2025/12/10 by Tomasz Opach, Anders Skare Malvik, Tatjana Kielland Samoilow +6 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Geographic Information Systems Studies #Geography Education and Pedagogy #Historical Geography and Geographical Thought
paper · doi:10.1080/15230406.2025.2588459
openalex created_date 2025/12/10 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
The study focuses on the pedagogical applications of literary maps and the didactic orientation within the broader field of literary geography. The research question is, “What functionality should a digital map offer in educational settings to facilitate the exploration of place names from literary texts?” To answer the question, we developed an experimental tool to investigate place names mentioned in Norwegian literature 1814–1905, and arranged a session with literature students and a session with Norwegian teachers to explore user needs and the tool’s pedagogical potentials in literary geographies. Our results show that both the literature students and the teachers considered the tool inspiring and triggering their curiosity. Our study confirms suitability of design choices, with the main map panel accompanied with frequency panel, and equipped with a moderate level of interactive functions that support building corpora, plotting extracted place names on an interactive map and listing them in a supplementary overview panel. Moreover, while the criticism received primarily concerned failed geolocations and slow system responses, suggestions for further development mainly focused on the search mechanism for place names in specific locations and on providing tutoring prior to the use of the map in upper secondary education.