Future Education of Cartography and GIS: What Is Next?

ABSTRACT

Cartography and maps support the continuous rising of the awareness of the power of spatial data, which further lays a foundation for the popularity of various location based services and applications in society. Cartography and Geographic Information System education has been a core activity in the cartographic academic community for knowledge creation and transfer in higher education institutions. Maps in primary and high schools play a unique role across disciplines to build the spatial thinking capacities of young generations. Over years educators train students via lectures and lab works into which digital technologies are gradually incorporated. The COVID-19 pandemic has been fast forwarding our pace to employ digital technologies in online teaching and learning. Teachers are passively or proactively adapted to conduct their teaching online and redesign their lectures and assessments of students' performance. On another side, students are getting used to online learning even more quickly with various digital devices in an interactive and collective way. It creates opportunities for cartographic GIS educators to build a body of knowledge for cartography which can be used to build open source educational resources systematically. Further flexible curriculum can be designed and implemented for professional and continuous education and training at various levels. Future education of cartography and GIS can improve map literacy and make a sustainable education.