Multimedia Cartography as Language in Language in the Geography Teaching

Introduction: The development of cartographic techniques has favored cost reduction and the distribution of cartographic representations in electronic ways. The availability of these representations, mainly in research sites in the web, and in different presentation scales, is becoming very common, contributing to the significant increase of the number of people that seek for the help of digital maps. This way, both in digital and virtual environment, the reader is not only limited to the act of visualizing the map as it happens in printed materials. He has the possibility to interact with the map and, in some cases, modify it according to his interest as a co-author. These new representation and communication forms of space information are called Multimedia Cartography. However, we have only a few works that specifically emphasize the use of those new languages in school and in Geography teaching. In this sense, this research has the School Cartography as theme, particularly the one related to the understanding of the concept of Multimedia Cartography as a new language that can allow the production of significant knowledge concerning the geographical space. Our concerns, however, extrapolate the search for a simple discussion of the principles, laws and generalizations of Multimedia Cartography. They are extended to the study of cartographic representations supported by multimedia and their use in Geography teaching. Objectives: This way, this research has the objective to discuss Multimedia Cartography principles, and analyze its potentialities and limits in relation to knowledge production in Geography teaching. Specifically, we want to: a) understand Multimedia Cartography conceptual foundations; b) discuss some modalities and interactivity degrees that language can provide; c) and analyze Multimedia Cartography projects available both in Internet or in digital means. Methodology: Our discussion has as central axes the theoretical referential related to School Cartography, Multimedia Cartography, new information technologies and Geography teaching as well. That favors us to structure our research in two parts. The first searches to introduce some concepts that are basic for understanding Multimedia Cartography as media, multimedia, interactivity, hypertext, hypermedia, among others according to the literature. We also introduce the concept of Multimedia Cartography, and others that are inherent to the subject such as: 1 Research conducted in the Group ‘School Geography and Cartography’ coordinated by Prof Dra. Rosângela Doin de Almeida, with the objective to develop research that can relate theory and concepts of Geography and Education that are on their turn related to Cartography language. Sponsored by: CNPq