Before beginning to explain the role that geotechnologies can play in teaching, we can shortly explain what geotechnologies are considered. If we look for the definition of geotechnology, we can find quite traditional concepts in internationally recognized dictionaries: “The use of scientific study and methods in activities related to the earth, rocks, and soil, especially to the earth’s mineral resources such as oil and metals” (Cambridge Dictionary).“The application of science and technology in order to utilize the Earth’s natural resources” (Collins English Dictionary).

The concept of geotechnology (or better geotechnologies) used by those specialists related to GIS and cartography is more specific. There are many definitions that specialists can find in the scientific bibliography. We consider that the use of the preposition geo before the noun technology is decisive when defining it, being necessary to know that the use of the preposition is not only limited to its traditional meaning (Earth), but to other essential condition that those technologies should meet to be considered geotechnologies: the work with georeferenced data. If we explain it with other words, it is the work using data located with coordinates. The coordinates used generally to be geographic coordinates but can also be other. Only two examples of definitions focusing on this indispensable condition:

The last two definitions describe more accurately what the use of geotechnologies implies in our specific area of research, the secondary education: specific tools that are able to represent graphically data (which can be georeferenced data) or information in general following a previously determined method or procedure. Considering that maps are the default graphic representation of georeferenced data, the authors decided to examine a particular topic within geotechnologies: those GIS (Geographic Information Systems) or GIS-based solutions that can be used by teachers and pupils in elementary and secondary education, giving priority to online map-based solutions available to any user. After making this decision, we decided to study when and how these solutions began to be used in both primary and secondary education.

The appearance of the first GIS systems dates to the first half of the 1960s, but their use in educational activities at the elementary and secondary level began much later. The first works in this topic are from the early 1990s. Robert F. Tinker published an article in 1992, in which described three projects developed with 4th, 5th and 6th grade pupils of elementary schools in the USA. The first of them was named by him as a “basic system” used at the time, while the other two can be considered “GIS-based dreams” (Tinker, 1992). The basic software was successfully used by the North American organization Kids Network to create very simple thematic maps, while the other two projects were based on measurements made in the field, whose results were processed using satellite images, as well as were used for the study of the effects of aerosols in the environment. The experiences described by Tinker were corroborated by other projects in later years, confirming that GIS could become a useful tool for teaching comprehensive data analysis to pupils (Audet & Abegg, 1996).

Since the mid-1990s, Europe also recognized the importance that the introduction of geotechnologies and especially GIS in educational tasks could have. Collaborative activities involving cartography (and indirectly GIS too) began to be used (relatively more frequently) by teachers in the classrooms before the appearance of the first online mapping services in 2005. One example is the project conducted by David Owen between 2003 and 2004 in the United Kingdom with the participation of 80 children in grades 3 and 5 (7 to 8 and 9- to 10-year-old) of Primary School (Owen, 2005). The work was organized in teams of two pupils (“friendship pairs”) to fulfil the task of drawing a map for an imaginary new family moving to the areas around their school. Maps were made using a software popular in the schools of United Kingdom in those years (Textease) and the analysis of the results was based on six criteria: spatial arrangements, scale and proportion, mapping ordinal data (use of colour and key), abstraction and symbolization, amount of content and use of texts. Some of the conclusions were that 9- to 10-year-old children obtained the higher overall scores, pictorial symbols were preferred over abstract symbols as well as teachers observed that texts were barely used on the maps.

Beginning from the decade of 90s, many European countries tried to systematize or at least make more accessible the use of geotechnologies in education (Dékány, 2020). Some examples are very briefly presented below:

In more recent years and complementing and internationalizing the different projects at national level in Europe, regional projects have also been developed with the participation of several countries or under the direction of a specific organization and mostly financed by the European Union. A project that has already been completed was iGuess (Introducing GIS Use in Education in Several Subjects), developed between 2008 and 2013 with the participation of institutions and organizations from eight countries (https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/sv/projects/introducing-gis-use-in-education-in-several-subjects-iguess). Coordination was carried out by the Belgian association KOGEKA (Katholiek Onderwijs Geel-Kasterlee) with the participation of six Belgian secondary schools that are members of this association. The first part of the project was developed between 2008 and 2010, with the participation of about 4,400 students and the second part was dedicated to the options offered by the ArcGIS software and its online version (ArcGIS Online) for solving diverse educational tasks.

The European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO) has been developing a very intensive activity to make teachers aware of the options offered by the geotechnologies for the teaching of Geography and other subjects. It is possible to find numerous projects on the website of the association (https://www.eurogeography.eu/projects/). One of the latest projects is GeoCapabilities (phase 3), funded by the European Union and organized by the European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO), which counted with the participation of five European higher education institutions: the Institute of Education at University College London (UCL), the University of Nottingham, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Charles University in Prague, and Diderot University in Paris, as well as the Sint-Lodewijkscollege secondary school in Belgium. Its main objective was to support teachers in the development of their Geography curricula, promoting how to develop the teaching known as “powerful disciplinary knowledge” (PDK) and the analysis of case studies to develop the pedagogical principles needed for the practical use of the PDK in Geography. One of the proposed solutions is the use of storytelling for the dynamic presentation of different topics (https://www.geocapabilities.org).

After studying and analyzing the information related to the presence and development of geotechnologies in schools, we can confirm that the adoption of geotechnologies has heralded the shift from analogue to digital cartography (de Miguel and Buzo, 2020). Stories that were traditionally narrated using analogue maps (printed school atlases, wall maps and spheres) can now be crafted on digital maps online. This transition enables the incorporation of diverse resources that enrich the narrative, including images, audio, videos, text, hyperlinks, and more. Among these technologies, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) stand out, with web-based Geographic Information Systems (Web GIS) gaining prominence due to their user-friendliness and versatile applications. Web GIS allows individuals to work from any location, at any time, using various devices (desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones) and operating systems. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) facilitates narrative construction on a digital cartographic platform by layering information. Story maps have experimented a very intensive development in the last almost 20 years, and users have witnessed the appearance of web applications that can be considered essential to visualize multimedia narratives based on digital maps previously created with GIS. Before beginning the making of a map-based storytelling, one must first seek and organize the necessary information to compose each layer of information that will be incorporated into the digital map or web map. This, in turn, is integrated into the application, enabling the narration of its contents.

Currently, geotechnologies can be present in secondary education in two fundamental ways:

In contrast, the teaching of geotechnologies should be programmed primarily in those subjects related to Geography. Of course, the cooperation with other knowledge areas can and should be also considered, because it will have a very positive influence in the training of pupils. It means that teachers can also teach geotechnologies in subjects related to Informatics or Computer Science. Without attempting to make a detailed assessment or classification of GIS-based geotechnologies, more specifically of GIS or GIS -based systems, software, or applications, we should consider some specific characteristics and differences between them that influence its use as a tool or whether it can constitute specific content to be taught in the classrooms. Finishing the 20^th century and beginning this century, one of the causes that limited the use of GIS in schools was the high price of these systems and programs, as well as of hardware needed for its use (Bernhäuserová et al.,2022). Since the beginning of this century, we have witnessed first the appearance of open-source software free of any cost, such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) since 2002, and later online mapping services also with free access, such as Google Maps since 2005. These free options and easier access for users who were not specialists in GIS area eliminated the obstacle represented by prices. At the same time, the use of a GIS or GIS-based software requires at least a basic formation or training that allows the user (in our case a teacher) to take advantage of the options offered by that software or application. However, the lack of time and practice means a serious obstacle for teachers to participate in GIS courses, as several international research confirmed in previous years and constitutes a factor that exerts a very negative influence on the current possibilities of widespread use of GIS in schools, together with another factor that is observed in some countries: the decrease in the number of hours dedicated to Geography (or Geography-related) teaching (Reyes, 2023).

A task closely related to the main aim of the second stage of our research was to facilitate the use and/or teaching of geotechnologies considering the aforementioned factors. The proposal of including the teaching of geotechnologies in a curriculum for secondary school students is the most difficult to achieve. One possible solution was proposed by Dékány (2019) in her doctoral thesis: the teaching of knowledge related to GIS and cartography as an optional course that can be taught outside the prescribed time.

Before making other proposals, we should find answer to a fundamental question: Do teachers and students take advantage of all the options offered by GIS in those schools where it is taught or used? Why to put this question? The results of projects developed on this topic in the last two decades included maps made for and by pupils using GIS-based solutions. If we analyse the themes and the methods used to represent the data in those maps, we can conclude that in a high percentage of cases they are thematic maps visualizing a single variable, which could have been made using another less complex program. Considering the lack of time and practice of teachers to learn GIS, we should consider learning and using other GIS and GIS-based solutions (software, applications, mapping services) preferably accessible on the web, which would be easier to be learned by teachers and pupils for use both in school and outside of school.

After answering that question, we can also consider giving preference to those mapping services and applications that teachers and pupils may be more familiar with and that they even use (or would use more easily) in their daily activities. Guidelines for the use of the Google Maps mapping service in the schools were developed e.g., by Elliot (2009). Specialists from different countries tested possible solutions in their research projects, some of them were Barro de Sousa in Brazil (2013), Reyes and Kiss in Hungary (2018) and Benimmas in Canada (2019). The examples and results they have obtained corroborate that one of the most popular current solutions is the use of Google Maps as an online map service (in some projects also used Google Earth instead of Google Maps), as well as the use of an application as simple as Google My Maps to add information to our map and present it as a simple story map.

The use of mapping services is undoubtedly a much more simplified solution than the use of a GIS, but easier to learn and apply in practice, so much less time is required to learn. However, those teachers who wish to enrich the options they offer their pupils can also use online cartographic applications and more simple, online GIS applications. These online services generally also offer base maps (and in some cases even data) to solve the planned tasks, thus facilitating the teacher’s work when solving a GIS-based or simply map exercise in the classroom. Depending on the degree of complexity of the task that a teacher plans to give his students, three types of online solutions can be proposed:

Perhaps the most reliable way to illustrate is presenting a practical example that has already been developed jointly by a group of teachers and specialists from secondary schools and universities. But first, we should also answer other question that many teachers ask when they are told about the possibility of using a GIS-based solution in their classes: What maps could I make and how could I make those maps using the tools that I can find in an online service?.