전자지리부도의 활용한 효과과적인 교수학습 방안

Abstract

In the 'Information Society', Korea has been going through diverse changes in each field including education. The same is true of geography. Geography atlas, which is used as an auxiliary textbook to help stadent understand contents of geography textbooks, is compiled by supplementing and mapping the contents of geography textbooks. Although geography textbooks and geography atlas are inseparably related to each other in this way, the geography atlas is not highly used in geography lessons. Thus, it is desirable to develop geography education in a way that encourages students to have interest in the geography subject matter and that provides learners with information they want in time and in the right place. It is important that geography atlas plays a role of auxiliary textbooks which help students understand geographical phenomenon or spatial phenomenon. It is also very important to develop teaching and learning methods which are changing according to trends of the times, and which compose spaces using digital geography atlas. To solve problems of the existing geography atlas, this study aims at making digital geography atlas using ArcIMS, expressing geographical concepts easily in more interesting and effective ways of helping students acquire geographical knowledge including geographical facts or phenomena in depth and in detail. Digital high school atlas using ArcIMS was developed and applied to geography lessons out of Social Studies curriculum for freshmen of a high school located in Bucheon. The subjects were divided into 2 group an experimental group where the digital high school atlas was used and the control group where lecture-centered lessons were proceeded. To analyze its effect on students' learning achievement and interest, a quiz test and a questionnaire survey were conducted. The main results of this study were summed up as the following: First, the experimental group where the digital high school atlas using ArcIMS did not show a significant difference from the control group in grades, but the experimental group was better at understanding. That is, the experimental group could acquire geographical facts easily by selecting information which the maps wanted to convey. In addition, the groups showed indicated difference in ability to understand maps. Second, the experimental group could read spatial phenomena on maps through digital maps. Moreover, the digital atlas system had the following advantages; query builders, zoom in and zoom out, unrestricted expression of colors and spaces, exploring attribute data and expression of diagrams, graphs, and various thematic maps related to learning contents. These advantages suggested possibilities of teaching methods which would satisfy demands of learners who always seek new and diverse materials. Third, the digital atlas enabled teachers to develop interactive lessons between teachers and learners that were rather impossible in traditional lecture-centered lessons. Accordingly, the lessons were active and students could check facts immediately. The students were satisfied with geographical information they checked, and they showed more interest in the lessons than in the lessons using the general Internet GIS. Furthermore, they indicated positive and earnest attitudes towards the geography lessons. Fourth, the contents they had learned in the first unit of 'territory and geographical information' were mentioned again with GIS in the lessons using the digital atlas. Thus, the contents about GIS could be conveyed and taught at the same time in the lessons. Fifth, the digital atlas was developed so that teachers who did not major in GIS could handle it easily. Since teachers made lessons operating high technology computers by themselves, they could enjoy the confidence from learners. Sixth, in terms of interest of the experimental group, higher interest than expected was shown. The students highly concentrated on the lessons providing changing contents of maps diversly on the screen and letting them confirm results on the screen using Cholopleth maps. In addition, in the process of composing maps, the lessons contributed to the learners' understanding of maps. Additionaly The answers to the questionnaire survey verified its positive effects on an increase in their interest in map lessons. Searching and groping for effective teaching-learning methods from diverse viewpoints will be a shortcut for geography education and make learning methods satisfied by people who live in the Information Society.