地理教育的目標已從「傳遞知識」走向「培養能力」導向，同時GIS已成為地理教學的重要輔助工具，回應過往將GIS作為輔助教師教學的工具，本研究主張GIS適合以學生學習工具的角色融入地理教育，以達成地理教育的目標。為論證此一命題，本研究分別以GIS為學習工具及教學工具設計經緯度坐標系統課程，結合國小五年級社會學習領域地理內容，藉此比較國小學童地理能力的發展。透過教學行動研究的準實驗設計，64名學生分別參與「學習」為主的實驗組課程及「教導」為主的對照組課程，各分5組以觀察、訪談、測驗等方式，蒐集師生間及學生同儕間的互動對話與書面記錄，並以實作評量方式分析學生地理能力的展現。研究結果顯示，相對於對照組的所有學生，5組實驗組中有3組學生表現出利用所學經緯度知識解決實際問題的能力，證明以GIS為學習工具的課程有助於學生地理能力的養成，且跟教學工具比較起來，GIS更適合以學習工具的角色輔助地理教育；此外本研究同時發現實作評量方式比起傳統認知測驗更能有效評估學生的地理能力。

The goals of geography education have changed from Knowledge Delivery to Competency Cultivation. Meanwhile, GIS is now widely used in geography education. In contrast with conventional teaching media, this research proposes that GIS should be used as learning media for geography education. Two courses in sphere coordinate systems were developed: “GIS as a learning media” and “GIS as a teaching media”, which were then used by the experimental group and control group, respectively. The quasi-experimental methodology was used to compare the above two principles. Sixty-four fifth-grade students were invited to participate in the experiment and were equally allocated to experimental group and control group. Students were asked to answer questions when attending the courses. The students were interviewed, and the interaction between teachers and students was observed. A performance assessment was employed to evaluate students’ geographical competency. The experimental results showed that three of five student teams in the experimental group and all student teams in the control group benefited from using GIS as a learning media. However, the assessment methods should be used carefully. The performance test and the standardized test correspond to the assessment of geographical competency and geographical knowledge.