Cartographic Response to Changes in Teaching Geography and History - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 210

expensive. This point of view has been developed in the work of Gold ( 2008 ). He
states that:
However, where vandalism, or irresponsible use such as software piracy, are perceived to
be problems with the result that the machines may only be used when staff supervision is
available, then even a large number of microcomputers in a laboratory may provide
extremely limited access to students taking computer cartography courses.
A good idea is that Geography and History lessons could be developed as
computer games appropriate for different ages. Such experiment could be found
in The Serious Games Institute (SGI) at Coventry University. Wortley ( 2008 ) says
that it is established to “ create an international centre of excellence for serious
games and virtual worlds. The SGI has been pioneering the use of virtual
environments for a range of applications which include e-learning, simulation,
disaster management, virtual conferencing and social and business networking ” .
Here, the issue is how to make such products cheap enough or free of charge for
teachers and pupils and how to make them attractive for the pupils' needs.
17.3.4 Modern Visualization
The visualization of geographic and historic information in the school atlases is one
of the main topics of modern cartography. Mapmakers should reach the pupils'
attention and provoke map reading and analysis. How do the children think in terms
of cartographic aspects? We can find different responses to this question as well as
many proposals. Many of these proposals are the result of questionnaire research.
Based on international research and questionnaire, Reyes Nunez et al. ( 2005 , 2008 )
propose the use of “ satellite images in the textbooks and atlases ... , which help the
pupils to understand the content of the physical maps by visualizing the represented
territories in their natural dimensions ”.
How to visualize the necessary information? How to choose the appropriate
symbol system? What colours should we use? The answers to these questions need
experiments with children to understand their perception of maps (Konecny and
Svancara 1996 ). In the work of Bandrova ( 2007 ), one of the main steps of the
proposed technology for atlas creation is to work with pupils and to be close to their
way of thinking. After many experiments conducted mainly by questionnaire, the
prepared maps and atlases were approved and later published (Bandrova 2010 ).
There are several major differences between this atlas and the old atlases
available on the Bulgarian market:
￿ Usage of many photos and drawings in the map and atlas design (Fig. 17.4 ). This
attracts pupils and direct their attention towards the topic of the maps.
￿ Use of various diagrams, statistics and texts like in an encyclopedia style
(Fig. 17.5 ). These not only textual but also visual elements capture the pupils'
attention, provide them with more specific and curious information that is easy to
understand and memorize.