World Geography (GEO 1310)

World Geography is a first year course taken by both geography and non-geography majors. For this reason, the principle objectives were to 1) impart core concepts, practices, and spatial perspectives used by geographers, using multimedia, to engage students spanning disciplinary majors and 2) foster students as active learners in a large class (n= 130).

The course is designed to create a transformative learning experience where student understanding of world cultures and regional landscapes are maximized by drawing on exploratory experiences of new tools (e.g., video creation by students) and simultaneously extending their knowledge beyond the textbook. This independent mode of learning balanced by technology is to prepare students for higher level geography courses.

The Sakai (TRACS) system is central to the course as information input (e.g., wiki assignments), processing (e.g., posted lecture notes), and output (e.g., announcements) (Figure 1). The core TRACS learning elements employed are Announcements, Assignments, Learning Modules, Resources, and the Wiki tool. Supplemental elements of TRACS are used, including Gradebook, Mailtool, Roster, and Syllabus.

A guest account has been created for your perusal of World Geography course page** 

https://tracs.txstate.edu/portal/login

Username: geographyguest

Password: geographer

**Please note:

1) Student voted video winners can be found under Resource folder of 'My Workspace' tab (in order of winner, runner-up etc)

2) Wiki assignments, Learning modules (class lectures), Assignments and rubrics, and other TRACS tools can be found in 'World Geography (GEO 1310.3)' tab.

Screenshots/Files/Links (Optional)

Screenshots (or Other Supporting Materials): 

figure_1_huynh_niem.pdf