am I?

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek

University of Muenster, Germany 2

Philippe Rieffel, student of Geoinformatics from Muenster,

Germany

Student assistant with GI@School (www.gi-at-school.de)

Our Mission: Introduce new concepts of Geoinformatics to

teachers, pupils and parents

Supported by Thomas Bartoschek with input, ideas and

supervision

http://www.gi-at-school.de/





Why maps for children?



Map literacy is crucial for everyday life, school, university,

work and an independent life

Lines up with other basic skills that are necessary

Literacy

Math

Use of information and communication technologies

Those skills are taught explicitly, while gaining map literacy

is often implicitly done




http://walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.11-health-global-impositioning-systems/

http://www.thedailygreen.com/media/cm/thedailygreen/images/green-kids-treasure-hunt-lg.jpg




The high school curriculum in Germany demands the

“[..] building of a topographic knowledge base

about a theme-based global orientation grid as prerequisite

for a differentiated spatial integration-related thinking”.

(Core curriculum geography, high school, NRW)

This process could already be stimulated earlier, starting

from kindergarden

Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-

12 Curriculum

Theoretical foundation - Piaget



According to Piaget, infants and children form schemas to

impose order on the world

Those schemas undergo constant variation and modification,

depending on the age

Piaget: Assimilation and adaption

Foundation for constructivist learning




http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_kassin_essentials_1/15/3935/1007493.cw/index.html




Piaget: Advancement through the stages is biologocally

driven (aging)

Newer studies show that maturing is the basis, but the speed

and quality of the advancement are influenced by external

stimuli and experience (e.g. by Newcombe, adaptive

combination)

Those stimuli can be provided from kindergarden on

Technological advancement allows easy to use and specially

tailored methods towards spatial thinking

Piaget - criticism



Newcombe: 4 stages are too strict

Features of each stage are also found in earlier stages

Automatic advancement through the stages is questioned

Environmental factors influence the speed of development

Piaget underestimates children abilities

Theories are still valuable

Theories + Criticism justify the approach of using support tools for spatial learning from early on

The actual topic of this talk



(Digital) Maps are undoubtly important for the process of

spatial learning of kids, starting at very young ages

We worked with several software products lately, even

created some, that support spatial learning processes

The actual topic of this talk



(Digital) Maps are undoubtly important for the process of

spatial learning of kids, starting at very young ages

We worked with several software products lately, even

created some, that support spatial learning processes

All lack the same problem

NO basemap especially suitable for kids!

Motivation



Why is that street

yellow on this map?

I see that is grey

Research questions



Theoretical analysis

How do kids perceive their environment?

How is that perception „stored“ in their imagination?

How can that perception be transfered into a cartographic

representation?

Kids need „easier“ maps!



..that reflect their world!

First thoughts



How should a map for kids look like?

Remove unnecessary features off the map

Use more uniform signatures

Use clear fonts and easy symbols

First thoughts - survey



Ask kids, how they would make a map

Features

Colors

Geometries

Icons

Survey and sketchmaps

Conducted during a stay in Campinas, Brazil

Repeated in Germany soon

Survey - Map orientation



Can you identify the

area of your school

and of your home?

Please rate the maps!

general/orientation

Survey - Map orientation



Survey - Symbology I



Symbols are taken from the OpenStreetMap renderer Mapnik:

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/applications/rendering/mapnik/symbols

Survey - Symbology II

March 17, 2012 Philippe Rieffel, Thomas Bartoschek University of Muenster, Germany 24

General information



General information

Gender

Age

Experience

With paper maps

With digital maps

Survey results



35 usable datasets

Age: 9-12

Gender: 20 f / 15 m

Majority (60%) had at least some experience with paper

maps

Experience with digital map was generally little (71%)

Map ranking:

Survey results



First interpretation:

Orientation along districts

District names prominent on

selfmade maps and osm

No district names on the OSM

excerpt

No.1 Map had a lot of details

removed clarity

No. 3 Map, too much removed?

Survey results - Symbology



Most icons were identified “correctly”, some deviations

Parking

Cinema

Police

Mail

See-saw

Reasons:

Lingual differences

Symbol design / Symbol unknown

Survey results - Colors



Some trends

Yellow for roads (“Google design”) only mentioned twice

Roads either black or grey

Red for borders

Implementation



Create a digital map service

Render raster maps from OpenStreetMap Vector data

Flexible design scheme

Whole world data coverage

Setup: PostgeSQL DB + Renderer + Webinterface

Implementation - flexibility



WMS-like functionality

Advantage: Cater the changing requirements during aging of

the children



Scale

Resolution Extent

Coverage Map Scale

Feature

Density Variability



All maps taken from OpenStreetmap.org || CC-BY-SA license

Map design principles



Generalize the world as little as possible / as much as

necessary

Use symbology that is easily connectable to the real world

Identify important content for children, omit unnecessary

information that obstruct the map

Contact



Philippe Rieffel

[email protected]

@p.rieffel

Progress blog:

http://52north.org/GeospatialLearning/

mailto:[email protected]



presentation rieffel

Education

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curriculumphilippe rieffel

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age piaget

piaget criticism newcombe

germany student assistant

high school curriculum