Visit From this site you canwww.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/ select and use a low scale map free of charge in your school. The map will seem small on the initial screen but can be resized on a slide without much degradation. Ordnance Survey have a document outlining other possible map sources. Click here.Click here. Alternatively, you can scan any existing plans of the school building to use or even get the pupils to draw up their own! On the next slide, I’ve added a map showing the village of Rogiet, in south-east Wales from the ‘getamap’ service. GIS is, very simply, data identified, recorded and used linked to location. So, if you have a map of an area and some data related to that area, you can create your own basic GIS, even in programs like powerpoint. Getting started…

You can create ‘hotspots’ in powerpoint that can be moved around the map to the correct or preferred positions in ‘edit’ mode and activated in ‘slideshow’ mode. These ‘hotspots’ can open up text boxes on the same slide or jump you to other slides containing images and descriptions. The next few slides will show you how…

In ‘slideshow’ mode, click on the red spot. Click on the spot again to close the text box. The next slide contains 6 hotspots with linked text boxes ready around the side of the map for you to use. Just delete the map and paste your own in (order it so that it goes to the back behind the hotspots) and add text to the boxes. You can copy the next slide into a file of your own at any time. Severn Tunnel Junction was opened in 1886 and was originally called Rogiet station.

Box 3 Box 4 Box 2 Box 1 Box 5 Box 6 (A template for you to use…)

If you need more space for your information or have an image to add, you can set a link to another slide. I’ve set one up to go to the next slide on this map when ‘slideshow’ is running. Just create a shape to act as the ‘hotspot’. This time, right click on it, select ‘hyperlink’. Now select ‘place in this document’ and choose the slide you want to jump to when the link is activated. (It’s always a good idea to have a link on that new slide back to your original map slide as well).

Back St. Mary’s church in Rogiet did not originally have a font. Baptisms were carried out at a nearby well.

Using basic interpretations of GIS like this one in Powerpoint is a good way of introducing the concept earlier on in Key Stage 2 or as a way of introducing ideas at a basic level for less confident learners (and teachers!). There are a number of ‘paid for’ GIS programs that can be introduced into schools once you feel the need for additional functionality that Powerpoint cannot provide (you may even have some of these in school already). Here are just a few… AEGIS3 – Local Studies – InfoMapper – Digital Worlds GIS 2 –