VITAL Teachshare replay available

Last night I hosted a VITAL CPD Teachshare on 'Apps'

Thanks to the colleagues who came along to the session, and in particular to John Sayers who shared some of the many apps that he makes use of in the classroom.

Here's a basic version of the presentation that I used - Slideshare seems to have added a few extra 7pms...

A replay of the session can be seen HERE. The session lasted for around an hour.

 

VITAL Teachshares are part of the VITAL CPD Portals.

John will be adding some details on the apps that he mentioned to his blog. The link is in the presentation.

The next Teachshare will be on December 18th and features Jamie Buchanan Dunlop.

VITAL CPD Teachshare on Apps

I shall be hosting another VITAL CPD Teachshare on Thursday this week....

Spread a little 'appiness is the name of the session, which starts at 7pm. It will look at the use of apps in the classroom and beyond. A lot of teachers are making use of these apps in teaching, and also on fieldwork. There are hundreds of thousands of apps, and the chance to get some free software which performs a particular task well is one that a lot of teachers are taking.

There's also the chance to connect with learners using AirPlay mirroring - indeed many teachers are using an iPad instead of an IWB... The cost is a lot less of course and the result is something more adaptable... and you can play Angry Birds on it...

Remember that I have also mentioned previously my experiences at the Enhancing Fieldwork Learning event at Preston Montford Field Centre.

Don't forget that there are hundreds of resources, tips, videos and blogs over on my VITAL Geography portal. Thousands of teachers are already enjoying the benefits of subscription to the portals. Head over there now to find all the details you need on how to subscribe to the portals now (and continuing into 2013)

Image: John Sayers

Primary Geography Champion

Earlier this week, Paula Owens made me an offer that I couldn't refuse. I was asked if I wanted to become one of the GA's Primary Geography Champions.
The Geography Champions network grew out of the work carried out for the Action Plan for Geography, and I was present at the first meeting of the champions, at the RGS-IBG as I set up the NING to support their work.
There are some amazing colleagues who are Geography Champions, and I've enjoyed working with them on a range of projects over the years, as well as supporting the development of the NING.

There are now over 1400 members of the Geography Champions NING.
It has a search function which will allow you to find existing materials and resources.

I've set up my group on the Ning, and have called it Mid-Norfolk and Surrounding Area.

I'd like to make an offer to any Primary schools that are in the area within 30 miles of Litcham in Norfolk. Let me know if I can support the development of geography within your school, or come and speak at an assembly about my book 'The Ice Man'... 
Also happy to head across the border into Suffolk or Cambridgeshire if appropriate...

If you live close to the North Norfolk coast, please contact my other Champion colleague Nell Seal.

GA Google Earth courses repeated...

The Google Earth and beyond courses that I have been running for the GA are to be repeated next year.
For full details visit the GA website.

The dates are:

Birmingham - Thursday 23 May 2013
London - Thursday 20 June 2013

They will feature a larger dollop of ArcGIS Explorer Online as I am going to be doing some work with ESRI UK in the next few months.

There is also going to be more integration with GE Graph as I've had a chance to develop that a little further since the first iteration of the courses....

Book now to secure a place...

World GIS Day

It's tomorrow... what are you planning to do in your school or workplace ?
I'm going to be creating some new GIS resources for GIS Day.
In the past I've attended various events around the country, while working at the GA, and there's a wealth of activity out there.

Here's a video about the day, and why GIS matters:



I'm going to be using the day to continue working on some materials for the OS MapStream service. These will add to the materials that I already produced, with Paula Owens, for the Digimap for Schools service earlier in the year.

Find out more about OS MapStream HERE.

Whatever you get up to on World GIS Day, keep mapping !

Discover the World with Mission:Explore

Over the last few months, we've been working hard to put together a deal which will connect The Geography Collective, creators of Mission:Explore with Discover the World, the leading school travel company to destinations such as Iceland.
We're going to be writing missions which will be available for students and teachers who book a tour with Discover the World...

The first place that we've visited is one of the great places in the world: ICELAND.

I'm working with geography teacher John Sayers, and our editor and illustrator Helen and Tom, along with other Geography Collective colleagues, to put together a booklet which will available to all those schools that book a trip with Discover the World. It will contain missions, and ideas for linking the experience of visiting Iceland and completing the missions with the curriculum, and exam specifications.

We've created a whole load of missions which we're now editing down and preparing to be released into the wild in early 2013.

I'll let you know more about how things are developing with the project over the next couple of months, and look forward to seeing some of you soon on a windswept sandur, or cramponing over a crevasse-strewn glacier...

Alan Hubertsson (my special Iceland-Explorer name...)

Breaking the mould...

One of the companies that I'm currently working with is ESRI UK.
It's good to see more cross-overs with projects as Mission Explore is featured in ESRI's Fall newsletter, with a nice article written by Daniel Edelson of the National Geographic Education team.

Some nice quotes:

There are a small number of people out there, however, who summon up very different images when they think about geography learning. Maybe they never experienced traditional geography education, or maybe they experienced it and have completely rejected it as a model for learning. They envision activities that feel both relevant and enjoyable. These are the people we need to find and listen to, because they don't think about improving geography education by incrementally improving traditional approaches. They think about completely new approaches to geography teaching and learning.

One place where you can find people like that is in the Geography Collective, a group of innovative thinkers in the United Kingdom. They describe themselves in the following way: "We are a collective of geography activists, teachers, therapists, academics, artists, and guerrillas. We've come together to encourage [young] people to see our world in new ways."

The Geography Collective is one of the most creative groups in geography education today, and every time I learn more about its work, I get more excited about it.....

I can't help feeling that truly creative approaches to geography learning are discouragingly few and far between right now. Too few people are even thinking about geography education, and those who are still focus too much on incremental improvements rather than entirely new approaches. We should take the Geography Collective members and others like them as inspiration. We must challenge ourselves to think more creatively and seek out and promote the creative ideas of others.

Thanks Daniel :)