Digital story mapping with geomedia in sustainability education

Abstract This study examines digital story mapping as a pedagogical tool in the in the context of sustainability education with high school students and pre-service teachers. The study focuses on finding out how participants used geomedia as a source of geographic information and in presenting geographic information on story maps, comparing self- and teacher evaluations of story maps and describing experienced learning opportunities and limitations of story mapping. Research data consists of digital story maps, questionnaires and learning diaries which were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative content analysis supplemented by means of quantitative descriptive statistical figures. The findings revealed that the main criteria for choosing geomedia were reliability, easy access and use and teacher recommendations. High school students assessed their own story maps with higher grades compared to teacher evaluations, while pre-service teachers were more critical in assessing their own outputs. Participants experienced successes and difficulties in digital story mapping. These factors are referred to as educational opportunities, enablers of learning, barriers to learning and suggestions for improvements. Based on the results it can be concluded that story mapping has potential value for teaching and learning geography considering the limitations and needs for improvement in its implementation as identified in this study.