Mike Goodchild's NSF talk 'From Community Mapping to Critical Spatial Thinking'

Interesting talk from Mike Goodchild in a lecture at the US NSF entitled ‘From Community Mapping to Critical Spatial Thinking’. This talk is a good overview of VGI and links it to the understanding of spatial concepts and integrating them into teaching and research.

The interesting issue raised in the talk is the link between the ability of people to use spatial information and the development of spatial thinking. One vivid memory from the first State of the Map conference was a presentation from a person whowas trying to use a simple GPS receiver way beyond what it was capable of doing, and the tough questioning from the audience at the end, basically telling him that he got it wrong and needed to rethink his project. What was clear was that, for people who are engaged in active data collection and tools development, the critical spatial thinking and the understanding of the technology evolved. At the same time, the evidence from end-users of SatNav devices shows a reduction in spatial understanding due to the ‘tunnel vision’ that the user interface promotes.

Significantly, the number of the latter group is larger than the first group. So are we having shallow spatial understanding without critical spatial thinking?

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