Toporopa

A site with map quizzes. Suitable for KS1 and 2 pupils.

The focus is on learning the geography of Europe.

AI Mapping

I'm starting to explore a few AI related avenues for a project I'm going to be involved in for the next few months. 

I'm interested in the ethics of using AI when teaching geographical topics, and the implications for students' understanding of the world if they are exposed to images, text and other information which have been AI generated.

So far, we have had the launch of several large language models (LLMs) such as Chat GPT and a number of image models such as Dall-E and Midjourney. The map below was actually generated by Adobe Creative Cloud / Firefly for Education, which I have access to via school.

The prompt was: "A map of Europe, with the letters A and I hovering over it in gold with rainbow edges".

Adding a Structure Reference and regenerating created this output.

Quite a few people have shared how they use prompts to elicit certain outcomes from LLMs in a geography context. But should we be using it in our teaching and if so, what disclaimers should we display when we have used it? 

One ethical issue for me that should be considered is that of plagiarism, and the use of authors' works to 'train' the models without their permission. Using AI isn't developing students' geographical knowledge or imagination.

There are also issues with image generation. Models can't handle the fine detail of letters and other graphical content, or the fine details such as how many fingers on a person is too many.

There are some early map creators that have been developed and made free of charge. One is called PROXI, but doesn't seem to do a great deal that a simple tool like ArcGIS Online could do with a few clicks anyway.

A guide to Proxi is here.

Here's an output: a map of second hand book shops in Iceland - I made a map of Iceland to test it out.

powered by Proxi

There are going to be further developments happening at pace in this area one imagines, which will make it hard to keep up, but at the heart of it is the question of if and how we should be using this with young people, particularly when we are linking them with geographical information.

Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. 
She wrote this piece for the Guardian on the growing environmental costs of AI due to the energy needs of data centres.

This is another issue to consider - our online lives are having an impact which is not obvious. Even posting this blog post, and you taking time to read it right now has had an environmental impact and a carbon cost. Storing and caching this webpage for an inderterminate period of time will continue that impact.

AI's models use vast amounts of electricity and computational power.

Rather than come up with solutions to the climate crisis, it is likely to create further disinformation.

I also downloaded a keynote presentation from the recent EuroGeo Conference which was given by Nico van der Weghe from Gent University. It includes some useful ideas.

Please have a think and send through any relevant links.

Thanks to Bob Lang for sending a range of links already, which I will perhaps add in a follow-up post when I get a moment.

To finish, I like this sentiment from Joanna Maciejewska

"I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes".

The tragedy of the loss of Erasmus

As a geographer, it's clear that I would only ever see leaving the EU as a terrible decision. 

No country prospers without connections with others in the modern day. Great Britain may have prospered in the past by stealing the resources of other countries and colonising them, but that's no longer an option that sits well with the international community. Interdependence trumps independence.

One of the real tragedies of the proposed deal (which has not been accepted yet by the UK Parliament) is the loss of the ERASMUS scheme. The school where I teach has had significant involvement in ERASMUS, with seven projects, including three I have been personally involved in co-ordinating on behalf of the school. These have involved hundreds of students in visiting a range of countries including Spain, Sweden and Reunion Island (France), and connections being made with academics and colleagues in other schools and universities in a range of European countries.

Prior to that, I also took part in a great many ERASMUS funded projects which took me all over Europe and connected me with hundreds of inspirational colleagues: students, teachers and academic geographers. I was able to work numerous times at Salzburg University, learn from Finnish colleagues about their work in the outdoors, discuss curriculum development with Turkish colleagues in the heat of the Alentejo and walk on an ice-bound lake on the Slovenian border. 

My colleague Esmeralda Salgado (MFL colleagues should follow her on Twitter here) has shared her own ideas of why ERASMUS needs to be retained. A petition has also been set up and is waiting for approval before being available for signing - hopefully before the end of the year.

Read Esmeralda's blog post on the loss of ERASMUS here.

Here's Julian Baggini on his own experiences of ERASMUS.

Thanks to Covid, the neighbours haven’t been round for Christmas this year, and thanks to Brexit, in future we’ll be spending less quality time with our European neighbours too. The walls are going up again and no amount of trade windows can compensate for that.

From what I've seen, the proposed Turing Scheme replacement will not be a replacement. It doesn't include the same features as the original in any way, or focus on all the Key Actions that ERASMUS does, or require reciprocal travel, or target the same people...

I will enjoy the remaining years which are left on the ERASMUS projects we are currently completing - albeit virtually - and fingers crossed for our final application on a project which developed from the Covid-19 pandemic and responses to it. I also hope to continue to be involved, as an external consultant, on future projects, and perhaps there will be some opportunities to be involved on behalf of other European countries.

There will be other unintended negative consequences doubtless. (When you read (and I checked) that the partly cut and pasted Brexit UK-EU deal references Netscape Communicator 4.0 as a suitable web application. It was discontinued in 2006.

 Here's another:

Thanks to #Brexit, the Falklands now faces a 6-18% tariff on EU-bound exports:
—‘The situation for the Falkland Islands is crucial since fisheries contribute some 90% of exports sent to the EU, 40% of GDP and some 60% of the treasury's revenue.’ https://t.co/3CJv8WneL2 https://t.co/uhxG3umLQZ

— Alasdair Pinkerton (@AlPinkerton) December 28, 2020

Here's Professor Alison Phipps from the University of Glasgow:

"Erasmus: the life-mind-heart expanding glorious adventure into freedom, responsibility and myriad ways of knowing and speaking the world. Wanton theft of this peacemongering freedom isn’t so much a deal as a cultural mugging of young people. Cruelty is the point again.”