Being educators in the CBD brings some unique challenges but it also provides unique opportunities.

This term we have been working on an idea to create a digital map that highlights the many educational opportunities local sites provide. The concept involves a piece of software/digital map that has places of interest highlighted or pinned that the user can then click on to discover further information.

As a starting point for this project we are creating an interactive map inside Google Earth Pro that allows us to pin locations and then upload images, audio and video to these pins across the city. This gives us the chance to identify relevant locations to the community that we can share interesting information that prompts the community to go out and find out more about it or to tie it into learning programmes. It would be great to have students create informative videos or audio files that describe the location when community members interact with each pinned site on the map.

This can easily be expanded out across the Kāhui Ako, gathering relevant sites from the members of the Kāhui Ako and adding them into the resource, ultimately creating a shared resource with rich learning opportunities across the CBD.