In this study, we focus on teachers’ attitudes to compare and evaluate their ability and readiness to implement technology education in geography lessons. First, the lack of suitable measuring instruments for our intent was identified, and we thus attempted to develop the Modern Technology Attitude Index (MTAI) for remedy. An exploratory factor analysis helped to identify three distinguishable dimensions that depict areas of intimidation (INT), loss of control (LOC), and benefits and easement (BAE), with or through modern technology. The scales were then applied to German university students (n = 357). As a result, the pre-service geography teachers (n = 72) showed higher scores on the affinity scale than on the two aversion scales. Their subject-specific interest correlated negatively with intimidation and positively with the perceived benefits and easements of modern technology, while the perceived loss of control showed no significant correlation. This allows for the conclusion that the subject’s technology-related interest has an influence on cognitive and behavioral attitudes, while this is not the case for affective ones. Further, there are indications that the much-discussed gender gap in technology topics might particularly be related to people’s affective attitudes, while cognitive and behavioral dimensions seem not to be affected. Differing results in other studies on whether the gender gap still exists or not could be due to the fact that, in addition to growing social awareness and a generational change, the measuring tools used may have not yet been able to depict a sufficiently diverse range of attitudes.

The central challenges of our time mostly share a high level of complexity, which makes them unsolvable by single-perspective approaches. To offer adolescents the educational concepts that enable them to take various perspectives, comprehend, and finally deal constructively with these problems, innovative measures must be created. Additionally, the benefit of these measures must be shared equally by all learners, without being limited by their individual biographical or attitudinal characteristics. In this work, potential concepts were collected from geography education, technology education (TE), and education for sustainable development (ESD), and merged into a multi-perspective educational approach with mobile digital game-based learning (mDGBL) for the promotion of environmental and technology-related content. In the presented study, the accumulation of n = 94 Hessian students’ subject-specific knowledge (SSK) was evaluated in a comparative study with a control group, along with the potential influence of gender, age, and concept-related attitudes (CRA) in a longitudinal quantitative study. Firstly, in a study of this kind, in addition to the approach’s short-term success, the long-term effects on subject-specific knowledge were also tested. The results prove the full success of the innovative mDGBL intervention. There were strong immediate and long-lasting effects on participants’ SSK, measured right after and eight weeks after the intervention. It could be proven that, although there were partially significant gender differences in attitudes towards modern technologies, learning success was not influenced by gender, age, or any of the measured attitudinal dimensions.