Abstract:

Teaching is changing. It is no longer about merely passing on knowledge to the next generation. Digital technologies are now an integral aspect of the university student experience. Based on the educational experience with geodata capturing in the field and knowing students' attitudes to the approaches, teachers can modify educational methods for benefits in the study.
Objectives: The paper deals with the experiences of GISc (Geographic Information Science) lecturers teaching “geostudents” in the field. Geographic phenomena have a complex distribution in space. When investigating the features of geography phenomena, geographers have to pay attention to the descriptions of various parameters but also their spatial distribution. The measurement of phenomena’s dimensions, locations, shapes, and other features related to space is a task for geographers.
Methods: Various approaches to geodata capturing in the field with applying geoinformation technologies are classified, evaluated, compared and ranked. These approaches are classified into four levels based on 10 aspects, which differ when specialized instruments, modular devices, and various techniques of data transmission are involved. The survey aimed to determine how differently students assess the levels of geodata capturing. Students are made familiar with the methods during their study, so they were asked to evaluate them in a five-grade scale. Totally, 86 students were involved in the academic year 2013/14, 75 students in 2016/17, 81 students in 2019/2020 and all their completed questionnaires were valid. The respondents comprised 64.7-66.2% of all students in the study course. Students were asked to evaluate each aspect of the level in an ordinary scale from 1 (means the lowest/poorest/weakest) to 5 (the highest/richest/strongest). Each aspect of the level was formulated to express their assessment in an ordinal positive upward scale. The survey statistical evaluation was completed for the level of methods, for all aspects and all grades.
Results: The findings confirmed the assumption that the levels are seen positively with increasing technical involvement. While the survey confirmed that digital technologies as central to the ways in which students experience their studies, it also suggests that digital technologies are not ‘transforming’ the nature of university teaching and learning. The author takes findings into account to involve them in more practical tasks from which students will draw experience. It will reflect in the continuing evaluation survey in the coming years.
Conclusions: The author investigated the various approaches to geodata capturing in the field with consideration of his educational experience to improve both learning and teaching benefits of the study of geoinformatics in his university. The outcomes suggest that although the calls for transformations in education may be legitimate, it would be misleading to ground the arguments for such change in students' shifting patterns of learning and technology use. The paper dealt with exploring students’ actual experiences of digital (geo)technology during their academic studies – highlighting the aspects of digital technology use that students themselves see as particularly helpful and useful. While the survey confirmed that digital technologies as central to how students experience their studies, it also suggests that digital technologies are not ‘transforming’ the nature of university teaching and learning.

Keywords:

Geodata, data capturing, geographical field work, geoinformation technologies, GIS.