Futures Dimension

David Hicks is one of the key people in the area of geographical futures.

His website link here has links to many of his useful papers and other resources. Useful for teachers reading around this particular theme.
Don't forget to read Chapter 23 of the GA's Secondary Geography Handbook for more in this area...

#ukcside - the British seaside...

Another great collaborative Twitter project response...

Yesterday, I asked colleagues who follow me to provide some descriptions of the British Seaside...
Words that appear larger were mentioned more frequently by the word cloud generator.

First of all a WORDLE - click the image below to be taken to the Wordle page...


Here is a Tagxedo version of the Wordle...
Click for biggery...

Thanks for all the contributors.
What words would you choose ? 
How could you use this diagram as a resource in the classroom or for a homework task ?

Teachers TV website to close

Yet another casualty of the cutbacks...

Teachers TV website will disappear on the 29th of April...

There are some other casualties of the austerity measures still to be announced - check this blog after the Easter break for one of the bigger ones - but the disappearance of the Teachers TV website means the loss of quite a few programmes that I was involved with producing...

So I'm currently downloading the WEATHER and CLIMATE series, and the SECONDARY GEOGRAPHY and ICT programme which featured Bob Lang, Paul Haigh and Helen Young.

Get them while you can....

Mass (Geographical) Observation

One of the things that I am quietly 'obsessed' (ish) with is the Mass Observation project, which dates back to the 1930s
I have a number of books which drew on the project: one by Simon Garfield, and several chunky ones by David Kynaston.

I keep checking on the recruitment criteria, but sadly they never seem to want people my age in my geographical area.

Elements of Mass Observation also creep into several other books that I own, and there are elements of cultural geography in the data patterns and other outcomes from the project.

Now everyone has the chance to be a Mass Observation person for the day, and the day is the 12th of May, which is coming up.

Details of how to participate are HERE

You'll need to keep a diary on the day in electronic form, and include a disclaimer that it can be used in the archive...

Write as much as you can about what you do, who you meet, what you talk about, what you eat and drink, what you buy or sell, what you are working on, the places you visit, the people you meet, the things you read, see and hear around you and of course what you yourself think.


I'll be taking part, and will be having a typically geographical day I'm sure...

Might be a good homework activity to set students to participate in a national data gathering project...

GA Conference 2011 - University of Surrey, Guildford

A number of posts are appearing over at my LIVING GEOGRAPHY blog on the follow-up to the GA Conference 2011.

There were some wonderful sessions.... but enough about me...

Anne Greaves has started to post resources from the conference on the GA WEBSITE.

Image by Bryan Ledgard
Copyright Geographical Association

PGCE Geography blog

Many thanks to Liz Taylor: the PGCE tutor at Homerton College, Cambridge University for inviting me to work with this year's cohort towards the end of their course.
I had the last session before they finished for the Easter holidays, but still managed to hold their attention I think, although a bottle of Pimms did make an appearance at one point...

One of the colleagues I worked with passed on details of a blog that he had started, and I am happy to share it here. Always good to have another teacher blog, especially from one near the start of their career.
The blog is written by Mike Stevens.

One particularly useful link that I got from this blog was an audio from a lecture by David Campbell on the connections between images and narrative.

I hope that Mike carries on blogging as he starts his new job in September - thanks for sharing !

GA Conference 2011

If you are reading this blog you may well be heading to the GA conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford.
It's next week, which is a bit scary as I still have a lot to organise, but cracking through it today.
Just been circling the sessions that I'm planning to attend in my conference booklet, and there are plenty of them... the variety of sessions means that there is definitely something for everyone...
One additional event that isn't on the programme is the chance to meet myself, Richard Allaway of "Geography all the Way" fame, and David Rogers: author, teacher and chair of the GA's Secondary Committee... We will be in a pub near the centre of Guildford at around 8.30pm...
The drinks won't be free... but they'll be reasonably priced...

Full details, including maps and everything, are on Richard Allaway's GEOGALOT blog...

What are you most looking forward to at the GA Conference this year ?

Don't forget the hashtag... #gaconf11

Typhoon Fury

I hope that everyone uses Twitter.
If not, you are missing the chance to follow fascinating folk and interesting organisations.

James Reynolds - Typhoon Fury... @TyphoonFury on Twitter has recently visited the disaster scene of the Japanese tsunami, and has been posting affecting images and video of the relief and recovery efforts...
Amazing classroom resources with no distracting graphics, music and commentary...
Such as the example below...

Posterous Blogging

Last year, I was able to sit in on a session by Noel Jenkins of Juicy and Digital Geography fame, and one of my geography heroes...
He was showing the power of Posterous: a blog which I use for my 365 image project.

Joe Dale has now produced an excellent summary of a session that he did on BLOGGING USING POSTEROUS - this post has been updated several times already and provides a lot of ideas.

There are links through to the work of  other colleagues, but it demonstrates the power of the immediacy and simplicity of this free tool....
Over to you to come up with your own variation on how to use it...