Developing an Online Center for Global Geography Education

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(88) GeographyIntroductory textbooks and courses in world geography generally emphasize factual knowledge and lecturing. As a result, relatively few American students get to engage directly with the perspectives of their peers in other parts of the world or to benefit from active inquiry. Students need international perspectives and high levels of competency in geography to understand and appreciate our diverse, highly interdependent world. Many geographers believe Internet technology can help build an integrated international community of scholars dedicated to collaborative teaching and multinational learning. Despite some progress, this potential remains largely untapped because of the lack of materials, training, information, and disciplinary coordination available to faculty for planning and carrying out online teaching collaborations with international colleagues. This proof of concept project is working to create this integrated international community of scholars in geography. It is engaged in producing, testing, and disseminating three instructional modules for an online Center for Global Geography Education. A consortium of disciplinary organizations is participating in the project over a period of two years. In the first year, the focus is on developing student activities and hypermedia applications for the modules. In the second year the project plans to beta test the modules and designing the online architecture of the Center. Growing out of that second year, the project will promote national and international adoption of the modules by training faculty through workshops and distance learning. Ultimately, the Center will serve as a virtual meeting place and educational materials clearinghouse for discipline-based international teaching collaborations.