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This study introduces the Listening to Others' Voices (LOV) project, an empowering strategy in geography education. This research aims to create a dataset detailing the perspectives of negatively stereotyped countries with respect to how their countries are portrayed in geography textbooks and to investigate the pedagogical effects of the LOV project. Preservice teachers in South Korea selected so-called marginalized countries from world regional geography textbooks at the secondary education level and interviewed an ambassador or similar person. It was found that the interviewees hoped to emphasize positive images, such as economic development and a unique culture. In addition, some issues relevant to the classification of current world regions were explored. The participants indicated that they felt empowered in leading the completion of the project and that they understood that geographic knowledge is a social construct.

This study identified five subdimensions of spatial habits of mind--pattern recognition, spatial description, visualization, spatial concept use, and spatial tool use--and created an inventory to measure them. In addition, the effects of GIS learning on spatial habits of mind were investigated. Pre- and post-tests were conducted at the beginning and end of a semester-long GIS course. The results suggest that the inventory is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring spatial habits of mind. Analysis of student responses revealed that completion of a GIS course enhanced their spatial habits of mind. It is believed that this research is relevant to a wide range of disciplines whose practitioners are interested in spatial literacy. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.)

This study developed an interview-based critical spatial thinking oral test and used the test to investigate the effects of Geographic Information System (GIS) learning on three components of critical spatial thinking: evaluating data reliability, exercising spatial reasoning, and assessing problem-solving validity. Thirty-two students at a large state university completed pre- and post-tests administered during the 2010 fall semester. This study found positive relationships between GIS learning and critical spatial thinking. We argue that the improvement can be attributed to students' experiences in a GIS course.

This article examines the pedagogical potential of a Web-based GIS application, Population Migration Web Service (PMWS), in which students can examine population geography in an interactive and exploratory manner. This article introduces PMWS, a tailored, unique Internet GIS application that provides functions for visualizing spatial interaction data. The easy-to-use interface of PMWS enables users to interactively and intuitively explore migration data in the form of flow maps and to use local data. The results of the usability survey indicated that pre-service teachers (n = 33) believe that PMWS represents an alternative GIS tool that overcomes the obstacles of desktop GIS in secondary education. (Contains 1 table, 5 figures, and 2 notes.)

The National Research Council emphasizes using tools of representation as an essential element of spatial thinking. However, it is debatable at what age the use of spatial representation for spatial thinking skills should begin. This study investigated whether young Korean children possess the potential to understand map-like representation using aerial photographs; how scale affects children's performance; and whether children show interest in and enjoy working with spatial representations. Three remote sensing images of different scales were employed to examine children's ability to interpret spatial representation. The results indicate that young children have the ability to use spatial representation. Most participants were able to understand aerial photographs. The results also support the assertion that children's performance was influenced by scale. Especially for children whose ability is not fully developed, the scale effect was dramatic. Finally, children reported that they enjoyed activities using spatial representation. (Contains 3 figures and 3 tables.)