Google Earth and Padlet in Class 8 Geography: Effect on Map-Based Achievement (Pre/Post Quasi-Experiment)

This B.Ed internship project tests whether ICT-integrated geography lessons using Google Earth and Padlet improve Class 8 students' achievement in map-based content, compared with regular textbook-and-wall-map teaching. It fits the educational technology specialisation and the Critical Understanding of ICT EPC, and it produces a proper quantitative result rather than a description of "using a projector".

Two comparable Class 8 sections of the internship school take part. Both are taught the same content from the Class 8 NCERT geography units on agriculture and industries — locating major crop regions and industrial regions, reading map symbols, directions and scale, and relating location to factors such as climate, rivers and raw materials. The experimental section explores these places with Google Earth projected in class (zooming from India to a tea estate in Assam or an industrial belt, switching layers, measuring distances) and builds a collaborative Padlet map where groups pin crops and industries with a photo and a one-line reason. The control section is taught with the textbook, blackboard sketches and a wall map. Each section gets eight lessons.

Achievement is measured with a teacher-made achievement test built from a blueprint (objectives × content × question type), with content validity checked by experts and a try-out for item analysis. Both sections take it as a pre-test and a post-test. Gain scores are compared with an independent-samples t-test in Excel or SPSS, with Cohen's d for effect size, and a short Google Form collects student feedback.

Abstract

Map work is one of the most difficult parts of school geography, because students must imagine places they have never seen and connect them with physical and economic factors. Freely available tools such as Google Earth and Padlet can bring these places into the classroom and let students contribute to a shared map. This study compares the achievement of two Class 8 sections — one taught with Google Earth and Padlet-integrated lessons and one taught conventionally — in the geography units on agriculture and industries, using a blueprint-based achievement test as pre-test and post-test during the B.Ed school internship.

Introduction

NEP 2020 and NCF for School Education 2023 encourage the purposeful use of technology in teaching, but in many schools "ICT" still means showing a video. Purposeful integration means using a tool for what it does best. Google Earth lets students see real landscapes at different scales, measure distances and follow rivers; Padlet lets every group place evidence on a shared map, making learning collaborative and visible.

Review gap

Studies of ICT in Indian classrooms often report attitudes towards ICT or teachers' readiness rather than achievement, and many use only a post-test. Studies that combine a blueprint-based test, pre-test equivalence checking and a comparison group within the practical limits of B.Ed internship are less common.

Hypotheses

• H0₁: There is no significant difference between the pre-test mean scores of the experimental and control sections.
• H0₂: There is no significant difference between the mean gain scores of the experimental and control sections.
• H0₃: There is no significant difference between boys and girls in the experimental section in gain scores (exploratory).

Feasibility

The internship school has a projector and one laptop with internet; Google Earth and Padlet's free plan are sufficient; the mentor teacher allots eight periods per section; testing needs two periods per section.

Class 8 students in the internship school could name crops and industries from the textbook but struggled to locate them on a map or explain why a crop or industry is found in a particular region. The mentor teacher's unit-test analysis showed that map questions were the most frequently skipped or wrongly answered. Conventional teaching with a wall map gives students few chances to see real places at different scales or to contribute their own mapping.

This study investigates whether Google Earth and Padlet-integrated lessons lead to higher achievement in map-based geography content than conventional teaching, using a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design with two Class 8 sections and a validated, blueprint-based achievement test, and it reports what the student-teacher learnt about integrating ICT purposefully in a real school.

In scope

• Two intact Class 8 sections (about 35–40 students each) of one internship school.
• Content: map-based parts of the geography units on agriculture and industries.
• Eight lessons per section, taught by the same student-teacher to control teacher effects.
• Blueprint-based achievement test (pre/post), feedback form, t-tests and effect size.

Out of scope

• Random assignment of individual students (sections are intact).
• Long-term retention beyond the post-test.
• Other subjects or classes.
• Testing students' ICT skills; the test measures geography achievement only.

Research design

Quasi-experimental non-equivalent control-group pre-test/post-test design. One section is chosen by coin toss as experimental; the other is control.

Sample

Two Class 8 sections of the internship school (about 75 students). Students absent for either test are excluded from analysis.

Independent variable

Method of teaching: ICT-integrated (Google Earth + Padlet) vs conventional (textbook + blackboard + wall map).

Dependent variable

Achievement on the teacher-made test (40 marks).

Tool: achievement test

1. Blueprint — weightage to objectives (Knowledge 25%, Understanding 35%, Application 25%, Skill/map work 15%), content (crop regions, industrial regions, factors of location, map symbols/direction/scale) and question type (MCQ, short answer, map-marking).
2. Item writing — 45 items drafted for a final 30.
3. Content validity — reviewed by the mentor teacher, the social science method teacher and one experienced teacher.
4. Try-out — administered to 40 Class 9 students (who studied the units last year); difficulty index (acceptable 0.25–0.75) and discrimination index (≥ 0.20) computed using upper and lower 27% groups; weak items dropped.
5. Reliability — split-half with Spearman–Brown correction on the try-out data.

Treatment (8 lessons each)

• Experimental: projected Google Earth tours (India → state → region), layers for rivers and terrain, measuring distance from raw material to factory town; group tasks to add pins on a shared Padlet map with a photo and a reason; exit question.
• Control: same objectives, same examples and same time, taught with textbook, blackboard sketch maps and wall map; group work on printed outline maps.

Analysis

Mean and SD for each section; independent t-test on pre-test (H0₁); independent t-test on gain scores (post − pre) (H0₂); Cohen's d; exploratory t-test by gender (H0₃). Feedback summarised in percentages and quotes.

Timeline (6 weeks)

Week 1 blueprint, items, validation; week 2 try-out and item analysis, pre-test; weeks 3–5 eight lessons per section; week 6 post-test, feedback, analysis and report.