A GIS-Based Learning System to Support General Education—Using Cultural Heritage Course as an Example

Abstract

In present day general education classrooms, teachers often must turn to traditional teaching methods to help students acquire knowledge and understand content. However, the use of conventional teaching models rooted in the past may result in limited one-way knowledge transmission in the real world, rendering the overall process less effective. The continual use of older teaching techniques in our modern age of learning results in a potential loss of meaningful interactions with students during the knowledge transfer phase. To cope with this problem, we developed a GIS-based learning system designed around the curriculum of a MacKay Cultural Heritage course to deliver relevant information to students in classroom learning environments. The proposed system consists of two main components: the “Multimedia Database of MacKay Cultural Heritage” and the “Learning Platform of MacKay Culture”. Both components of this course were used to demonstrate the significance of the added educational value imparted by Dr. MacKay’s contributions and his impact on the state of education, medicine and religion in Taiwan. Our system also allowed for the incorporation of geographic information technologies into a web-style map to improve the delivery of information to students as a complement to conventional teaching practices. In addition, the proposed system served as a medium for providing personalized learning support for each student. Thus, we believe that our GIS-based learning system contained the necessary features to effortlessly facilitate students’ knowledge acquisition and promote student motivation to achieve the learning aims of the MacKay Cultural Heritage course.