VocalGeo: Using Speech to Provide Geospatial Context in the Classroom

The provision of location information often plays a large part in communication and is key to the visualisations used in teaching; however, location information such as geospatial context is often challenging to convey and thus omitted from narratives; this is especially pertinent in classroom situations in which the teacher is constrained by other demands. VocalGeo is a software capability that addresses this challenge, utilising speech recognition and web mapping technologies to provide automatic, real-time geospatial context on a dynamic map in response to the teacher’s and students' speech. This work shows how readily available web technologies can be used for interactive teaching of geospatial information.