The geography of social media

Geography the study of the physical features of the earth and its atmosphere, and of human activity as it affects and is affected by these, including the distribution of populations and resources, land use, and industries. So when we consider this , o yes technology is must in geography for the sake of saving time. I really don't want to see what's on the other side of the earth traveling on a ship for 6 months, getting scurvy and what not. Then again those were the true explorers not happy with stories of other continents wanting to experience it for themselves. So overuse of technology can quench the first for adventure its the job of the teacher to just use the right amount of social media and technology to keep learners interested in exploring and experiencing the world.

So obviously taking photos of mountains rivers etc.. posting on Facebook creates interest in those places. I can try and describe the Caribbean to my class with my wild imagination, but a picture tells a thousand words so showing them the Caribbean on a screen does the talking far better than me.

Social media is also a field of study in geography. Studying the demographic of people owning phones etc.. So this makes social media in geography interesting. Social geography. Also my mind can't stop to wonder how easy social media has made communicating which makes exploring and mobilizing much easier.

But back to the classroom, sharing info, ideas and research in geography has become so easy through the use of social media which makes geographers lives much easier. Let's saying you are doing human geography about environment damage. You can drive see a landfill or whatever, quickly take a picture upload on social media, boom people become more aware of environmental issues. So social media in a sense took geography out of the classroom which is awesome.

Technology in geography can be used to take learners out of the classroom , to imagine to inspire them to actually go places. As teacher also have to be careful not to be overly reliant on technology.
It is my experience that the best geography teachers are the one who actually have first hand experience. So yet again a mixture of the old and the new would be perfect.