Philippe Rieffel - Investigating cognitive aspects in digital maps
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INVESTIGATING COGNITIVE ASPECTS IN DIGITAL MAPS USING VGI TO CREATE A CHILD SUITABLE MAP
ICG Cologne 2012
Philippe Rieffel - Investigating cognitive aspects in digital maps
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What are the next minutes about?
Topic of my ongoing M.Sc. Thesis How can we create a (digital) map, that
actually matches children´s perception of their spatial environment
Why should we do that? How could a map like this look like
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Who am I? Philippe Rieffel, research associate at ILS
Dortmund B.Sc. in geography, M.Sc. (cand.) in
Geoinformatics Studies at Institute for Geoinformatics,
Münster
http://ifgi.uni-muenster.de
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Who am I? Studies greatly supported by Thomas
Bartoschek (Institute for Geoinformatics/GI@School, Münster) with input, ideas and supervision
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Why maps for children? Map literacy is crucial for everyday life, school,
university, work and an independent life Lines up with other basic skills that are
necessary Literacy Numeracy Use of information and communication
technologies
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Why maps for children?
Literacy Numeracy Use of information
and communication technologies
Those skills are taught explicitly, while gaining map literacy is often implicitly done
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Why maps for children?
The high school curriculum in Germany demands the
“[..] building of a topographic knowledge base about a theme-based global orientation grid as prerequisite for a differentiated spatial integration-related thinking”.
(Core curriculum geography, high school, NRW)
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Why maps for children?
This process could already be stimulated earlier, starting from kindergarden Learning to Think
Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum
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Theoretical foundation - Piaget
According to Piaget, infants and children form schemas to impose order on the world
Those schemas undergo constant variation and modification, depending on the age Piaget: Assimilation and adaption
Foundation for constructivist learning
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Theoretical foundation - Piaget
Piaget: Advancement through the stages is biologically driven (aging)
Newer studies show that maturing is the basis, but the speed and quality of the advancement are influenced by external stimuli and experience (e.g. by Newcombe, adaptive combination)
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Theoretical foundation - Newcombe
Those stimuli can be provided from kindergarden on
Technological advancement allows easy to use and specially tailored methods towards spatial thinking
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The actual topic of this talk
(Digital) Maps are important for the process of spatial learning of kids, starting at very young ages
We worked with several software products lately, even created some, that support spatial learning processes
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MotivationWhy is that
street yellow on this map? I see
that is grey
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Research questions
Theoretical analysis How do kids perceive their environment?
How is that perception „stored“ in their imagination?
How can that perception be transferred into a cartographic representation?
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Kids need „easier“ maps!
..that reflect their world!
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First thoughts
symbology
complexity
Contents
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Survey - Map orientationCan you identify the area of your school and of your home?
Please rate the maps! general/orientation
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Survey - Symbology I
Symbols are taken from the OpenStreetMap renderer Mapnik:https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/applications/rendering/mapnik/symbols
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Survey - Symbology II
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Survey results
Majority (60%) had at least some experience with paper maps
Experience with digital map was generally little
Map ranking:
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Survey results Orientation along districts District names prominent on
selfmade maps and Google No district names on the
OSM excerpt No.1 Map had a lot of
details removed clarity No. 3 Map, too much
removed?
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Survey results - Symbology
Most icons were identified “correctly”, some deviations Parking Cinema Police Mail See-saw
Yellow for roads (“Google design”) only mentioned twice
Roads either black or grey
Red for borders
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Sketch Maps
Sketch maps from Germany, Africa and Brazil School grounds Ability to draw sketch maps increases
drastically with aging (6-8y. poor/average; 9+ average/good)
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Interpretation of sketch maps
Leisure areas and facilities are drawn more detailed
Structures along daily routine ways are more detailed
Connections between different locations (in position and size/relationship) by importance
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Implementation
Create a digital map service Render raster maps from OpenStreetMap Vector
data Flexible design scheme, open license Whole world data coverage Render maps / map tiles with maperitive (software)
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Map design principles
Generalize the world as little as possible / as much as necessary
Use symbology that is easily connectable to the real world
Identify important content for children, omit unnecessary information that obstruct the map
Use this important content as orientation marks
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Map design principles
Use psychological findings Re-use design principles from existing maps in
schoolbooks e.g. Focus on large scale maps …and now some examples!
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..still to do
Refine/improve the map design, especially for small scale maps
Validate the new design scheme Deploy on a production system
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Contact
Philippe Rieffel
www.ils-forschung.de
Institut für Landes und Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbHBrüderweg 22–24D-44135 Dortmund