Geography and Information and Communications Technologies: Some Futures Thinking

Abstract

Twenty or so years ago, (Kent, 1992) I began a piece of writing with the following, ‘Anna, our ten year old, came in from school and immediately sat down at the micro — a rather elderly BBC B and very much part of the furniture in our family room. She proceeded to write and word process a play with parts for herself and her school friends. She then set up the equally ancient and rather primitive printer and printed off six copies. Then it was time for tea...’. How quaint and dated that now feels! Since then how rapidly information and communication technologies (ICTs) have developed and by all accounts there is no slow down in their incorporation by education. I do so remember Deryn Watson then a research officer on the Computers in the Curriculum Project based at Kings College, University of London coming to my own institution and speaking of the large and wide-ranging potential for education and particularly geography education of the micro-computer. It was about 1979 and I remember being struck by the huge and likely future implications of what she was saying. And so it came to pass! Our lives are now directly influenced by the latest ICTs.