Social Studies Information Service Integrating Electronic Geolocation into History Instruction Leslie Gross Wyrtzen & Heather O’Connell

Introduction

Methology Results

Conclusions

References

In many social studies and history textbooks, information is often organized chronologically or by theme. Geographic information, in the form of maps, is often treated as auxiliary information, and can be found in small boxes throughout the text or even sometimes in the appendix. The lack of emphasis on the spatial relationships between historical events or sociological information about various societies can result in:

• Students having little geographic literacy

• Students having fewer schematic connections to information and therefore less ability to recall and apply

Instead of using maps to augment other presentations of information, we propose that maps become an information delivery service by integrating the information geographically as well as chronologically and by topic or theme. The map itself becomes an information platform, containing chronological indications (a timeline, or ordering of events), topics are overlayed on the geographic locations relevant, and readings and more in-depth information including links to primary sources are also tied to these geographic points. Thus, students interact with the information not only chronologically and by theme, but also geographically. This allows them to see relationships between events, how certain geographic areas become significant in different time periods, and visualize the stage in which the information unfolds, allowing for deeper connections and more understanding of the context.

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In order to address the need for a stronger link between geographic information and historical/societal information, we designed a prototype information service for a college-level world history and sociology class that will integrate class readings onto a map while preserving the chronological organization of information and themes covered in the class.

The name of the course is Islamic Studies, an undergraduate course at Yale Univeristy. Previously the information had been orgaized by topic and general chronology on the syllabus (link). The first half of the course deals with specific places, while the second half covers global themes. The prototype covers the first half of the course.After consulting with geographic engineers from Spatial Engineering in Savannah, Georgia, we decided the prototype would use Google Maps Engine Lite, a program that uses JavaScript to create overlays on a Google map and customize the information and links that appear. The box embedded in the map gives the course information and a clickable timeline that gives the time period and the course topic related to it.

When one clicks on a specific time period/topic, a box pops up on the map with a title, the week it will be covered (which is listed chronologically in tandem with the timeline), the title of the reading and a link to the reading.

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Google Maps Engine Lite

This prototype accomplishes the basic purpose of our information service in that it connects spatial, chronological and topical information and links primary source documents to this information. Each point on the map is numbered, indicating both the chronology of occurrence of events, as well as the chronology of topics covered int the course. Furthermore, each point on the map contains pop-up information about the date, the topic and links to primary source information. A second layer contains additional information related to the topic, such as specific places where events took place or artifacts remaining. For example in “570-632 Life of Mohammed”, the geographic location is Mecca, Saudi Arabia because it is the birthplace of Mohammed. All the course information is available through the first layer, but the second layer contains supplementary (optional) information shuch as the location of the Kaaba (and Wikipedia entry) and the Quba Mosque, the oldestmosque in Islam. The supplementary information is color-coded to match the point from the main layer that it corresponds with.

While all the links to resources for the course are open-sourced for this purpose, this map could be housed behind a wall (such as a university blackboard program) and linked to PDF files, allowing the usage of copyrighted materials. Though the prototype accomplishes the goal of integrating geographic information and chronological/historical information by linking a timeline to a map with embedded resources, we realized that, had we more advanced programming skills, and access to other software, there were some problems. Some of the information covered in the course related to multiple locations or a region, rather than a discrete point on a map. All Google maps applications we found use pins and are thus dependent on a specific place. Another problem was the lack of geopolitical reality due to the current place-names on the map. Maps using this program are current. A Beta version of this map, using ArcGIS might be able to solve these technical problems.

Abstract