Discussion: New educational links for teaching O

Sweden created a number of useful booklets for teaching O to school children, which are now available in English and linked from the Orienteering USA website.

They may help other beginners learn, or help clubs teach and train.

Great resource Janet. That Swedish school series really is cool, awesome and educational.
BUT I hope sooner rather than later someone in O-USA will dump that antiquated Swiss 'how to make a schoolyard map' and insert a made in America solution starting with Open Street Map, importing to Open Orienteering Mapper, then converting symbols and using Google Earth or Bing aerials to add details. Some field work, a map rotation to magnetic north and voila you have a map.

Yes. Then easily link it to livelox, camera app to watch videos while sycncronysed to the map. Then add other WFS or as layers

@gordhun

Would you like to take a stab at a new guide using OSM? Might help people wanting street-O maps too.

We could also link to the mappers resources page, but that might be more than the proposed audience (teachers) might want to get into.

I did something like that a year ago. But some of the USOF types in charge of mapping said something was too complicated, promised to give suggestions then I heard nothing back.
So there it sits in limbo.

Very cool Gordhun

Gordhun - I didn't read it in detail, but seems pretty nice as a mappers resource.

If the actual audience for the page that JanetT linked is teachers, then I think anything about making your own map on that page is too complicated.

We should instead be pointing teachers to "How to get a map of your school." This could discuss things like - talking to the local orienteering club about making a map, contacting OUSA mappers about making a map, asking the school for engineering surveys or existing maps, and using available satellite imagery (e.g. Google) as a substitute for a map.

If we give teachers the impression that they need to create their own schoolyard maps to introduce orienteering into their curriculum, they probably won't.

Agree 100% with smittyo.

Agree with smittyo as well.
I think anyone who knows how to import a Google Earth or Bing Map aerial photo of their school yard in to Power Point and then draw control circles and lines on top of it will get enough orienteering skill teaching for their kids.
As the O-USA curriculum guides say the key skill learning in orienteering is not just navigation it is learning spatial relationships. I'd go further and say it is developing problem solving and decision making skills through route choices. These can be done almost as well from an air photo as a map (contours excepted).

But clubs could also make it their mission to have someone in the club make orienteering maps of the school campuses in the area and invite themselves to give a demo at the school. Using the formula I describe one can create an orienteering map of anywhere in a few hours, half the time if they use OCAD 12. It's like planting seeds: it may pay off, it may not. However they can improve the payoff rate by including sweeteners to come to the next club event.

Always keep in mind that whether it is a school class, home schoolers, a scout group, a JROTC unit or a business group their leaders' objective is not to create orienteers it is to educate or to develop their charges. It is still the job of the orienteering club with its foot in the door to say ' hey you've taken it this far, come try the next level'.