"GIS in the Schools" Workshop Review
Early in the efforts of the SEP, it became apparent that the input of classroom teachers would be invaluable; however, for teachers to give advice relevant to GIS they would need some experience with GIS. In order to provide this experience, to receive significant teacher input, and to correct our preconceptions, the NCGIA hosted a seven day workshop for 10 high school teachers in the summer of 1992. The workshop was developed around the goal of providing a stimulating learning experience in GIS for the teachers, but also acknowledged their ability to give practical advice on GIS use in the schools. Thus their title, teacher/consultant, was appropriate in our effort to convey a sense of collaboration between professionals with different areas of expertise.
Flyers announcing the workshop and applications were distributed to teachers in fifteen high schools within a radius of approximately sixty miles from the NCGIA's University of California, Santa Barbara site. Teachers were identified by calling the area high schools and asking for the names of teachers in the science, social studies, and computer departments. The workshop was also announced at a school district wide in-service for science teachers. Since a comprehensive look at GIS at this point in its development requires the type of hardware, software, data sets, and experience found in the university setting, a close tie between the university and the local teachers was desired. This desire motivated a limited selection area. The proximity of the workshop participants to one another also encourages continued interaction following the workshop. A side benefit of offering the workshop to local teachers was the savings in accommodation, transportation, and food costs.
Due to the relatively late date of the workshop's official announcement, we received only 15 applications. From this pool, efforts were made to select a balance of teachers from the sciences and social studies. Teacher/consultants were all expected to have some computer experience; however, a deliberate effort was made to have varying experience levels represented in the workshop. Teachers were also asked to list any other curriculum development experience. The final group of teacher/consultants consisted of six in science, three in social studies, and one in computers. They were picked to reflect a range of teaching experience from long-term seasoned teachers to newer teachers familiar, from more recent university training, with trends in teaching and use of computers in education. This diverse group with its mix of strengths provided an excellent range of perspectives on the role of GIS in the high schools.
In addition to the general information included in the initial flyer, the selected teachers were contacted personally and were sent a more detailed explanation of workshop goals and content. The teacher/consultants were also sent a short introduction to GIS. It was a very simple overview of GIS and its applications. Good examples of introductory material appropriate for pre-workshop reading are often found at the beginning of GIS software manuals or GIS educational materials written for specific software packages. It was assumed that any material of greater detail might not be effective until teacher/consultants had the opportunity to observe GIS visually. For a workshop of shorter duration, however, a packet of GIS materials including an overview, visuals, and more detailed materials might be an appropriate preparation for the workshop.
In order to aid the consultation efforts of the selected teacher/consultants, the workshop included a ten hour short course in GIS, many demonstrations of GIS applications, and hands-on work with various GIS software packages. Following mornings of GIS activities, the teacher/consultants provided crucial feedback in the afternoons on various issues related to efforts to implement GIS concepts and software in the secondary classroom. They also helped the NCGIA begin to identify the types of materials and support teachers would need in order to successfully use GIS in their classes. As a result of the workshop, the teacher/consultants developed GIS projects for use in their fall, 1992 classes.
Workshop Elements
This seven-day prototype workshop was held in July, 1992. The first five days concentrated on providing information on and experience with GIS and on receiving feedback from the teacher/consultants. The primary focus of the last two days was teacher/consultant project planning. The weekend dividing the seven days gave the teacher/consultants some time to digest the volume of information they had received and to outline potential GIS projects for their classrooms. The workshop days began at 8am and ended between 4:30 and 5pm. The workshop was staffed by Dr. Michael Goodchild, the Director of the NCGIA and the primary geography faculty member teaching GIS, by the SEP manager Steve Palladino, an NCGIA graduate student researcher, and by two graduate student assistants, Karen Beardsley and Bjorn Svensson.
There were five major components to the workshop: a ten hour short course in GIS, demonstrations of faculty and graduate student GIS projects, GIS software practice sessions, discussion sessions on various aspects of GIS in the schools, and project planning sessions. Continual evaluation of the workshop was also a daily activity.
Short Course
The course was broken up into ten hour-long sessions
taught two hours at a time. These two hour sessions
began in the morning after a short daily briefing and
a period for teacher/consultant evaluation of the previous
days activities. The course was primarily taught by
Dr. Goodchild with a portion taught by Steve Palladino.
The lectures were presented in the following order:
GIS Demonstrations
The GIS demonstrations were on various platforms utilizing
different software packages. The scope and subject
areas of the demonstrations also varied considerably.
Faculty and graduate students were asked to give 15
to 90 minute demonstrations of their GIS projects.
These concentrated on the use of GIS as a tool in
various application areas rather than research on GIS
development and computer programming. The following
demonstrations were provided for the teacher/consultants:
GIS Software Use
The teacher/consultants interacted with several GIS
packages over the seven day period. The teacher/consultants
were supported by the Project Manager and the two workshop
assistants in their efforts to use and understand the
GIS software. On the first day they worked through
the HyperCard Tutorial GISTutor on Macintosh computers.
They came back to the tutorial near the end of the
workshop in order to fill gaps in their understanding
of GIS.
The first GIS package used was MAPII on the Macintosh. This is a simple, inexpensive raster based software package. Teacher/consultants were each given a demonstration disk which can be obtained for $5. They worked through the demo of the GIS features, then completed a short exercise adapted for the workshop by the SEP from an example sequence suggested by one of the MAPII creators.
The next software package investigated was Atlas*GIS, a moderately price vector package for DOS systems. The teacher/consultants received a copy of the Atlas*GIS Introductory Package. This $20 package is a fully functioning GIS but will only work with the provided data.
Atlas*GIS was followed by another package for the IBM PC & compatible world. This raster based package, IDRISI, was designed for educational purposes and is only $200 and has many educational materials developed around it.
Last, the teacher/consultants used ARCVIEW on a IBM PC. This is a software package which allows for interactive display and query of data sets in the Arc/Info GIS format. Due to the popular use of Arc/Info, many data sets in this format exist. During the final two days of the workshop the teacher/consultants were given access to all of the software packages for further investigation, especially with respect to the use of these packages in their GIS projects. They also received a short lesson and practice session on using a digitizing table to input map data into a computer.
In addition to the examination of various software packages, a session on Friday morning was devoted to independent perusal of various GIS educational materials and related items that have been collected by the SEP. These included special GIS education workbooks developed by ESRI and TYDAC/SPANS. Teacher/consultants were also able to review the NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS and lab exercises developed for IDRISI and Arc/Info by the Center. During this time teacher/consultants also brought some of their curriculum materials to share with the other teacher/consultants.
Discussion & Planning
The first discussion session began with an overview
of computers in the classroom. The teacher/consultants
had come prepared with a list of the computer resources
of their schools, highlighting those resources that
were actually available for their use. These lists
were reviewed during this session and the general trends
of computers in the classroom were discussed. A short
overview of platforms for GIS software was included
in this session. The second discussion session focussed
on the place for GIS in the secondary school curriculum.
Also discussed as concomitant issues were the nature
of geography and technology education in the schools.
Teacher/consultants were asked to list where and how
GIS could be taught in various courses. The third
session was a question and answer session with Dr.
Goodchild about aspects of GIS that had come up in
the course or in the other activities. The fourth
session was an open session discussing the opportunities
for, and obstacles to GIS, activities in the schools.
A fifth session encouraged the teacher/consultants
to brainstorm about where they could teach a GIS component
or integrate GIS activities in their specific courses.
The fifth session began the teacher/consultants' project planning process. A sheet describing project planning and implementation activities was handed out. On the last two days, the morning was reserved for project planning sessions. During these sessions the teacher/consultants worked in groups with the workshop staff. The first day they presented their lesson/project plan ideas from the weekend of brainstorming. The second day they described the outline of their project based on the feedback received on the previous day. Other activities of the final two days were a session defining what should be a part of a GIS project/lesson and a session evaluating SEP ideas for GIS educational materials.
Each day included an evaluation component aimed at helping the SEP improve the workshop model. At the end of each day, the teacher/consultants received a one page evaluation form asking for feedback on each of the day's activities. They filled out the forms at the end of the day or in the evening. The next morning, at the briefing session, their comments on the effectiveness of the previous day's activities were solicited. The morning evaluation times were very helpful in adjusting the workshop as we went. They also helped foster a sense of accountability of the workshop staff to the teacher/consultants, giving the workshop the desired interactive format. At the end of the workshop, the concluding session included a period of verbal evaluation. As a final workshop activity the teacher/consultants were given a three page evaluation form which they were to return in a week with their GIS lesson/project description. Each evening in addition to filling out the daily evaluation form, the teacher/consultants took home a copy of one of the GIS trade magazines (GIS World or Geo Info Systems) to peruse.
Since one of the primary goals of the workshop was to get the opinions on GIS potential in the schools from teachers who had a reasonable exposure to GIS, we felt that compensation was in order for their consultation efforts. Each teacher/consultant was paid $100 per day. Those who completed their GIS project activities including an evaluation of their field test and a final report on their project received an additional $300. Generally expenses were fairly low. The two graduate student workshop assistants were each paid $500 for about 40 hours of work. Both Dr. Goodchild and Steve Palladino were not specifically compensated, but include all the efforts towards the workshop in their normal duties. Some money was spent acquiring demonstration packages, making photocopies, mailing letters, and the like, but it was not a large amount.
In addition to compensation for their consultation efforts, the teacher/consultants were given the opportunity to earn 3 quarter units of Extension credit for the short course in GIS and other learning activities that were part of the workshop. Six of the teacher/consultants chose to pay the extension fee and receive credit. The extension credit, the compensation, and the general design of the workshop activities were geared to acknowledging the professionalism of the secondary teachers. As noted, we were not interested in establishing a two-tiered partnership - NCGIA "experts" and teacher "students" - but rather, we attempted to emphasize contributions by all workshop participants. This collegial treatment was greatly appreciated by the teacher/consultants and added to the effectiveness of the workshop.
In the summer months following the workshop, the teacher/consultants returned a workshop evaluation package and worked independently on their GIS projects. The Project Manager continued to be in contact with the teacher/consultants to aid their efforts and to provide additional information on GIS materials, data, and software that became available. One item that the teacher/consultants requested during the workshop was a slide set on GIS. The Project Manager compiled a set of 40 slides which can be used for a quick introduction to GIS. Many of the teacher/consultants used this resource as part of their GIS projects. In December, 1992, the workshop participants met on a Saturday to report on the results of their classroom trial of their GIS projects, to make final evaluations of Phase I of the SEP, and to finalize the format for the summaries of their projects.
Workshop Evaluation
The workshop got off to a good start with an introductory session in which the goals for the workshop were expressed, the workshop schedule was reviewed, and introductions were made. The teacher/consultants generally appreciated the clear presentation of what we hoped to accomplish as a group in the seven days. Following the orientation session, the first class session was held. For the most part the teacher/consultants found this "General Introduction to GIS" session very informative. Despite a positive response to the material in the sessions, most of the teacher/consultants expressed a desire for the introductory sessions to give a stronger overview of GIS including slides of GIS applications and a simple demonstration of a working GIS application. They also noted that it was important to clarify the impact GIS might have on their teaching and lives right at the beginning.
For some teacher/consultants, it took a couple of days before they began to understand what GIS actually was and how it might fit into their teaching. By the fourth day of the workshop, however, all of the teacher/consultants became excited about the possibilities that GIS might hold for their courses. They began to dream up all sorts of GIS activities for their classes, some of them quite involved. As the teacher/consultants began to assess what data, software, and materials they would need to begin implementing these ambitious plans, they realized that putting together a GIS lesson might require quite a bit of effort. This was especially true for projects that would have students use multiple data sets from the local area. Though obviously appealing to both teacher and students, this type of project would require extensive efforts in identifying existing data sources and obtaining the data or in compiling data themselves. Like a red-hot stock market eventually cooling off, there was a discernible "correction" in their expectation level. Nevertheless, the teacher/consultants were still very positive towards GIS use in the classroom at the end of the workshop.
Short Course
Most of the material in the short course in GIS was
drawn from the NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS with adaptations
made for the audience. For the most part the information
was appropriate, though at times it was hard for some
of the teacher/consultants to follow. This was especially
true for some of the more technical aspects of the
course. Some of the teacher/consultants found the
technical discussion a good base for answering student
questions; however, other teacher/consultants felt
that the content should be streamlined. Generally
not all lecture topics planned for a session were covered
(see previous list of course topics). This was in
part due to the positive emphasis on interactive lecturing
in which questions were encouraged. This slowed down
the presentation of the material, but it also increased
comprehension and interest. It turned out that the
computer discussion flowed over into the second day.
The discussion on Spatial Objects and Relationships
was dropped. Some of the more technical discussion
on Raster and Vector GIS was omitted.
Many of the teacher/consultants suggested that some of the last day's information on "GIS in the Schools, Workplace, and World" could have been included in some of the earlier lectures. It was also suggested that some of the application examples be presented at the beginning to cement the purposes for GIS in their minds. Some of the applications, however, would be best understood following the technical information in the Raster and Vector lectures. The background on computers and maps was appreciated by the teacher/consultants. The portion of the short course that got the highest marks from the teacher/consultants was the section with accompanying slides which clarified the various ways GIS can be applied. A suggestion was made that outlines of lecture materials be given to the teacher/consultants at the beginning of the lectures. This aid to note taking would help the teacher/consultants compile the information as reference material for their own teaching.
Based on the experience of this workshop, a future lecture series might be reduced to four two-hour sessions. The initial session would make a greater attempt to provide the necessary overview for teachers to grasp both the nature of GIS and its relevance to their efforts as educators. This first lecture would incorporate discussion on the background of GIS, its use with appropriate examples (slides), its potential for the classroom, and other general information about GIS. A second lecture would review computer and map concepts that are essential to GIS. The third lecture would present the Raster/Vector world views and some of their details. A final lecture would tie together the various components through a more in depth examination of GIS applications. In order to shorten the series some of the more technical discussion would be dropped. The large amount of material that might seem appropriate for the introductory lecture could be reduced by a more extensive discussion in the opening session on the nature of GIS in relation to the goals of the workshop. Wise choice of a simple GIS demonstration immediately preceding or following the first lecture could also help provide a greater sense of the big picture by the end of their first day.
GIS Demonstrations
The various demonstrations of graduate student and faculty
GIS applications were the highlight of the workshop
for many of the teacher/consultants. They appreciated
the "real world" connection that the demonstrations
provided. They also enjoyed seeing some cutting edge
uses of GIS. The most successful demonstrations were
clearly organized with a visual introduction, a clear
explanation and graphic representation of the use of
GIS in the application, and a minimum of information
extraneous to the needs of teachers. Examples of good
introductions included a video showing the research
area for the ocean bottom mapping application and slides
showing the area being studied on Vandenberg Air Force
Base. This fits with the general consensus that there
should be an emphasis on "show, over talk".
Talk especially to be avoided includes excessive use
of acronyms that have no meaning to teachers and use
of very technical terminology either from GIS methodology,
computer technology, or the presenter's area of study.
When making presentations around a computer screen certain space issues need to be considered. Only 4 or 5 individuals can crowd closely enough around the monitor to see what is happening. Large groups may need to be split up in order for the demonstration to be successful. It is helpful if the presenter has an adequate mastery of the software. It was frustrating for the teacher/consultants to watch an individual "playing" with the software. Batch files (computerized slide shows) are often a good presentation method. When demonstrating the capabilities of GIS software packages, it helps if the demonstrator can either involve the observers in some sort of "hands-on" manner or at least allow them to provide input to the demonstrator's actions
Some of these difficulties were encountered in the tour of the Map & Imagery Laboratory. Too much time was spent discussing what was available rather than showing the operation of the machinery and software. Also the other resources of the lab, such as the large map collection, were overlooked. At a later point in the workshop, the teacher/consultants were able to go back to the Map & Imagery Lab in order to fill in the gaps and explore the resources available to them. It was noted that a more conscious effort should be made to match demonstrations chronologically with lectures covering material relevant to the particular demonstrations. As a whole the demonstrations were highly valued and served as fodder for teacher/consultant discussions with friends, family, and fellow teachers. The teacher/consultants also noted that the demonstrations provided good examples of "GIS in action" which they could relate to their students.
GIS Software Use
The teacher/consultants were exposed to quite a few
software packages in a fairly short period. This was
intentional. We desired to get a relatively unbiased
view of what types of systems might go over well in
the schools. In future workshops, it may be more efficient
to pick a just a couple of packages that have potential
in the schools for teacher use. The capabilities of
other packages could be displayed in quick overviews.
Teacher/consultants noted that before they worked
with the packages, a short demonstration of the software's
capabilities, the operating system, and key steps would
be very helpful. It was valuable to have some open
lab time near the end of the workshop for teacher/consultants
to work with the packages that interested them and
had potential in their classrooms. In picking software
to use, it is important to keep in mind the hardware
that teachers have available to them at their schools.
Having them work with both a raster and a vector package
drives home the distinction and clarifies the choices
that must be made in selecting software for use in
the classroom. In most cases vendor-provided demonstration
packages and their accompanying manuals will not work
in the classroom. Students will need specific lessons
and steps to fully utilize GIS software.
GISTutor receive mixed reviews. Some teacher/consultants really appreciated its HyperCard format which allowed them work at their own speed and to choose what topics to investigate. Since this was the first package used, an introduction to the Macintosh operating system would have been helpful for some of the teacher/consultants. GISTutor assumes that the user understands the general purpose of GIS and knows what a GIS application is made up of. It picks up the story with the technical workings of GIS software. Some found this discussion too detailed or "boring". Teacher/consultants returned to redo the tutorial at the end of the workshop as a review of some of the material covered in the lectures. This was generally viewed as helpful activity, though going through the whole thing twice was a bit too repetitive for some of them. A possible use for the GISTutor in future workshops would be a short (1/2 hour?) interaction with it at the beginning of the workshop as practice on the Mac, as an example of the utility of hypertext programs in education, and as a overview of information that is available to them. At the end of the workshop, a full review of the GISTutor would serve as a valuable review of some of the concepts covered. GISTutor appears to be more of a teacher rather than a student resource. Most of the topics are too detailed for the average student and many of the animations are too slow to hold their attention.
MapII also had a mixed reception. It has the advantage of being a cheap and fairly simple to use (though not always intuitive) raster package. What it gains in simplicity, it loses in being simplistic. It is not a very powerful system and its raster representation of some data sets may be hard for students to comprehend. Some of the teacher/consultants, especially those with Mac computers, could envision students using this package. Like virtually all packages, educationally oriented exercises would increase its utility. The teacher/consultants who managed to work through the demonstration materials were able to try some exercises developed for the demonstration data sets. They tended to find working on the exercises more valuable than learning how to change colors and adjust the size of the windows.
Atlas*GIS was more attractive at first to the teacher/consultants due to its vector representation. A soon-determined drawback was the limited nature of the marketing oriented data set of Manhattan zip code areas that was provided in the tutorial. Also the manual emphasized how to operate the GIS, but did not have the users work through a clear, mock project that would make their efforts meaningful. Despite its nice user interface, the package may be harder to use for students familiar with the Mac OS or Windows. Since the package costs a couple thousand dollars, it may be out of the range of most educators.
The relatively inexpensive IDRISI package received the most favorable comments. Since this package was designed for educational purposes, its features seemed more user friendly to the teacher/consultants. These perceptions were aided by a few factors. Preceding the use of IDRISI, a comprehensive demonstration of its capabilities was provided by a graduate student. Since it is a package for GIS education, exercises with accompanying data sets have been developed for it. The teacher/consultants used an African data exercise designed for classroom use by the NCGIA. This allowed the them to utilize the GIS power right away and to do their own analysis. Most of the teacher/consultants identified this as the GIS with the most potential. To use IDRISI, however, students will need an explicit set of steps and commands. It cannot be effectively "played with" like MAPII or Atlas*GIS, due to its more difficult interface.
Teacher/consultants only got limited exposure to ARCVIEW due to technical difficulties (i.e., it will not run on low power and limited memory computers; a 386 PC with 6MB RAM would be the minimum configuration.) ARCVIEW is not a fully operable GIS, but rather is a data display and query system developed to access data sets created in the powerful, but complex Arc/Info software. Despite not having all the features of a "full" GIS, ARCVIEW can powerfully manipulate the display of data. The teacher/consultants who were able to spend time with this software recognized this power and possible use of ARCVIEW in the schools (e.g., as a resource in the school library). ESRI, the company that created ARCVIEW and Arc/Info, is planning to develop ARCVIEW-based classroom materials. This should make the use of ARCVIEW more appealing to teachers.
In addition to these five packages, teacher/consultants used PC/Globe, PC/USA, and AutoMap. These programs are map-based data sets with very limited analytical capabilities and would not qualify as GIS packages. Many of them saw these packages as more amenable to classroom use than the GIS software and as potential lead-ins to the use of GIS software. They may be an example of the "face" that GIS packages will need to wear in order to be of practical value in a school setting. On the other hand, with their exposure to the powerful analysis capabilities of GIS, some teacher/consultants saw these packages as nothing better than expensive "electronic almanacs" or road atlases.
The teacher/consultants liked the session in which various GIS educational materials, accumulated by the NCGIA, were laid out for teacher/consultant inspection. They mainly appreciated being able to access address and other basic information about these resources. Many other potential resources were mentioned during the course of the workshop. The teacher/consultants noted that it would be helpful to have been given a directory of these available resources. In response to these comments, the SEP Workshop Resource Packet contains a list of available software and curriculum materials. (Palladino, 1993a)
Discussion & Planning
On the whole, teacher/consultants found the discussion
times very helpful. Some sessions were more valuable
to some teacher/consultants than others, but all sessions
were identified by at least a few teacher/consultants
as important workshop elements. Discussion sessions
were split between whole group and small group activities.
The combination of these two formats seemed to work
well. It was especially helpful in project/lesson
planning at the end of the week to spend time in small,
same discipline groups. There were two groups of science
teachers and one group of social science teachers.
The two groups of science teachers were divided by
level of computer use likely in their respective classrooms.
Teacher/consultants appreciated being exposed, in the "Computers in the Schools" discussion, to the range of computer use and availability in the various schools. It might have been more helpful to tie this discussion in with a more complete overview of GIS computer requirements. The "Course Placement" discussion showed that GIS could be adapted creatively to fit in many secondary school subjects, though science and social studies courses were the most obvious. This discussion helped some of the teacher/consultants realize that GIS had a greater potential than just a tool for a "geography or geology course". The "Question and Answer" session with Dr. Goodchild was an appropriate follow-up to the short course. Teacher/consultants liked having an opportunity to have their GIS questions answered. They also appreciated the candid assessment of the minimum hardware requirements for GIS provided by Dr. Goodchild (see Hardware section below). The "Obstacles and Opportunities" session allowed the teacher/consultants to express their perceptions on GIS in the schools. In general, this open format discussion was appreciated.
The remaining sessions were mainly focussed on the teacher/consultants' use of GIS in their own classroom. They found the first activities, identifying specifically where in their own courses GIS would fit in and reviewing the outline of the lesson planning stages, very helpful in getting them into the planning mode. Following the incubation of ideas on the weekend, there were two planning sessions, "brainstorming" and "polishing". These small group work sessions helped the teacher/consultants narrow down and clearly define GIS projects that would work in their classrooms. A few teacher/consultants did find the second session a bit redundant, since they had their plans pretty well defined by the end of the first lesson planning session. Time was spent in a couple of the sessions trying to define a universal format for the lesson plans. It became apparent that with the broad scope of teacher/consultant projects and with the great variety in personal lesson planning styles, that a strict lesson format would not be feasible. Instead, we decided as a group to produce project summaries rather than matching lesson plans. Overall the time spent on lesson planning activities seemed adequate. Some teacher/consultants thought it was overdone. Many of the teacher/consultants, however, would have liked to have more time to access the university resources that were needed for their projects.
The teacher/consultants also gave other input that changed the course of some of the SEP activities. A prototype outline of an "Introduction to GIS Workbook" was presented to the teacher/consultants. They pointed out that the workbook was too focussed on teaching GIS rather than the use of GIS as an auxiliary teaching tool. Teacher/consultants brainstormed and came up with a plan for a resource that would introduce GIS into a variety of courses. The working title of this resource was "GIS City". It would encourage teacher use by having a set of pre-packaged activities that would fit into the existing curriculum of various courses. Teachers would use a set of overlays of various "GIS City" features and variables to teach concepts related to their current course content. Students would work through a series of worksheets using GIS analysis concepts to reinforce subject area learning, but at the same time would be slowly exposed to GIS. Support materials in the workbook would allow the teacher to expand the lessons to a more direct use of GIS concepts. Though the SEP will not develop this specific resource, this teacher/consultant defined model helped clarify the types of GIS teaching materials that would be of value in the classroom.
The teacher/consultants gave excellent feedback in the verbal evaluation sessions, on the daily evaluations, and in the final evaluation form. This type of on-going evaluation was a critical element of the workshop. Not only did the teacher/consultant feedback meet the goal of providing the SEP with a baseline for GIS in the school efforts, but it helped us see the needs of the schools in a clear light and enabled us to change course in some of our activities.
General Workshop Evaluations
The teacher/consultants found the introduction to GIS technology, the demonstration of many GIS applications (showing the wide range of GIS use), the hands-on work with software, and the interaction among the teachers and workshop staff extremely rewarding. They liked the daily mix of activities and the organized structure of the workshop. Other positives were:
Many of the teacher/consultants suggested that there be a specific project that the teachers would work on during the course of the workshop. The project would progress through the steps of creating a GIS application. The resource developed could then be used in the teachers' classrooms. Some parts of the project such as a data set and software package might be prepared ahead of time, but teachers should get the sense that they are the creators. This might ameliorate the feeling by some of the teacher/consultants that they did not have a great say in the outcome of the workshop. For this to work the project would have to be fairly simple, but would have the result of producing an active interest in the GIS information being presented. It would also give the teachers an immediate "result" that could be applied to their teaching.
Suggested changes to the workshop include: