Chapter 14: Examining The Teacher’s Role Whenteaching With Geographic Information Systems (Gis)

Teachers are the primary instructional and curricular decision-makers in classrooms (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992; Thornton, 1991). When teachers incorporate new technologies into their curriculum and instruction, it is important how the technology is introduced and how efficiently teachers use it to help students achieve instructional goals (Budin, 1991; Olson & Clough, 2001). Since the successful implementation of technology in classrooms is heavily dependent on teachers’ curricular-instructional decision-making, it is important to examine the teachers’ role in using technology for classroom instruction. While there has been some research about the teachers’ role in using technology in general (Blissett & Atkins, 1993; Budin, 1991; Koo & Harlin, 2001; Olson & Clough, 2001; Rasku-Puttonen, Etelapelto, Arvaja & Hakkinen, 2003; Tiene & Luft, 2001; Wang, 2001), the teacher’s role in using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology specifically has not been extensively studied.