ENXERGANDO O MUNDO ATRAVÉS DO GOOGLE EARTH:

This text aims to present the results and reflections of the application of a Digital Cartography course for students at the Jurandir da Silva Melo Municipal Education Center (CMEJSM), located on the outskirts of the city of Saquarema (RJ). In order to offer students a new lens to see the geographical space, in which they are inserted at different scales, they were offered, in the after-school period, a 120-hour course in digital cartography using Google Earth images. The hypothesis that guided the work was that this device (geotechnology) is capable of improving the quality of teaching, in addition to favoring critical, aesthetic and creative thinking, giving more autonomy to the students. The methodology used was built from several research methods ranging from the bibliographic review (construction of a theoretical framework on the subject), through the qualitative (participant observation, perception analysis, qualitative evaluation), quantitative (test applications with attribution of grades for the performance of the students) to the use of some field research techniques. This research is justified to the extent that it offers theoretical and empirical analysis of innovative teaching practice, in addition to equipping students with devices capable of broadening their vision of and in the world. The results found corroborate the hypothesis raised, since there was a qualitative and quantitative improvement in the quality of teaching, as shown in the data: 90% of the students who attended the course obtained a 27,39% increase in their school performance.