[Ica-osgeo-labs] We welcome AAG's ideas and inputs for empowering School teachers and expanding Geoeducation in Schools globally

[Suchith Anand]

Dear Michael,

Thank you for the confirming that you will pass on the inputs and queries from the "Geo for All" community  to the course proposal writing committee so that they will consider and discuss during their meetings and deliberations. That is greatly appreciated.

In fact, it was AAG's related discussions [1],[2],[7] and request from school teachers from the USA for help on this that got us to take action so we can support all school teachers  (all levels- primary, secondary etc) globally . I am pleased to inform that we  are having discussions in Como in two weeks time to expand "Geo for All" to schools globally. We  would greatly welcome AAG to be part of this global school teacher training initiative.
 
As part of our "Geo for All" mission for  empowering school teachers globally, we are welcoming ideas and participation from the wider geocommunity. We are discussing ideas with MapStory Foundation  (Dr. Christopher K Tucker , Dr Jonathan Marino) and other organisations worldwide to help  empower our school teacher  colleagues globally . As we  are fully committed to do our best for empowering school teachers globally  , we are focussing on combining MapStory [3] and customised version of QGIS [4] (depending to level of teaching - primary, high school, local language etc) are the perfect tools that we need and now have to make this happen. By having Open Principles in education will ensure that the school teachers will not be at the mercy of  changed cost conditions or  clever marketing strategy etc of any proprietary GIS vendor.

MapStory [3] for  teaching "Mapping local" (history,nature, environment, culture etc) is a perfect tool for teaching geoeducation for schools that school teachers in USA and around the world can make use of.   Chris has kindly send us some examples  that i am sharing with the wider OSGeo community and AAG .  For mapping local history, an early leader in the MapStory community, Nitin Gadia mapped his home town, Ames Iowa, building by building and parcel by parcel from 1862 until now at  http://mapstory.org/maps/475/   .  His effort “MapStory Local” and has put together a cookbook that people could follow in their home towns. [5] , [6] . There are many other excellent spatio-temporal datasets and stories that teachers, students and classes could put together and share as part of interesting learning experiences.

Through Geo for All , we will make sure more school teachers globally are aware of these tools and resources so that can freely use them for developing lesson plans and teaching their students. Let us not allow any vendor just for their own selfish "business" interest to try and create artificial cost barriers and use clever marketing/sponsorship plans to prevent Open Education opportunities to all.

You can see the latest discussions at http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-July/001850.html  and please join and contribute your ideas. We  would greatly welcome AAG to be part of this global school teacher training initiative. Working together we can make sure geoeducation opportunities are available to all our future generations.

Millions of globally connected minds working together on the common mission of enabling Open Education opportunities for everyone has been key for making these developments possible. An idea whose time has come is the most powerful force in the universe and the time for "Access to quality education opportunities for everyone"  has arrived. 

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org


[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-July/001848.html
[2] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-June/001828.html
[3] http://MapStory.org
[4] http://www.qgis.org/en/site/ 
[5] http://wiki.mapstory.org/wiki/MapStory_Local
[6] http://www.thenittygritty.org/mapstorylocal
[7] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2015/06/open-gis-academics-and-educators-please-apply-to-aag-call-before-june-15th-2015/



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