Teaching with Technology

http://mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/2008/issue2/j-brown.php

My article for this week comes from my primary source journal, The Journal of the Association for History and Computing, from August of 2008 (latest edition published). Its full title is “Using GIS to Drive Research in Undergraduate History Classes – A Report on Five Years of Experimentation with the Modern World History Survey Course.”

Professor Jim Brown (not the running back from the Cleveland Browns!) of Samford University received a grant in 2002 from the National Science Foundation to spread knowledge about the academic use of GIS (geographic information systems). Brown was the only Historian in the group and proceeded to spend a significant amount of time learning the system and applying it to his World History undergraduate survey course.

As has been noted most recently by Chris in his article blog, the use of GIS in higher education is hot.  Brown used it to integrate geography with History in his survey course.  He points out that the two main aspects of GIS that he was impressed with were its “visuality of manipulating layers of data” related to mapping and its ability to create categories of data within each layer. Specifically Brown used it as a tool that the students would use to complete the main class project in World History that dealt with the basis for modern European power, as well as the way world history played out on 6 key transportation corridors.  The major value of GIS  related to this focus on the transportation corridors since the GIS information is outstanding in providing this kind of data as well as the ability to manipulate it.

Brown used the ArcGIS system, but later switched to Google Earth when he had some problems with ArcGIS support. In his class he spent time teaching his students how to use the program, as well as teaching the course material. The students were to use the ArcGIS system to do their class project to present to the class.  He was excited about the conclusion and felt it was a success in helping his students to able to integrate Geography and History. 

Note that Brown used the system mainly as the platform for his students to present their class projects, not as an everyday tool in teaching his class. The inclass time he spent was to explain to the students how to use the system as well as actually teaching the subject matter of the course.

The distinct impression that I got was that it took a heck of a long time for Brown to figure out how to use the system for his class and then additional time for him to teach his students to use it during World History class time (including two student lab manuals). I suspect he would not have had the time to learn it so well without the grant. In the article he refers on several occasions to the time needed for him to get up to speed – for example in referring to his switch from ArcGIS to Google he states: : “despite my commitment of hundreds of hours to teaching myself ArcGIS, I was still dependent on the GIS expert in our Geography Department …” After he switched to Google Earth because of his frustration he states: “That summer I taugh myself Google Earth …” As a result, I believe that Google Earth took a while to figure out as well.

There is no doubt that the integration of GIS information can be a great presentation tool and can be adapted for classroom lectures and discussion. However, I find that the time commitment that the author had to spend to get up to speed was significant.

It raised in my mind a continuing concern I have with the use of some technology – frankly it takes a lot of time investment to figure out how to use it and then train your students how to use it.  For someone like me, who is not a digital native, my use of classroom technology must be relatively easy and straightforward.  I would never be able to take the time to learn the system as well as Brown to be able to implement it in my classes. This is partly because it would be hard for me to figure it out, and partly because I would have to know it well enough to explain it to students and answer their technical questions about it.

I believe that the burden of learning some technologies for use in the classroom can sometimes diminish the ability of the teacher to do what he or she is best qualified to do – teach the subject area of his or her expertise. Teachers have to know the available Technology tools and be creative in using them, but they aren’t experts in Technology. Technology that complicates that unnecessarily is only going to be used by a few.  I tentatively put the author’s use of GIS in that category.  I look forward to Chris’ teaching presentation, based on his blog about the use of GIS, to see more details of how it can work.