Research And Development Of Senior Middle School Geography Teaching Software Based On Digital Earth Technology

Geographic Information System (GIS) has been applied to many fields of society as an important role in the rapid development of information technology. In 2003, GIS was introduced to geography education in the geography curriculum standards which was issued by Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. The platform of GIS software produced by the secondary development was suggested to be used in geography teaching. At present, the research about geography education is still at primary stage in China, GIS professional software is used as auxiliary teaching tool in geography education of senior middle school. Student-centered teaching model gets application widely and some positive teaching effects have been achieved. However, this kind of software is not specially designed for geography education, and the needs of geography education are not fully taken into consideration in the aspect of software framework and designing purpose. Furthermore, such software without proper data used in geography teaching are so specialized and complicated that they can't fully meet the requirement of geography teaching. Therefore, developing geography teaching software based on GIS according to new geography curriculum standards and relative teaching contents becomes more and more important.According to the analysis of the current teaching situation at home and abroad, as well as the development status of the middle school geography teaching software, we have developed geography teaching software based on the constructivist learning theory through the latest geographic information technology and related development techniques. This software uses Microsoft Visual Studio as developing environment, C# as the developing language, based on secondary development of ArcGIS, Google API, OpenGL graphics API, and other computer technologies, combined with the new curriculum standards and senior middle school geography textbook which was published by Hunan Education Publishing House, designing and developing the teaching software which can aid the senior middle school geography teaching. Basic geographic database, thematic geographic database and business databases are established according to the needs of teaching and data management. We can access the data through ArcSDE and WebService, manage and maintain the local database directly. It can get access to remote data through Google API and enrich the information contents of this software.ArcGlobe, the platform of three-dimensional digital earth in the software, supports real-time navigation and analyzes massive data. This software supports importing, browsing, and analyzing the remote sensing image, DEM, vector data, and three-dimensional model. It also supports the transmission and synchronization of the data between Google Earth and itself. The software features easy operation, closely relating to contents, having strong functions of constructing three-dimension GIS and containing lots of related data. Specialized learning modules are also provided when analyzing 2D and 3D GIS data. It can promote the transfer of teacher-centered teaching mode to student-centered. The purpose of this software is to arouse the students'initiative; lead them to get geography knowledge and enhance their ability of analyze and apply knowledge.