tthe digital-earth.eu Network

ESRI Europe Conference Oslo, Norway: 16th October 2012

Karl Donert, President EUROGEO, Director European Centre of Excellence

AAn international association for geographers and geo-scientists

EEuropean Association of Geographers International NGO – established 1970’s by the European Commission Participatory status at Council of Europe Position to lobby and influence in Europe and to protect and promote the geo-sciences

88-11 May 2013 Venue: Brugge, Belgium, Sint-Lodewijkscollege http://www.eurogeography.eu Program: • conference sessions • keynote speaker • field trip • witness unique Holy Blood Procession (UNESCO) on Thursday afternoon

(limited seats reserved)

EUROGEO 2013: Geography - linking tradition and future

European societal challenges ◦ CORINE (Coordination of Information on the

Environment) project ◦ ‘Global Monitoring for Environment and Security' (GMES)

– 2004 ◦ INSPIRE Directive - 2007 Open governance – new opportunities for citizens to interact Open data – freedom of information (Neelie Kroes, 2011)

Europe 2020 - Education & Training 2020

Capacity for change: sustainable implementation and progressive scaling up (of ICT-enabled innovative learning environments) European Commission Joint Research Centre (2012)

JRC (2012) "Challenges of implementing Creative Classrooms practices”, http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/documents/_6_Etwinning_WS1_March2012.pdf, eTwinning conference, Tampere Finland

Visionary engineering-genius, Buckminster Fuller – GGeoScope Articulated in 1992 by former US VP Al Gore

focuses on .... 11. Concepts of space and place 2. Tools of spatial representation: vvisualisation

implies: 1. Understanding of factors, relationships and

processes in different ways – simulation/model2. Reasoning processes involving spatial

interpretation, extrapolation and interpolation, and

3. Pro-sumers make decisions based on geo-media and spatial information

NNorman, D. A. (1998). The invisible computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

NNorman, D. A. (1998). The invisible computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

AAdvanced technological landscape evolved Large organisations getting information into the hands of billions of citizens Estimated 70-80% with a spatial component (Downs and DeSouza 2006) Lives iinundated with spatial information People finding many uses – Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Wikimapia etc.

Downs, R. and A. DeSouza (2006). Learning to Think Spatially. Washington D.C., National Academies Press.

21

PPersonal Learning Environments - Jeremy Hiebert (2006)

Hiebert J (2006), Personal Learning Environment, HeadsPaceJ, http://headspacej.blogspot.com/2006/02/personal-learning-environment-model.html

ebert J (2006) Personal Learning Environment HeadsPaceJ

Digital Earth has a ‘geographic media’ orientation Media with a strong spatial-temporal component

What competences are needed? Spatial thinking essential to learning about the world we live in (Golledge et al. 2008)

Golledge, R., Marsh, M., and Battersby, S., 2008. A conceptual framework for facilitating geospatial thinking. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98 (2), 285-308

Comenius Networks - based on successful Multilateral Projects ◦ GISAS Project – (2006-2009) GGeographical

Information Systems Applications for Schools ◦ iGuess Project http://www.iguess.eu (2008-10)

Integrating GIS in several school subjects

Austrian Centre of Excellence http://www.digitalearth.at EC Proposal - Feb. 2010

European dimension (enhance national initiatives) – fill gaps A nnetwork not a project Based on cconnecting and building interactions Sharing resources, tools, ideas, collaboration Raising awareness and increasing profile Promoting (and rewarding) eexcellence Offering information and gguidance Looking to the future ….. in education

Geocritica site European projects GISAS and iGuess Education Ministry: http://www.educacion.es/portada.html Telefónica foundation and Educared: http://www.educared.net/ Centro Regional de Innovación y Formación “Las Acacias”) Instituto Calasanz de Ciencias de la Educación (http://www.icceciberaula.es) GeoEscola (FCUP) - http://www.geoescola.org

http://www.onetonline.org/find/quick?s=geospatial

NNo defined geospatial workforce

/find/quick?s=geospatial

efined ggggeo

IInfrastructure issues: soft- hardware, data Low knowledge of teachers, low confidence No time in the curriculum, curriculum too full Not in teacher training curriculum Decision makers unaware of importance No guidelines what students should be able to do

(Needs Analysis, ddigital-earth.eu Project, 2011)

Not many teachers involved Too few young people with the necessary

awareness, skills, knowledge and experience

Need 1: support for grassroots actors Need 2: target key obstacles – politicians (EU /national), Ministries, decision makers, industry, ICT coordinators, curriculum developers etc.

Introduced new education concepts ◦ geographic media – spatial citizenship Becoming accepted (to educators)

Centres of Excellence – definition ◦ “sstrategic assets …. to press the case for

and manage complex change initiatives in a specific field”

◦ sustainable entity, continue beyond funding ◦ leadership ◦ inform / influence decision makers ◦ develop / deliver services to stakeholders ◦ carry out education activities

Centres of Excellence - process

Centres of Excellence: ooperate on their own, once established are active with ttheir own stakeholders operate within aagreed guidelines report to / cconnect with European Centre share best practices and outcomes with the Hub and other Centres should not repeat efforts of the European Centre

Centres of Excellence: key roles LLeadership in Education and Training Education NNetworking Information gathering (research) Services may include: ◦ consultancy ◦ geo-services ◦ publications ◦ networking opportunities ◦ training and courses, F2F and online ◦ services to support local, regional and national initiatives ◦ other products

Dissemination ◦ Dissemination toolkit ◦ Conferences, meetings, publications ◦ Web sites, blogs, social networking Lobbying ◦ Politicians – EC, Parliament, ◦ Civil Servants ◦ Ministries of Education ◦ Curriculum designers/developers ◦ Professional bodies

ttechnology provides: ◦ potent tools ◦ solutions to complex problems ◦ global communication European Commission (Digital Agenda-New skills, new jobs) should use DE for: ◦ empowerment ◦ access for all ◦ enhanced learning ◦ relevant skills/capabilities

Education – ssubsidiarity under Maastrict key role of Civil Society (NGOs) (EUROGEO) European Parliament: “It is not enough to tell people that Europe is being built for them - Europe needs to be built with them” Action Plan - emails to politicians – press releases - Blog articles – made positive suggestions - solutions NOT problems Invited to meet …… present ideas

Blueprint Integrating Digital Earth in the Digital Agenda for Europe

Manifesto produced – agreed by stakeholders Written to European Commissioners – Kroes, Vassiliou, Madelin – blogged etc. Enlarge our stakeholder group – help us to do this, invitation to be part of? Join digital-earth.eu – growing movement Support our meetings Help us to do baseline research Support / become “Centres of Excellence”

Digital Earth movement already plays an important role in addressing

Social, economic, cultural, scientific and technlogical challenges affecting us

“The increasing interconnectedness of our world environmentally, politically, economically, and socially is beginning to place pressure on educational systems to incorporate not only new topics, but pressure to change the entire educational structure.” (Kerski, 2008)

Kerski, J. J.(2008), The role of GIS in Digital Earth education, International Journal of Digital Earth, 1: 4, 326-346

Promote Education for Digital Earth - to understand our earth system Unique set of skills needed to successfully navigate our world Convince education stakeholders Contributions for media experts Visit www.digital-earth.eu for more information and how to participate

What else can be done to scale up? What needs are there from your perspective? How can they be met?

White paper? Think tank? Connecting Digital-Earth.eu to ‘competences’

Workplace needs and how can we meet them? Links between universities, schools and the workplace - careers organisations