Supporting Geography Teachers

SOLO Taxonomy

2012-01-20T08:34:00.001-08:00

Thanks to John Sayers for volunteering to join me to present a VITAL CPD Teachshare on the 9th of February at 7pm.
It's on the use of: SOLO, which stands for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes.
It really asks students to place their understanding of work on a scale of 1-5, depending on their ability to make sense of connections. It's a useful technique for discussing progression.

So, although I'll be talking SOLO, I won't be on my own....

A reminder that you can still subscribe to the VITAL CPD GEOGRAPHY portal for a very low price - if you go to the pub tonight and buy a pint and a packet of pork scratchings it'll probably cost you more than a subscription would.... although admittedly they'll taste better....

New Discovering the Arctic module

2012-01-17T06:25:00.001-08:00

At the end of last year, I completed some projects for the Royal Geographical Society, one of which was to author a new unit for the Discovering the Arctic website.

My unit is related to the materials produced by SWIPA.
(Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic

Click the image at the bottom of the home page to go to the materials

The attention of the world is on the opposite hemisphere today, but I hope you get the chance to check these out over the next few days.
Thanks to the designers who made sense of my notes and scribbles and have put together what I hope you find a really useful set of activities and questions...

2012-01-08T08:40:00.001-08:00

As I blogged recently, a new service for subscribers to the Geographical Association's journal 'GEOGRAPHY' was launched over the Christmas period. This allows subscribers to the journal to access a huge archive of back issues, which goes back in fact to the predecessor of that journal: 'Geographical Teacher', which was published from 1901 to 1926.

Users can now access copies of articles from over a century of journals to view on screen or download as a PDF.
Login to the web site, and look for the JSTOR image down the right hand column of the website.

Normal service will be resumed in 2012...

2011-12-18T04:38:00.001-08:00

I'm going to take a couple of weeks away for Christmas (although I probably won't be able to resist blogging if something important happens between now and the 1st of January 2012.)

I'm going to be doing one or two things over Christmas as well as enjoying the festive cheer

Writing a GCSE book
Completing a major resource pack for the Ordnance Survey
Planning out a Children's book I'm going to be writing
Preparing for CPD events in the New Year
Writing some Online Updates for Harper Collins
Edits and proofreading for 2 books I'm editing that are published in early 2012
Adding new content to my Vital Geography Portal
Preparing some thoughts for new Curriculum consultation
Putting together some ideas for Mission:Explore Food

On 1st of January I'll be back with various New Year thoughts...

Please join me on the 5th of January for my Teachshare on New Year New Geography

It'd be great to have your company at 7pm with your plans for the year ahead for New Year New Geography, and if you are tweeting your plans, please use the tag #nyng

Thanks to Rich Allaway for his early contribution to the tag.

Thanks to everyone who's employed me during 2011, or visited this blog and contributed in some way.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND WISHING YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

Moorland Ecology

2011-12-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

I worked on a range of projects for the Royal Geographical Society a few months back, and the final pieces of the project that I contributed have now gone live on the RGS website.

They were part of the Goldsmith's funded FROM THE FIELD project.

The latest module which I contributed was for the KS4 series, and is on the theme of MOORLAND ECOLOGY. It explores the process of moorland regeneration, and its link with the ecology that is needed to make the regrowth productive.

It's worth remembering that all the resources from the Geography Teaching Today website have now been migrated to either the RGS or the GA websites, depending on which organisation was responsible for producing the original content.

If you're after the excellent KS3 RESOURCES they are available here on the RGS website.

If you're after the FIELDWORK resources they're here on the RGS website.

Thanks to Rose Wilcox, PhD researcher from the University of Hull for her guidance and support on the From the Field project and images, and thanks to John Lyon for the images that he contributed to the project as well.

Mary Portas Review: Saving the High Street ?

2011-12-13T02:51:00.001-08:00

Regular readers of the blog will know that I have an interest in the changing fortunes of town centres and have written various posts on Clone Towns, Rebranding and other projects to revitalise town centres as they face competition from out of town retail parks and the rise of online shopping.

This was also part of the 'A' level specification that I used to teach, and some ancient resources from the Cambridge Urban Field Day that we used to run are available via the link.
I also started a Flickr Group called The Disappearing High Street some years ago, and several kind photographers have contributed their images to join mine.

Mary Portas, who has featured in a number of recent TV programmes looking at changing the fortunes of retail businesses, was asked earlier in the year to explore the ways that the fortunes of the High Street could be turned round. The report was published this morning....

There is also a free KS3 resource that you can obtain from the Harper Collins website that I wrote on the changes that have taken place in the High Street: "Shop, or they start to drop". This would sit well with the report, and also the diagram opposite, which is taken from the report.
While you're there, why not subscribe to the other monthly online updates which I'm writing ?

What is important is that they are 'vital and viable'.

The report is now live on Mary Portas' website, or click here to download as a PDF (1.9 Mb)

There are 28 ideas to explore with students, who can research them, and suggest how successful they might be in your local town centre.

Right, I'm off to Tesco Extra....

VITAL Geography Teachshares

2011-12-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

Check over at Living Geography for the details on my Teachshares for this term and listen to the replay.

Sign up for the Geography portal.

Join me on the 13th for one on revision, and follow my new Twitter feed @VitalGeography

Culture: the latest Digital Explorer site...

2011-12-05T10:53:00.001-08:00

I've been working with Jamie Buchanan Dunlop over the last few months, adding some new resources to the OCEANS DIGITAL EXPLORER website.

The Digital Explorer empire is now expanding to CULTURAL matters, linking in with the idea of Citizenship and (as always) a link with real world exploration.

Check out the new CULTURAL WEBSITE which has some superb resources.

The FILMS and PHOTOS section looks like being an amazingly useful resource for exploring Citizenship issues.

New Story Cubes

2011-12-03T02:31:00.001-08:00

Regular readers of the blog will know of my love of Rory's Story Cubes. I use these in my CPD sessions, and link them in with the creation of geographical narratives: geography as 'writing the earth'.
The latest set of cubes is now available to purchase from the Creativity Hub website, and will be in shops in the UK in a few weeks time.

Story Cubes Voyages is a whole new set of dice for story-telling which can be used in combination with the previous sets, or by themselves...

My cubes are on order...

New GeoPacks resource and CD

2011-11-28T02:03:00.001-08:00

For over a year now I've been getting regular e-mails from Rick Cope and Mark Hacklett at GeoPacks - creators of the excellent COASTAL MANAGER software - to tell me about the latest free resource that they've shared.

If you want to catch up with the freebies that they've made available, there's now an excellent Resource CD which will get you right up to speed.

It's available for £12 from GeoPacks. Follow the link to find out more.

Make sure you SIGN UP to receive a regular free resource update too.

Follow the link to FREE STUFF from the home page.

GA Conference 2012

2011-11-26T14:03:00.001-08:00

The programme for the GA conference 2012 is now available to download as a PDF from the GA website.
The conference runs from the 12th to the 14th of April 2012.

I will be attending on the 12th and 13th of April, so come and say hello if you see me.

As you'll see when you read it, I am featured on the 13th of April...

If you want the cheapest price, book your place in the next 5 weeks to make sure that you get the best rates. Some personal highlights for me, after a quick browse through the list...

12th April

17.00-17.45
Public Lecture
Free of charge
Novelist Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Two Caravans, and We Are All Made of Glue, will present the free Public Lecture on 12 April.

13th April

Workshop (IT) 3
Instant computers: mobile devices in the classroom
KS3-P16
Dr Andrew Lee, Head of Juniors, St Paul's School, London
The iPad and iPod offer a wide range of tools available for the geographer to conduct geographical enquiries and to record geographical phenomena during field expeditions, on their journeys to school or on holiday. What are these tools, how do they work and how might the be used?

11.40-12.05
Reporting Research
The residential fieldtrip experience: a sensory ethnography
Nick Gee, Associate Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of East Anglia

Workshop (IT) 9
Controlled assessment with AEGIS
KS4
Diana Freeman, Director, Advisory Unit and Helen Young, Teacher, The Friary School, Lichfield
This workshop will demonstrate methods and examples of using AEGIS, GIS for Schools, to
improve controlled assessment opportunities and outcomes for students: covering preparation, fieldwork, data gathering, presentation and analysis for successful portfolio submissions. Participants will receive a free CD with guidance to take away. Sponsored by the Advisory Unit

Lecture Plus 3
Learning 'live' online - the benefits
KS2-P16
David Holmes, Education Consultant; John Lyon, Programme Director, Geographical Association; and Bob Digby, Consultant
Ths GA has launched a series of live online CPD sessions, run by expert tutors, bringing up-to-date interactive learning into your department meetings or home. Sdeveral people can share one terminal, bringing the costs of high-quality learning down. This session shows how you might experience it

13.50-15.45
Double Workshop (IT) 13
Investigating inequality using GIS
KS3-P16
Bob Lang, Member, GA ICT Special Interest Group and Andy Newing, Member, GA ICT Special Interest Group
This workshop will use online GIS and visualisation packages to investigate inequality at a variety of scales.
Delegates will take ideas away to use in their teaching. No prior knowledge of GIS is required.
Presented by GA ICTSIG

14.20-14.35
Reporting Research
The uses of Twitter for geography teachers/students
Jennifer Watts, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Manchester
See separate Reporting Research document for full details

Lecture Plus 5
Geomedia in secondary education
KS4
Alan Parkinson, Consultant and John Lyon, Programme Director, Geographical Association and Dr Michael Solem,
Educational Affairs Director, Association of American Geographers
This lecture will show the work of the digital-earth.eu project in promoting the use of geomedia, i.e. working with spatial information such as digital maps and photos, videos and texts. Geomedia plays a role in analysing and solving spatial problems so it is important that students become familiar with the technologies.
Sponsored by digital-earth.eu

Lecture 13
Five countries – all you need for IB Geography?
P16
Richard Allaway, IB Geography Teacher, International School of Geneva
The IB Geography syllabus recommends that case studies should be 'chosen from a limited number of countries (between three and five) of contrasting levels of development'. Can it be done? Should it be done? This lecture will outline how case studies from five countries could be used to teach the course, including three optional themes. Sponsored by International Baccalaureate Organisation

Pity this clashes with my lecture !

Workshop 18
Explore with guerrilla geography!
KS1-3
Ruth Potts, Geography and History Co-ordinator, Sacred Heart RC School, Blackburn
Find out about practical ways to use the 'Mission Explore' books and see them come alive! Help your children
become involved with missions from the books or website in a fun and exciting way, and develop their
geography knowledge and team-building skills. Be prepared to join in!
In partnership with The Geography Collective

Pity this clashes with my lecture !

Workshop (IT) 20
Making the most of Digimap for Schools
KS2-P16
Ken Lacey, Assistant Education Manager, and Darren Bailey, Assistant Education Manager, Ordnance Survey
This workshop will give you hands-on experience of using Digimaps for Schools and show you how to get the most from this award-winning online resource. With a wide range of Ordnance Survey maps at your fingertips, it will enrich learning experiences in geography and many other subjects. In partnership Ordnance Survey

16.30-17.20
Double Workshop 19
Anything I can do, you can do better
KS3-P16
Emma Johns, Head of Geography, Hitchin Girls' School
If you've ever thought 'there's a better way of doing this' then this workshop is for you! You'll take part in
competing lessons to explore different ways of teaching the same content. Delegates will leave with a range of ideas ready to use in the classroom. Presented by GA SPC

And amazingly these two as well - it's as if they're saving the best sessions for the end of the day :)

Workshop (IT) 22
Multimedia geography through Google Earth
KS3
Paul Cornish, Head of Geography, Coopers Company & Coborn School, Upminster
This practical workshop will show you simple ways to transform your use of Google Earth through the
embedding of video, photographic and other multimedia resources in order to display data from fieldwork,
produce interactive lessons or design virtual fieldtrips.

There's plenty more on the 14th as well, but that's my daughter's birthday....

VItal Teachshare: Google Earth Placemarks

2011-11-15T02:00:00.001-08:00

My next VITAL Teachshare will be on Wednesday the 16th of November (that's tomorrow if you're reading this today) at 7pm.
It's on ways of customising Google Earth Placemarks...

Click THIS LINK just before 7 to join me. You'll need to allow the download of the plug-in to handle the Elluminate session, which will then allow you to see and hear me, and to take part.

Don't forget to check the KEYHOLE BULLETIN BOARD to get the full range of layers and files shared by Google Earth users. Use the SEARCH function to unearth the goodness....

This will be my little contribution to WORLD GIS DAY, which is taking place tomorrow, as part of GEOGRAPHY AWARENESS WEEK.

What are you doing for World GIS Day ?
Why not add a touch of GIS to your teaching tomorrow...

UKEDCHAT Web tools...

2011-11-14T04:10:00.001-08:00

Thursday night at 8pm is the regular UKEDCHAT slot.

Each week focuses on a different aspect of education.

A really useful set of tools has been developed as part of a recent discussion on web tools....
Visit and see what you can use...

GA NQT Conference

2011-11-14T04:01:00.001-08:00

This Thursday I will be leading a day for NQT Geographers, organised by the Geographical Association.
The delegates and myself, will meet up at the MIC in London.

There are 3 sessions on the day, and a lot of ideas and discussions to get through... plus the usual fine lunch that the MIC provides.
And a pint afterwards at the Bree Louise if you have the time...

Don't forget to check this blog and LIVING GEOGRAPHY for plenty of ideas for NQTs and those more experienced colleagues...

GA members can still access the NQT Survival Pack that I wrote ready for the start of the last academic year.

Teachshare 3: Writing on the Map

2011-11-06T13:12:00.001-08:00

The VITAL Teachshares are part of the VITAL Geography Portal which I am managing for the next few months.
The third of my Teachshare sessions is going to take place at 7pm on Tuesday the 8th of November.
Follow this link to access the room. You can sign in a few minutes before the session starts as there are a few bits of software that needs to be prepared before you can get access to the Elluminate session.
Also check the link to the PORTAL and sign up for a free 30 day trial, or pay five quid to access up to 3 subject-specific portals.

The session will look at ideas for literacy in Geography, and be a warm-up gig for Friday, when I will be doing a longer session at Earlston High School in the Scottish Borders for teachers from the region.

Writing the Earth is an area with great potential - there are plenty of cool tools to use....

VITAL: Geography Teachshare 1 - Tonight

2011-10-12T03:10:00.001-07:00

I will be running my first VITAL Teachshare TONIGHT

It's on 'FREE GIS TOOLS for the Geography Classroom' and introduces the basics of GIS followed by 3 suggested websites which can be used to produce GIS-style work with students.

If you'd like to join me, you'll need to click this link just before 7pm

This will load up Elluminate on your machine which may take a few minutes....

For those who haven't been to an online session before, you'll be able to hear and see me going through a presentation and then have a chance to discuss things. You can ask question and I might ask you to click some icons to participate... You'll get the hang of it...

We should be finished by 7.45, but you can of course feel free to join later and leave earlier if you like: that's the 'benefit' of online sessions like this. Slides and links will be on Slideshare after the event.

If you haven't already done so, head over to VITAL and sign up for a free trial for the Geography portal too...

Check out the other subject portals too. For just five quid you can subscribe to 3 of them until March 2012 and access videos, forums, resources, Top Tips and other content.

2011-10-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to be starting a new part-time post working for the Open University's VITAL CPD programme next week.A series of subject specific portals have started to open, and next week sees the launch of the Geography Portal, which I shall be managing.

As part of the launch, I shall be leading a Teachshare next Wednesday at 7pm (there will be 2 of these each month, sometimes more)

The subject will be FREE GIS FOR THE GEOGRAPHY CLASSROOM and I will show 3 websites which can be used to carry out GIS type work in the geography department.

This will be held via the Elluminate service. The link to join the event is HERE.
It's a little like a FLASH meeting or ADOBE connect, for those who are familiar with those.

The cost of accessing up to 3 of the subject-specific portals between now and the end of March 2012 is just five pounds, which has to be a bargain considering the geography-specific support that the portal will offer....

I shall be doing the following each month:
- holding at least 2 Teachshare meetings
- posting Top Tips for Geography teachers, which will include resources and other tip-offs
- a moderated Geography forum, where you can join in discussions on pedagogy and curriculum topics
- producing 4 x 10 minute video guides to a particular website or technique that would be useful in the geography classroom
- keeping up to date with the geography news

There will also be other Geography features added over time...

Hope to see you there next week !

MissionExplore.net now LIVE !

2011-10-05T07:03:00.001-07:00

I've just completed my first mission on the relaunched Mission Explore.net which is now live in BETA
It's called the DEAD EASY MISSION
Come and login and find out what it involves...

It's worth it to go and see Tom Morgan Jones' latest wonderful illustrations...

Just going to do some missions at home...

Coincidentally my EARTH SANDWICH Mission Explore t-shirt arrived today - it's cool.

Why not order your own MISSION EXPLORE shirt to wear while completing the MISSION EXPLORE missions ?

Subject Knowledge Update: Globalisation

2011-10-04T08:11:00.001-07:00

The RGS-IBG hold regular subject updates for topics that are of relevance to 'A' level topics in particular.

I mentioned a previous one on water, and will actually be leading one in 2012 on the theme of the Polar regions (of which more to come later...)

There will be a subject update on the theme of Globalisation held in Manchester on the 5th of December 2011. This will be useful for those who would find it difficult travelling to London.

Subject Knowledge Updates are a series of evening sessions each focusing on a different theme, covering the basic information for teaching that topic and providing up to date case study material and resources. The next session in this series looks at Globalisation.
The DfE Schools White Paper 2010 The importance of Teaching highlights a need for subject knowledge to
be included in CPD: “It is also vital that we give teachers the opportunity to deepen their subject
knowledge and renew the passion which brought them into the classroom”.

This Globalisation Subject Knowledge Update will:
 Provide up to date and new case study material and information.
 Give an overview of the key facts and information that should be highlighted when teaching
globalisation.
 Help teachers who have not taught globalisation for a while, or never studied it, to teach it
effectively and confidently.
 Provide some resources and case studies for you to take away for use at KS3, KS4 and KS5.
 Encourage enthusiasm to teach globalisation and give ideas of how to link it with other topics and
themes.

About the session
Globalisation is now a core element for some of the new geography A-level Specifications and the
International Baccalaureate diploma course. It is increasingly a highly popular A2 option for those boards
where it is not a compulsory topic. But thanks to the fast-changing nature of global interactions, it is
difficult for students and teachers to always keep up to date with their facts and case studies. Some new
course text books published in 2008 do not mention the Credit Crunch for instance, yet this is a crucial new development that some experts have even called ‘de-globalisation.’ Effective globalisation teaching for higher grades also requires that students can make good use of important concepts – such as networks, flows, interconnectedness – and that they also have a good understanding of the politics, and not just the economics, of globalisation. This session will provide experienced and newer geography teachers with an opportunity to up-date their globalisation knowledge. Specific themes covered will include TNCs updates, cultural globalisation (glocalisation), global politics, ICT and global interactions (mobiles, Facebook, BlackBerry, etc.), diaspora, global production networks and Credit Crunch geography.
About the presenter
Dr Simon Oakes is an A-level Principal Examiner and Chief Examiner for IB Diploma Programme geography.He currently teaches at Bancroft’s School in Essex and is an experienced undergraduate lecture. He has been the lead writer of the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Geography in the News’ website since 2003, authoring more than 120 articles. Simon is an Associate Editor of Geography Review magazine and is the author of Phillip Allan’s new Globalisation text book and a co-author of several key A-level and GCSE course guides. His doctoral research examined the growth of information technology global networks viewed from a rural perspective. Post-doctoral research includes work on flood hazard management for the Environmental Agency / Defra and climate change curriculum development with DCSF.

Venue: Xaverian Sixth Form College, Lower Park Road, Victoria Park, Manchester, M14 5RB
Time: 5pm – 7pm (registration from 4.30pm for a prompt start). Refreshments will be available.
Format: 90mins lecture style followed by 30mins of discussion and questions.
There are 20 places available on this course.
Please note: this course is for teachers only.
Costs
Members (School Members / Fellows / ECT Members / Young Geographers) £30 inc VAT
Non Members £40 inc VAT

Contact Claire Wheeler for more details

Innovative Geography Teaching Grants

2011-10-03T09:16:00.001-07:00

As a geography teacher, I received quite a few Innovative Geography Teaching Grants: two as an individual, and two as part of a group project. The first one was the GeoBlogs project in 2003, which gave me my online persona and kick-started a whole range of other stuff...

The RGS-IBG have just announced the recipients for 2011

Innovative Geography Teaching Grant recipients

2011: Rachel Atkins (Bristol Grammar School). 'Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Templates – Interactive Geographers'

The templates focus on interactive techniques to encourage pupil participation with the IWB. the creation of templates which illustrate easy and effective techniques in Smartboard, can be easily modified according to the aims of lessons, and therefore supply resources that are ready to go, needing minimal adoption

2011: Samantha Coulson (William Farr CE School). 'Geography of Film – Scheme of Work'

The project developed Year 9 pupils’ ability to relate their experience of films to their knowledge of the real world, and in doing so opening their eyes to what film has to offer and giving context to reality. Pupils can investigate how film instils, a sense of place, culture and change over time

2011: James Mutton (Featherstone High School). 'The whole world (wide web) in my hands'

The project used mobile technology to enhance the delivery of geography education.This enables faster access to data and personilising provision to individuals, demonstrating how relevant and cutting edge Geography education
can be

2011: Jo Debens (Priory School Specialist Sports College). 'International link between Priory School, UK and the Cape Fear Centre for Enquiry, USA'

Pupils compare their personal geographies of their home areas and explore how living near the coast affects their lives.Using new technologies students are able to collaborate with others, therefore developing their communication skills.

Congratulations to all the recipients....

New GA resource on Polish migration

2011-09-30T07:59:00.001-07:00

A new resource has gone up on the GA website.
It's a short unit with associated resources which explores the issue of Polish migration and the decisions that people make about where to live.

Download the FREE RESOURCE as a PDF

Coincidentally this resource has a link with Torun, where I shall be next week.
I'm going to see what the Polish delegates make of it :)

If we can get some additional Polish perspective I think that would make a useful resource for colleagues with Polish students in their geography class or form group...

TES

2011-09-24T07:46:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Graeme Eyre for the tip-off that my article on LOCAL GEOGRAPHIES is in the TES this week (I was expecting it to be in next week)
Also the image below...

Pleased with the way that it looks, but there were a few links that didn't quite go in as they were in the original article...

Weblink to Young People's Geographies project that was referenced with the photography of Jonathan JK Morris
Weblink to the full version of the National Geographic Education resource - we did come up with more than 3 ideas...
Weblink to the RGS-IBG Discovering Britain website was incorrect

Geography Collective in USA

2011-09-17T12:00:00.001-07:00

As I may have mentioned before on the blog, I did some work a few months ago for the Geography Collective on the theme of 'the local area'. This was for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC education in the USA, and Dan from the collective went over to Portland to speak to educators from all over the USA.

Now there have been some videos released from the National Council for Geographic Education for the session that Dan Raven Ellison did for the conference, and they are on the GEOGRAPHY COLLECTIVE blog.

Here's the first one and the other two are on the blog...
This is very fine work, and explains the origins of the Geography Collective and our recent work, ideas of geography and showcases projects that Dan and the Collective have been involved with....

The new Geography Curriculum - the latest development...

2011-09-13T03:04:00.001-07:00

I received an e-mail today from David Lambert about developments towards the new curriculum...

The Department for Education, through Nick Gibb has asked Alex Standish (some of you will be familiar with the name) to write a national curriculum for geography. The final draft has been made available to the GA, and shared on the website.

Alex Standish is an assistant professor of geography at Western Connecticut State University and author of "Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the moral case for geography", published by Routledge.

The draft curriculum has been added to the GA Website Curriculum Consultation page as a 17 page PDF download. (Click to download)
Before you read the document, you should first read Alex's 'position statement' which sets out his thinking as he approached the task:

"This geography curriculum was compiled at the request of the Department for Education as a contribution to the national curriculum review. It has been written with input from teachers, department heads, and geography faculty. At secondary level it in part reflects the content of IGCSEs. Nevertheless, it remains my personal interpretation of what children should learn in geography at different key stages so that they become capable students of geography.
There are of course other ways of organising the geography curriculum, but one of my aims is to raise expectations of what pupils are capable of learning. If private schools are able to teach geography in the depth and breadth demanded by the IGCSE then so should everybody else. I believe that all children are capable to being educated to a high standard and it is time we started raising our expectations of how much children in the state sector can learn.
I also recognise that writing a curriculum and implementing it are two different things. To offer this curriculum would mean adding more geography in primary schools where there are fewer specialists. Nevertheless, there is nothing here that could not be taught by a primary teacher supported by suitable materials. At key stage one and two pupils should be using their local environment as a primary resource. Teaching about the UK in years 5 and 6 would require more work and ideally the production of some new teaching resources. But by age eleven, children should have learnt about the geography of their country, the physical and human environment and be capable of making and using maps. If this is not possible today, it is something we should work towards.
Another aim of this curriculum is to re-introduce regional geography to the English curriculum. This should be taught not by cataloguing facts about different regions, but rather to enable children to understand and interpret the range of cultures and landscapes that exist across the surface of the globe. Regional geography went out of fashion in the UK with the decline of Empire. It is high-time it was re-introduced to the curriculum so that children leave school having been introduced to all the major regions of the world. Surely this should be a primary aim of the geography curriculum?
In writing this curriculum, my objective has been to make a contribution to the conversation about what knowledge and skills children need to learn in geography. How this is taught in the classroom is the prerogative of teachers, as it always should be."

I note the link with iGCSE. Having been involved with the development of a new iGCSE book which is due to be published at the start of 2012, I know that any content can become engaging with the right treatment.

Once you've read the document, it would be great if you could LOG IN to the GA website (this will ensure that you are logged as a member and your statement will have more impact), and HAVE YOUR SAY on the Curriculum Consultation Page.

This is NOT the final curriculum (YET), but we need as many opinions as possible. If you don't express your opinion in the right place, it may not make a difference. You may be thinking YES, Regional Geography is back ! Please go to the GA's page and add a comment...
It's important that you also read the GA's suggested documents so that you can compare the approaches...

I haven't had chance to read the document, but will post some thoughts about it in a day or so....

I'm off to find my notes on Benelux and Denmark that I used to teach back in the late 80s.... my Head of Department at the time said that they would come in useful some time as education goes round in circles....

Image: Thingvellir, Iceland - Alan Parkinson (where the USA meets Europe...)

VITAL: a new resource

2011-09-12T11:56:00.001-07:00

A new update to the VITAL website has been launched recently...

It's the new website of VITAL: the Open University's CPD programme.
One of the main aspects of the website is access to a series of subject specific PORTALS.

The Geography Portal is yet to be launched, but it will be managed by me, and I am working on the content already. Expect there to be a range of useful content for geographers and geography teachers...
This will include:

short video guides to explain how to use key websites and web tools
suggested Top Tips
resource ideas
Twitter feed
details of events
fortnightly online meetings to discuss a particular topic

I'll let you know when the portal launches, so that you can pop along and see me...

Digital Explorer Oceans

2011-09-09T13:04:00.001-07:00

A new website has launched for those interested in exploring the OCEANS.
DIGITAL EXPLORER OCEANS

From the press release:

Digital Explorer is very proudto announce the launch of [de] Oceans, sponsored by Catlin, an online channelbringing the oceans closer to all!

Whether you’re a teacher, a scientist, an adventurer or somebody who loves thesea, [de] Oceans – oceans.digitalexplorer.com– provides a space to link together and encourage oceans learning across theUK. It’s all about sharing passion for the oceans and delivering an excitingand current educational programme based on robust and relevant science.

Catlin is proud to sponsorscientific research and educational programmes which explore how our planet’soceans may be changing. Starting in 2009, Catlin has sponsored research intothe changing Arctic environment through the Catlin Arctic Survey,a multi-faceted research programme through which scientists and explorerscombined to study changes in the Arctic environment.

The Channel combines:

Oceans Academycompetition for teachers – win a training weekend on the southcoast working with scientists, explorers and sailors! The weekend is full ofunique activities with a sound scientific basis and aims to support teachersimplement oceans learning in the classroom. What better way to begin or endyour October half term! Apply now.

Oceans Ambassadorsprogramme – bringing oceans knowledge direct to the classroomin the form of scientists and oceans experts. Covering topics such asmarine biology, polar science, marine pollution and the carbon cycle, browse theAmbassadors to book a visit to your school or their lab orworkplace. Or, if you are involved in oceans work or research and would like toshare your expertise as part of an outreach programme, register as anAmbassador.

Oceans Resources– launching fully on 22nd October, films, lesson plans, activity and factsheets on Frozen Oceans will be available for free download. Topics relate tothe National Curriculum and will work hand-in-hand with the above. Moreinformation here!

We hope to provide an authentic and lasting resource, encouraging upcominggenerations to get out there into the real world and gain a deeperunderstanding, through direct experiences, of how the oceans sustain us.

There are also some RESOURCES that will be launching on the 22nd of October, as mentioned above.

There's also a competition to win a FREE teacher training weekend.

I am currently working on those - so I hope they meet the standard of the rest of the site, which is of a very high standard.

Google Earth Visualisations

2011-09-06T02:26:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Matt Podbury via the SLN Geography Forum for the tip-off here...

The MERKADOR blog which I think is based in Belgium has shared some great work for geography of sport units.

There are 2 Google Earth related projects...
The first refers to the English Premiership.

This content overlay shows the origin of the first team players of the 4 biggest clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

You can see the geographical composition of the teams in 3 ways:

click on the team emblems to see a pie chart of the players nationalities
check out the lines connecting the team emblems to the players countries of origin. Broader lines mean more players come from that particular country. Enable and disable the clubs you want to visualize in the table of content
click on the flag icons of the countries to see what players originate from a particular country

The second one is more ambitious and targets all the clubs that were involved in the World Cup 2010

Every country is represented by the country border outline and an icon with the country flag. Clicking the country icon will open a balloon with the squad list of the country. For every player a link is provided to take you to the stadium of the club the player is affiliated with. Lines connecting the country to the clubs of the members of the countries national team are also provided.

The data comes from the GLOBAL FOOTBALL DATABASE which is a useful site for those teaching about global sport.

Also check out the one for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHY

There's also - rather nicely timed this find - of HIV / AIDS PREVALENCE rates.

There's also a GOOGLE EARTH FEATURES QUIZ so that you can get to know Google Earth....

This is all excellent work !!

Some VITAL work coming up...

2011-09-02T10:03:00.001-07:00

Later this month, the Open University and e-Skills UK's VITAL professional development programme is launching a range of subject specialist portals for a number of key subjects, including English and Literacy, History, Maths and Numeracy, Modern Foreign Languages, Music and eSafety.

I am delighted to announce that from later this month, I will be the manager of the Geography portal.

I shall provide more details of the URL and other aspects of the work later this month when they start to go live.
I'm delighted to be associated with VITAL, and will be serving up a rang of services for visitors to the portal.

For those who are unsure of Vital's role.

Delivered by the Open University and funded by DfE, Vital provides:

inspiring ideas to inspire your learners
materials you can use in your own classroom
opportunities to share expertise with your peers

What does Vital offer?

flexible, cost-effective courses that fit with your busy schedule
case studies of how other teachers are using ICT in their own lessons
collaborative spaces to share ideas, experiences and materials
guides to key technologies and ideas on how to use them in the classroom
interviews with leading practitioners
advice and support from ICT specialists
useful links
Information about opportunities using Vital learning activities as a basis for gaining academic awards and credit.

One chapter closes... and a new one begins...

2011-08-31T11:39:00.001-07:00

Today was my final day as a full-time employee of the Geographical Association.

Tomorrow I move into the 3rd phase of my working life...
I will be moving on to new geography-related projects, and am grateful to those who have already offered me some work. Particular thanks to Steve Brace and Eleanor Coulber at the RGS-IBG, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop and the Catlin Arctic Survey, Andrew Campbell and the team at Harper Collins, the SSAT Humanities team, Karl Donert, the Field Studies Council, Richard Allaway, Ruth Totterdell at the GA and Bob Lang & Paul Cornish, Dave Holmes and Philip Allan, Paul Baker, Katie and the TeachIt team, Jobina at TwigIt and a host of others, who have offered me work of some kind. Apologies if I have missed anyone out - don't worry you'll feature in future blog posts...
There's also a few other exciting things which are in the pipeline and will be announced later in the year...

I shall also still be 'affiliated to the GA': leading CPD courses for the GA, notably the ESRI / GA GIS courses for beginners and advanced, and the NQT Conferences in NovemberKeep an eye out for some new GA publications in 2012.I will also be spending more time on projects for the Geography Collective too: we have the re-launch of MISSION EXPLORE and the launch of DISCOVER:EXPLORE coming up as well as a host of other exciting things.
I shall also be completing some work in Poland, Austria, Scotland and various other locations, and I'm still keeping my eye out for a suitable teaching job in my home area.

Many thanks to all my GA colleagues for their tremendous support over the last three years.

Don't forget to JOIN THE GA.Also, please have your say in our KS3 consultation if you haven't already ! The results of this will matter !
I shall still be blogging here on Living Geography, so keep reading to find out what I get up to and elsewhere and tweeting on @GeoBlogsThanks for reading, and best wishes to everyone for the new academic year. It's going to be interesting !

Discovering Britain - new from the RGS-IBG

2011-08-26T12:40:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Jenny from the RGS-IBG for letting me know about the imminent launch of a new site which offers a fresh look at the UK.

The site is called DISCOVERING BRITAIN.

"We are developing an exciting series of geographically-themed walks across the UK that aim to bring these stories alive and to inspire everyone to explore and learn about our different landscapes."

Look forward to seeing the full site when it appears in just over a month's time....

Triptico

2011-08-26T07:53:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Rob Chambers for the tipoff to a great free set of tools.

TRIPTICO is a free download, which produces a desktop widget.
It has been developed by David Riley, as a way of offering tools that teachers can customise to their particular subject and year group.
I like a few of the tools in particular, and could see them being of particular use. One of them is a FIND TEN generator, which allows you to create a list of items, with 10 of them being the correct answers. I created one below - e-mail if you'd like a copy - you'll need the TRIPTICO tools in order to use the file...

A list of the current tools - more are in development....

National Geographic : Geography Awareness resource

2011-08-17T13:24:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, I was involved in an exciting project with National Geographic Education in the USA as part of the Geography Collective. This led to my friend and colleague Daniel Raven Ellison spending a week at the National Council for Geographic Education conference in Portland, Oregon, and working with educators from across the USA.

This project has been an exciting one to be involved with. It offers a range of activities which can be carried out in your neighbourhood, and earn points for completing them. Would be good for exploring local areas, local wildlife and ideas of community. These will be used across the USA for their Geography Awareness Week later in the year.

You will need to have registered with TES Connect, which is free and takes a few moments.

You can then DOWNLOAD THE BOOKLET as a 34 page, 13 Mb PDF and check it out.

Please take a look and let me know what you think...

Geography Collective at NCGE

2011-08-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

The National Council for Geographic Education event has been taking place in Portland, Oregon.

My Geography Collective colleague Dan Ellison is there, and led an Urban Earth walk as well as two workshops in the Guerrilla geography approach of the Geography Collective and Mission:Explore.

One resource that Dan put me on to was this excellent collection of Google Earth related work.

Catlin Arctic Survey

2011-08-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, I followed the progress of the latest expedition of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
The team were exploring the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and then drilling down through the ice to carry out a range of experiments aimed at exploring aspects of the ocean waters, which are at the heart of the Earth's oceanic circulation.

Digital Explorer's Jamie Buchanan Dunlop was involved in the expedition, which involved camping on the ice.

Now, I've been asked to get involved with the project by producing some teaching materials related to the work that the good folks were up to while camped out on the ice.

The explorer Pen Hadow was involved, as were a number of scientists and colleagues with a range of useful skills and experiences. They were also using some interesting equipment, including Niskin bottles and sensors called "peepers". While they were on the ice they also had a Twitter chat with my friend and colleague Kenny O' Donnell and his students.

Image: Catlin Arctic Survey

Watch out for some resources for KS3 and KS4 which will emerge on the website before too long...

MOVE: first minute of the new school year sorted...

2011-08-04T02:38:00.001-07:00

Via Al Humphreys and Victoria Ellis

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Superb...
Watch full screen...

First minute of the new school year SORTED....

Also follow the links to LEARN and EAT...

Town - new BBC series

2011-07-28T13:21:00.001-07:00

Nick Crane series just started.

Some interesting content, if nothing new to a seasoned geographer...
The supporting website, in association with the OU has links to a range of useful additional detail.

Order your FREE BOOKLET

Also check out the opportunity to RUN YOUR OWN TOWN. This is a decision making interactive where you get to run a town and make important choices...

Topical Tropical Rainforests

2011-07-24T07:22:00.001-07:00

A long overdue post....

A day last week working with Fay, Caitlin, Calum, Agnes, Sophie and Jamie in Priory School, Southsea.

It was a student leader co-contruction day, with the focus being a unit on Tropical Rainforests.

There was a lot of interesting discussion which I tried to capture and build into some new activities.

One area that we discussed was Palm Oil, and its use in processed food.
We thought about the issue of the Future of the forest and the different possible futures that it might have
We used the Human Planet clip of Tete climbing the tree to get honey
We also added an extra activity that was inspired by the recent story of the numbers of tribes that are still un-contacted, and the pros and cons of contacting them against leaving them. One of the main issues here of course is the size of the forest and the various groups that want to use the forest in different ways.
We mentioned the idea of sustainability a lot.

One additional topical link which I will be following for the next 5 weeks is that my niece is heading off for a 5 week Amazonian adventure to Peru today with BSES (British Schools Exploring Society), and I will add something inspired by that trip to the website / scheme of work as well...
You can follow the blog of the Amazon adventure by visiting the BSES website
There is also a FLICKR set which will presumably be added to.
There are some images of the training weekend so far, which would make useful resources.

Also got a copy of Bruce Parry's 'Amazon' next to me, and am going to fillet that too to see what's useful...

Also got the BSES Expedition Checklist which has potential as a resource to be used...

Been exploring a few links and found the Twitter feed of the BSES, which led me to James Borrell: one of the scientists who's going along to the rainforest, so there'll be some interesting options to follow for the next 5 weeks.

More to come on this shortly...

GA Curriculum Consultation - make your voice heard.

2011-07-16T05:17:00.001-07:00

The Geographical Association has added a major consultation to the website on the theme of "what makes a better school geography"....
It appeared yesterday.
It's a chance for you to get involved in a consultation on the changes to the Geography curriculum. There are several elements to the consultation, which can be viewed HERE.

There is a paper which describes a suggested 'national' curriculum, although the realities are that the curriculum document will be influenced by each school's particular circumstances and characteristics. The document suggests particular significant places that might be included, but there is a recognition that these will include those that are 'significant' for students too: very much influenced by the idea of 'living geography'.

There is also a presentation which suggests some of the geographical 'core knowledge' that will enable and open up other aspects of the curriculum. This has been put together by the GA's strategic partner ESRI UK, and works using the ArcGIS online tool. This is well worth a look as it consists of a series of maps containing specific information. Is the balance here correct ? are there places missing ? are there too many places named ?

When you've read the documents and the other materials that are presented here, please visit the FEEDBACK PAGE and provide your views. This is really important.

Philip Allan Course

2011-07-08T08:18:00.001-07:00

Just had confirmation of a course that is going to run on the 5th of March 2012, organised by Philip Allan Updates.
The course is not on their website yet, but will be shortly.
The title is:
"Developing a personalised geography learning network".

Famous image: Alec Couros - CC licensed

It will be presented by David Holmes and myself...
It will be held at a venue in London (to be confirmed)

Draft schedule for the day
9.45am Registration and coffee
10.00am Grasping the ideas: an open forum looking at the role of technology and learning, plus the role of networks
Cultivating an active social network - what can it achieve?
11.00am Coffee
11.20am Evaluating the Google 'suite' for education - what's on offer?
Pros and cons and examples of success
12.20pm Lunch
1.15pm Q&A + session: a chance to consolidate
1.45pm There's an 'app' for that! - Smartphone technology, including use for fieldwork
2.30pm Tea break
2.45 pm "The dog ate my homework" . Looking at school VLEs
Building communities within the classroom for learning and participation
3.30 pm Review and moving forward
3.45pm Day ends

I shall keep you up to date with the details once the booking etc is finalised... don't worry - it's not the last time you'll see this...

Geography of Disease

2011-07-07T12:19:00.001-07:00

This is another one of those blog posts aimed at uncovering a 'hidden' resource on the GA website that is freely available to anyone....

Geography of Disease was a project that was led by John Lyon, and was funded by the Wellcome Trust

Wycombe High School shared the resources that they produced as a result of their participation on their excellent website (on the Moodle platform...)

The resources are excellent ! You need to check them out if you are proposing to teach something about disease.
There are resources on Disease in Society - with a focus on Myxomatosis, the Black Death, HIV/AIDS, Cholera, Malaria, Bilharzia and Avian Influenza.

Check out Durham University's disease spread simulations too...

Great resources if you are teaching IB Geography, particularly the FOOD and HEALTH module of which more to come later in the year !

NQT Conferences in November 2011

2011-07-07T08:26:00.000-07:00

The flyers for the latest GA CPD events have been published on Scribd.

I am leading two NQT Conferences in November 2011

NQT Conference: Making a difference in the classroom

If you are going to be an NQT Geographer or you are going to have an NQT in your department, and you'd like to book a place, contact Lucy Oxley on 01142960088

National Geographic Education

2011-07-05T11:58:00.001-07:00

I have just finished working on a resource for the National Geographic Education team which is related to the work of the Geography Collective.

National Geographic Education has just had a big update, which is currently in BETA.

There is plenty of interest, including some examples of REAL WORLD GEOGRAPHY: people whose job relies on Geography to work...

I also liked the activities which connected FOOD with multiculturalism.
The metaphors are well known and were certainly part of our work on cultural globalisation on the Pilot GCSE, but worth exploring again...
Also a multimedia resource asking: "What is Geography ?"

This is certainly worth visiting and exploring....

AEGIS training

2011-07-01T08:26:00.001-07:00

Over to the Innovation Unit at the University of Hertford a week or so ago now to have some GIS training of my own.
After years of leading training with a range of free and commercial GIS tools and packages, it was time for me to get some advanced training: in the AEGIS package from Diana Freeman.

Spent a good chunk of time talking through the CPD package that Diana had sent me, and also the two very useful project books with ready made projects that had been put together with Helen Young of Geography Geek fame (Helen's website is one of various places where you can find AEGIS materials that she has developed for a range of Key Stages. There are some really nice activities here.

The Project book contains a range of fully resourced activities.

I learned a lot about the package that I hadn't previously known, despite having used it quite a lot over a number of years.
I am going to be available to do some training in the new academic year.
I can come into school and work with you and your colleagues.
Ring the Advisory Unit to learn about the CPD packages that are available...

NQT Conferences in November 2011

2011-06-28T03:52:00.001-07:00

Well, one perhaps as I doubt you'd come to both...
These are the first of the GA CPD events that I shall be doing in the new academic year that have so far been scheduled, and thanks to Lucy for sending me the flyer...
The events are NQT Conferences.

Look out for a mailing coming into schools shortly, and also inserts in GA journals....

If you'd like to secure your place, or find out more information about the events, there are several different prices depending on the status of your GA membership. Call Lucy Oxley at the GA on 01142960088 for more information.
I look forward to seeing some of you in November !
And I'll be mentioning this event once or twice between now and then....

FREE GIS taster sessions by ESRI UK

2011-06-24T01:36:00.003-07:00

Interested in GIS in school but not sure where to start ?
The folks at ESRI UK, with whom we've been working for the last year are putting on a range of FREE taster sessions over the next few weeks.
They are taking place in a range of venues, and there are 2 options.

1. Face to face taster sessions

Come along to one of our free GIS taster sessions and try out our GIS software, get some classroom ideas and find out what our GIS for Schools Programme has to offer. It only takes a minute to book a place. Just choose a location from the list below and click on the Book now link to register some brief details.

The sessions will take place in:

Birmingham

King Edward VI Five Ways School, Scotland Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham, B32 4BT
Date              Wednesday 29 June 2011
Time              3:45pm - 6:00pm
Location map  |  Book now ›

Bristol

THE-i CLC, Orchard School site, Filton Road, Horfield, Bristol, BS7 0XY
Date               Thursday 7 July 2011
Time              1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location map  |  Book now ›

London

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR
Date               Friday 1 July 2011
Time              4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location map  |  Book now ›

The Norwood School, Crown Dale, Lambeth, London, SE19 3NY
Date               Thursday 14 July 2011
Time              4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location map  |  Book now ›

Manchester

Central Manchester City Learning Centre, Cambridge Street, Manchester, M15 6HP
Date               Friday 1 July 2011
Time              1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location map  |  Book now ›

Nottingham

Nottingham e-Learning Centres – North Centre, Top Valley Drive, Top Valley, Nottingham, NG5 9AZ

Date Wednesday 13 July 2011

Time 1:00pm - 4:00pm

Location map | Book now ›

2. Free WEBINARS

If you can’t make one of the hands-on GIS taster sessions, why not book a place on one of our live webinars? These online seminars allow you to see a demonstration of the software and find out about our programme without the need to travel. During the webinar you can submit questions if you wish, or just sit back and watch.

To book a place, just click on one of the Book now links below and fill in some brief details. We will then email with all the information you’ll need to take part.

The live webinars will take place on:

Thursday 23 June	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›
Thursday 30 June	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›
Thursday 7 July	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›
Monday 11 July	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›
Tuesday 12 July	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›
Wednesday 20 July	4:00pm – 4:30pm	Book now ›

All links take you to ESRI UK website as these events are organised by ESRI UK.

Grab a bit of free CPD in the final weeks of the SUMMER TERM....

Power of Asia

2011-06-21T02:10:00.001-07:00

An excellent BBC NEWS special section which houses stories about ASIA.

Plenty for those teaching about China, India or Japan in particular.

Nice Gapminder graphic on the way that these economies are catching up with those in the west.

There are some super articles on Chinese cities, Indonesian investments and a great short video on the rare earths that are mined in China and found in the world's electronics (see earlier blog post on this) mentioned in recent National Geographic.

Bilingual Geography Workshops in Poland

2011-06-17T11:38:00.001-07:00

Just had the workshop details through for my visit to Poland in October this year.
I am following in the footsteps of other UK colleagues who have been invited out to take part in an annual workshop for Polish teachers.

The theme for the event is BILINGUAL GEOGRAPHY.

As you can see there are three action packed days of GEOGRAPHY to prepare for.... Also some other good sessions, and I'll be meeting up with colleague Luc from Belgium, who I have bumped into several times.

I'm up for any ideas that you might have...

I would be happy to showcase any work that you have done on the theme of bilingual geography and strategies for supporting EAL students, or teaching geography in languages other than English....

Young Geographer of the Year - now with added teacher prize for NQT / PGCE

2011-06-16T13:35:00.001-07:00

The annual Young Geographer of the Year Award has been launched by the Royal Geographical Society in association with Geographical magazine.

This year there has been a slight change of format for the awards which I think makes it a stronger opportunity, and will result in more "useful" and insightful responses...

Geography surrounds us: on the world map on your classroom wall, in events on the news, or the changes taking place in your local area and further afield. Geographers strive to better understand the connections between the world’s people, places and environments and the interactions taking place between them.

To help us understand our world we ask questions such as; Where is this place? Why is it like this? How is it connected with other places? How is this place changing? and Why are these changes taking place? We like to zoom between the local and the global scales and are fascinated with maps, not just to find out where places are but to also show how places are connected, their human and physical characteristics, and the differences between them.

So if you’ve ever wondered where your ipod was made, where the plastic in your recycling bin ends up or why climate change is on the news you’ve already been developing your geographical understanding.

Without geography we’d be lost and this year’s Young Geographer of the Year gives you the chance to answer the question:

'What should every good geographer understand?'

Visit the website to download the application / entry forms and give it a go.
There are 4 age categories, which correspond to KS2, 3, 4 and 5...

This year there is also a new award for PGCE / NQT teachers too.....

The Rex Walford Award for PGCE students and NQTs

The Society is also delighted to announce a new element of the competition - The Rex Walford Award for PGCE students and newly qualified geography teachers. Reflecting Rex Walford’s passion for training new geography teachers, this award will be given to a PGCE student or NQT who creates the best set of teaching resources, scheme of work or lesson plans linked to this year's Young Geographer competition. The winner will receive a Society Fellowship for one year plus a cash prize of £150 and their materials will be hosted on the Society’s website.

Get your geographical thinking caps on - you have to be in it to win it....

Thinking Skills Templates

2011-06-10T08:35:00.001-07:00

Two resources on organising THINKING and recording discussions came to my attention today.

The first was from the Cymru NGfL blog

This provided a link through to a whole set of THINKING SKILLS tools. You will need to register for the network to have full access, but that is free and only takes a minute or so....

There are some FLASH based, and others use Adobe AIR.
Some useful examples too....

The second was EXPLORATREE

EXPLORATREE is produced by Futurelab - it's free to register and use and takes just a few seconds...

It offers a range of tools, as you can see opposite.

I like the DAY IN THE LIFE template.
This could be adapted for various geographical concepts and contexts...

Geography Awareness Week: June 20th - 24th

2011-06-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

It's not long now until Geography Awareness Week for 2011....
This year's theme is PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY.
Download your materials as a PDF by clicking the link....

I dreamed of David again...

2011-05-26T03:06:00.001-07:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about the success of David Rogers: the Chair of the GA's Secondary Committee in the Jamie Oliver Dream Teachers competition on YouTube...
You can watch his £10 000 winning video below - it's now been seen over 13000 times !

Also listen to him from earlier today on BBC Radio SOLENT - via Audioboo....

Listen!

David is off to Google London today for an awards ceremony so have a good day David....

Food: another helping...

2011-05-19T03:30:00.001-07:00

GA subscribers to Teaching Geography have the chance to use a really well put together unit of work which has been written by Suzie Farmer.
It is called "Planning for Progression: making sense of famine and feast" and explores issues of food production.
There are downloadable documents on the GA website which accompany the article.

BBC report earlier this week looked at the contents of an FAO report also identified the shocking figure that a third of the world's food is wasted...

Image: Alan Parkinson

Click to download Tim Hess's excellent GA Conference presentation on the water that is involved in food production too.

http://geography.org.uk/download/GA_Conf11Hess.pdf (PDF download)

What I bought at the supermarket...

2011-05-18T06:19:00.001-07:00

For a food-related project I'm planning...
Everything I bought on my last trip to the supermarket.... (I went to Waitrose on this occasion, but normally go a lot more down-market...)

Could be used to explore issues like:

- sourcing: local or worldwide
- production methods: freedom foods, organic, Red Tractor, PGI
- packaging
- health: convenience or home cooking ingredients
- seasonality (they were bought in May... which of them are "out of season")

Other ideas, please add them below...

Oh, and I forgot the kitchen roll...

South Downs National Park

2011-05-14T01:44:00.001-07:00

All schools that lie within the newly designated South Downs National Park will soon receive an education pack which was put together by the Geographical Association.
It features a range of activities to explore the geography of the National Park, and the idea of landscape as a palimpsest...
It matches nicely with some of the ideas in my KS3 Toolkit: "Look at it this Way", which is available from the GA's online shop.

The pack will also be available to download from the South Downs website from Monday 16th of May....

GA Online CPD Courses

2011-05-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

You have a chance to book to take part in the first of the Geographical Association's new ONLINE CPD courses.
These use a special web interface to allow you to listen to the presenter, watch a range of images and resources, and carry out a range of tasks, as well as asking and answering questions and taking part in discussions.

You can find more information about how the courses will work here.

Health and Flooding

24 June 2011

Audience:    Post-16 geography teachers
Time:            Friday 24 June from 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Venue:         Online training room - take part from anywhere in the world
Cost:             £125 (GA full, personal and concessionary members) / £175 (non-members)

Course information

The first in our series of interactive online courses will help Post-16 teachers update their knowledge of health and flooding, two key topics in Post-16 geography.

Approximately one hour will be spent on each topic during which time you will learn about current thinking and discover recent examples to use as case studies with your students.

Health

Links between geography and health
Global patterns of health
Health issues linked to infectious diseases, including updates on HIV-AIDS
Health issues linked to affluence and human behaviour

Flooding

Causes of recent floods
Impacts of recent floods
The implications of these for thinking about flood management

The course will include examples from titles in the GA's Top Spec Geography series -Flood Risk and Management and Health Issues in Geography.

Course leaders

Bob Digby: Junior Vice-President and Community Geographer for the Geographical Association, GCSE Principal Examiner, author, and education consultant

Dave Holmes: Geography teacher at Queen's School, Taunton, GCSE and GCE Principal Examiner, author, and education consultant

The importance of "planning" your lessons...

2011-05-11T03:34:00.001-07:00

There's a lot of unambitious geography around...
Noel Jenkins has never been guilty of that.
His geography has always pushed the boundaries, and developed critical and creative thinking in the students fortunate enough to have him as their teacher.

His latest project is a genius piece of guerilla geography and place-based geography, which re-invents the idea of pupil participation in the planning process, and the idea of 'localism', as well as local geographies, urban geography and local map skills.

WELLINGTON PLANNING hosts information about some proposed planning decisions that Noel and students have developed.
They are proposed changes to buildings in Wellington, Somerset.

Here, for example, is the planning notice for Waitrose: this will be turned into an alternative usage...

The proposed changes have been developed with local knowledge very much in mind, and that adds an extra dimension to the project.
There have apparently been some "interesting responses" from people who have come across the notices.

Nice work Noel - provocative and inspirational as always !

Weatherspark

2011-05-09T08:30:00.001-07:00

Via @NCGE1915 on Twitter

Weatherspark visualises weather data from a weather station over time...

Here's the data for SHEFFIELD (home of the GA) for example...

Using the top tabs, you can visualise a whole week, month or year's weather...

You can also see detail about each day, going back in time for years....

There is information on temperatures, cloud cover and rainfall of varying intensity...

A wealth of data to mine in lots of creative ways...
There are details from numerous locations all over the world...

Check the Weatherspark page for more of the options.
The service is also in BETA, so you can make suggestions and watch it develop over time....

My website of the week.... and will go into the next GA Magazine WEBWATCH - watch out for the conference special edition coming soon...

Futures Dimension

2011-04-30T06:27:00.001-07:00

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...

2011-04-28T09:11:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-21T08:11:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-21T03:34:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-10T03:24:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-06T04:42:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-03T11:45:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-03T11:20:00.001-07:00

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...

Geography Collective and Cultural Olympiad

2011-03-29T02:24:00.001-07:00

One of the things I'm proudest of in the last few years is my involvement with the Geography Collective, and our Mission:Explore books, iPhone app and other activities...
We can now announce our latest project, thanks to the project leadership of Daniel Raven Ellison.

We are very pleased to say that we will be delivering a major project for the Cultural Olympiad as part of the Discovering Places programme called Discover Explore. Discovering Places is funded by a grant from Olympic Lottery Distributor (OLD) through the London Organising Committee of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). It is delivered by The Heritage Alliance with the support of key partners.. one of which is us.

We will be working closely with The Workshop to create something very beautiful and cool which will be launched this summer.

“The project aims to inspire young people and their families to discover hidden, extraordinary and important historical sites and stories in cutting-edge and engaging ways. The unique collaboration between Discovering Places, The Geography Collective and numerous small and medium scales historic and natural environment organisations will inspire active participation, animate spaces, raise awareness of environmental sustainability and enhance learning by linking up local heritage assets.” The Heritage Alliance

‘We are extremely excited to be working on this cutting edge and creative strand of Discovering Places. This project is going to open up opportunities for children and families to explore and experience places in new ways and have a great deal of fun while thare are at it. We will be uncovering heritage in ways that will demonstrate how inclusive the Cultural Olympiad is and break new ground on engaging young people with the people, places and stories of not only our pasts but our future’s past.’ Daniel Raven-Ellison, Project Director, The Geography Collective

To read more about the Cultural Olympiad, Discovering Places and our project take a look at the Heritage Alliance newsletter here.

Look forward to meeting the rest of the Geography Collective in May to kick-start the project...

FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER !!

Learning Score - get it while you can....

2011-03-23T04:41:00.001-07:00

John Davitt's genius lesson planning tool: LEARNING SCORE is now available for a limited time only as a FREE download with a lifetime license.
I paid actual cash money for this about 6 months ago to use with teachers, so this is great news for those on limited budgets...

To see how it might be used Doug Belshaw has made a video of him planning a history lesson.

Mobile learning...

2011-03-22T13:22:00.001-07:00

Gathering ideas for a future project on iPhone applications that would support geographical learning... whether outside or inside the classroom...

As well as the obvious MISSION EXPLORE app, there's also the RORY's STORYCUBES APP that I have poised and ready for business (although the actual dice are more tactile...)

Image by Alan Parkinson - cubes by Creativity Hub...

If you have other thoughts on iPhone apps that you particularly USE (rather than just having on your phone for visual impact), please let me know or add a comment below...

Rory's Story Cubes

2011-03-21T12:48:00.001-07:00

During my lunch-time at the Education Show I took the opportunity to do a quick trip up and down the aisles to make sure that I saw as many of the stands as possible and have a chat to anyone who had a geographical connection, or who caught my eye.

One stand I particularly wanted to see was the CREATIVITY HUB stand, where RORY's STORY CUBES were available.

I have these cubes as an iPhone app and also as the infinitely preferable 'real thing', and have used them with many teachers over the last few years to explore the ideas of geography as "writing the earth".

I have used my cubes with hundreds of teachers as a way of exploring creative writing, including my sessions at various conferences. By using a net for creating a cube such as the one below, taken from MATHSISFUN with thanks, you can also add your own cubes...

Cut out the shapes and add your own words or instructions on the six sides relevant to the subject that you are using them for.

If you were making a set of geography cubes, they might contain instructions. These could be used to add a map symbol or place name, to turn a particular compass direction (to direct a route across an OS map sheet perhaps), or to describe a particular landscape.

I got a set of ACTIONS cubes to mix in with them, and had a chat with Rory - who looks just like his picture on the flyer.

I was also really impressed with the MAX cubes, and a bit disappointed that they were only prototypes and not available to buy - not yet anyway... Follow the link to add your thoughts on whether they should be made more widely available for the particular reasons that are suggested.

Follow Rory and the team on Twitter @storycubes, and read this story from the Belfast Telegraph for some information on what they are planning yet. Some interesting projects to come...

New Danny Dorling

2011-03-20T04:01:00.001-07:00

Earlier in the week, picked up on this story from the Guardian, as one of the impacts of last week's earthquake and tsunami...
It describes the particular impact that shortages of food, water and power are having on those who survived, or were evacuated from the areas affected by the combination of hazards that have hit the country.
The elderly are apparently being affected particularly badly.

The second story was from Friday morning's BBC news. Despite the rise in obesity, the UK population is still enjoying longer life expectancy.

The third was prompted by a conversation with Carl Lee in Sheffield on Wednesday. He put me on to the latest Danny Dorling book, which I promptly ordered, and it arrived on Friday.

There are plenty of interesting sections which could translate into the classroom.
I liked the introduction: "Geography Matters", which includes the useful reminder for adult readers of the book that:
"The geography you may have been taught late on a Thursday afternoon at school is not the geography that is taught in universities today.."
- although in many cases it is also not the geography that is taught at schools on Thursday afternoons these days...

There are chapters on a range of themes that would be familiar to those teaching GCSE and 'A' level specifications, and this book should perhaps be available in school and departmental libraries.
Useful information on optimum populations, immigration, ageing populations and gender imbalance.
As always with Danny, plenty of thought provoking and challenging arguments and information....

Plenty of information for follow up reading in the copious endnotes too...

Thinking about disasters...

2011-03-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

..is something that a lot of us have been doing for the last week...

So have other colleagues... Simon Jones has posted the results of his thinking on the presentation below, which he has shared on Slideshare. Some really interesting and challenging questions...

Thinking about disasters

View more presentations from Simon Jones

There was also a response from the Guardian's DATA BLOG, which had a comparison between Japan and Haiti as part of its DECADE OF DISASTERS piece.

There is also a useful NUCLEAR POWER feature which shows the number of power plants that may now have an uncertain future, and face far more stringent safety checks and procedures. Useful mapping in both of these features...

Responses to the disaster have spread far and wide.
Fears over the nuclear radiation that is likely to spread from the Fukushima plant caused salt to sell out in China.

Thanks also to Fred Martin for sending through this intriguing link.

This is all 6 major channels at the precise time of the earthquake laid over each other.

The one in the top left is NHK (Japanese equivalent of the BBC) and the others are all commercial broadcasters. Which channels react the fastest - how long do some of them take to react ?

Warning: may give you a headache...

He also told me about the website which shows the live Geiger counter readings for Tokyo.

Thanks to those people who have left a comment on the Tsunami page on the GA website.

The Education Show

2011-03-15T14:33:00.001-07:00

The GA will have a stand at this year's Education Show 2011 at the NEC.
We will be in Hall 6&7 on Stand P30A - the subject association area (as at BETT) - the show starts later this week...

Come along to pick up the latest catalogues, see some of our new publications, browse some GA resources and be told about the support for Primary and Secondary colleague that members can expect, as well as our CPD support and online networks.

We would be interested to hear your views on the curriculum review, English Baccalaureate, and other challenges facing geography in schools, as well as the opportunities presented by these 'interesting times'.

I will be setting up and manning the stand on the first day of the show: Thursday the 17th of March

Alternatively, come with a USB drive and I'll let you have some free resources from my hard drive...

I'll also be handing out various bits for those who get there early...

My colleagues Nicola Donkin and Paul Baker will be on the stand on the other 2 days of the show...

Look forward to seeing some of you there...

Japanese Disaster... some thoughts...

2011-03-13T12:53:00.001-07:00

Just after 7am on Friday morning I pulled into a multi storey car park in central Coventry. I had set off rather earlier than I needed to ensure that I was on time for an NQT event that I was running, and as I checked my mail and Twitter feeds, news started to come in of an earthquake and tsunami...
The rest of the day was spent running the conference, and by the time I got home at 7pm that night, there was a clear sense that this was going to be very bad news for Japan and the rest of the world...

It became obvious that a lot of colleagues were hard at work over the weekend preparing a range of resources.
My colleague Anne Greaves at the GA had produced a really useful page of materials at short notice on the Friday in my absence.

Below is the text of the update that I will send to Anne for addition to the GA website tomorrow (Monday) but it is here for early access, and also for possible comment... This is a draft, and is my personal response to the events in Japan...

Update for GA website resources

The weekend of the 12^th and 13^th of March has been dominated by regular updates from the region of Japan that was most badly affected by the earthquake of the 11^th (which has been upgraded to a magnitude 9) and the ensuing tsunami and aftershocks.

The force of the earthquake has shifted the east coast of Japan by 2.4 metres, and even shifted the earth’s axis by 25cm. News footage has shown the astonishing scale of the devastation, and the power of water in a highly urbanised area. Entire towns such as Minami Sanriku seem to have virtually disappeared, and tens of thousands of people are missing at the time of writing, in the massive debris fields that the tsunami left behind.

The crisis has now been called the “worst since World War 2”, with the astonishing power of the water and shaking accompanied by the potential for a greater nuclear disaster than Chernobyl in 1986. Videos showing the swaying skyscrapers of Tokyo also provide a reminder of the efforts that have been made to protect buildings from potential earthquakes. This, combined with regular drills will have had an effect on overall casualty numbers, although some of the videos show a remarkable nonchalance as people stood and washed boats being washed under bridges that they were stood on.

The combination of hazards has had wider impacts on the country’s economy, links to global markets, car exports and manufacturing have been suspended, insurance claims will run into billions, and there are forecasts of rising energy prices. Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures are responsible for over 40% of the Japanese economy, and most manufacturing has ceased. Food rationing is taking place, and water supplies are cut in many parts of northern Japan.

Energy is currently being rationed as a large percentage of Japan’s energy comes from nuclear power, and there are fears of nuclear ‘meltdown’ at a number of nuclear reactors. Screening centres have been set up as over 200 000 people have been evacuated from the area around the reactors. A rolling programme of 3 hour blackouts is planned for the next few days. Oil refineries have been affected, and many petrol stations have closed, with long queues at others.

In the longer term, there will be a stimulus for the construction industry, as the infrastructure and many buildings will require reconstruction, but this is a long way in the future…

Thoughts on pedagogy & potential activities

The challenge for teachers in the next few weeks will be to pick an appropriate route through the large number of potential resources and activities that could be selected. Teachers as ‘curriculum makers’ have difficult choices to make, and even more so than ever where this event is concerned.

Students are likely to come with questions, and anxieties, and teachers will need to tackle those sensitively. These are likely to form the basis for the response: a lesson that is planned too rigidly might not enable some of those important questions to be answered. Try to ensure that at least one computer with internet access is available for research. It may be possible to access the live news stream from NHK news: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

Some sense of the scale of the disaster might be appropriate to explore, using Google Earth or other mapping software e.g. GIS mapping, perhaps using some of the available free tools such as ESRI’s ArcGIS online explorer: http://explorer.arcgis.com/ (a map of earthquakes in Japan has already been created)

Students could perhaps be placed in a ‘newsroom’ hot seat – maybe preparing materials for the Google Crisis Response website that is mentioned later in this resource. Alternatively they could be interviewing a survivor, or prepare questions for a rescue worker on their way to the disaster area. They might be asked to prepare / design applications that would be useful for residents and other people in the affected areas.

Use the Sky News home page or Newseum site http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ to explore the front pages of newspapers in the UK / around the World.

Possibly a Wordle of the headlines could be constructed, to explore the language of tragedy, and how to work on some of these issues to raise the morale of people in the affected areas.

Alternatively, take a Japanese poetry form: the haiku, and pupils could write a response to what they have seen and heard, perhaps adding a hopeful note…

There could be an exploration of how the shape and height profile of the coastline of Japan may have funnelled the waters further inland and at a faster rate in certain locations.

Teachers should perhaps take a lead from students at the start of the lesson, to assess the possible focus for part of the lesson:

What do they know ?

What would they like to know ?

What should they know ?

If we are having a debate about core knowledge in geography, should ‘tsunami’ be in there ?

Remember geographical enquiry: the choice of stimulus material will be to identify appropriate images and then offer potential for research and reflection.

Is it perhaps too early to be dissecting the disaster ?

If any colleagues have thoughts on these ideas, or would like to provide further examples that they have planned, we would be very pleased to receive them and share them more widely.

Links and connections

The BBC News website has an astonishing video: one of many, showing the force of the water as the tsunami hit:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

Some colleagues have been hard at work producing resources which they are happy to share.

Andy Knill, who teaches in Essex spent most of the weekend compiling a tremendously useful Google Document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HFePGoc8m2zLIQDQEksKJqTMeqPJvpLGCzJLuQxCfSU/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMHrw5IH#

This contains a large collection of possible sources of information and Twitter feeds to follow for updates.

Becky Pook from Peacehaven School was quick off the mark with a creative and well-referenced resource which explored not only the physical background to the event but also the emotional response. It includes some interesting ideas for model making and creative use of images. Many thanks to Beccy for sharing.

http://www.slideshare.net/serrula/japanese-tsunami-11311

(can embed if required)

Another Slideshare, which contains a range of images is: http://www.slideshare.net/effat57/the-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami

Ollie Bray wrote a blog post which concentrated on the effort of Google and other technology firms to update their imagery as quickly as possible to enable assessment of the damage and some before/after comparisons.

http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2011/03/post-earthquake-images-of-japan-google-earth.html

There was also a useful link to Google’s Crisis Response Dashboard: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html - this provides a range of links including a person finder and some dramatic YouTube clips.

Mark Howell blogged his thoughts – another example of the importance of teacher blogs:

http://markhowell101.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/floating-teaching-and-the-japanese-tsunami/

Some interesting thoughts on the issues of teaching a fast evolving news story.

Heathfield School, where blogging is embedded in the curriculum was also commendably quick off the mark with some Year 6 tasks – thanks to @DeputyMitchell on Twitter.

http://y62011.heathfieldcps.net/2011/03/11/earthquake-strikes-at-japan/

Jon Snow of Channel 4 news is writing his SnowBlog from Sendai in Japan: http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/

GeoEye: an image provider, has some useful Before and After images, which have been shared by the New York Times. The webpage has a useful slider to enable comparisons:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp

The US Pacific Fleet has started an aid operation called Operation Tomodachi, and there is a useful Flickr set here from the people involved:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/sets/72157626119790243/

The UK charity Shelterbox is already active in the area, as are many other charities and international search and rescue teams. Follow the Shelterbox teams on: http://www.shelterbox.org/

James Reynolds (http://twitter.com/typhoonfury) travels the world filming in disaster zones and he has made his way to Japan as well as posting regular updates via Twitter. A useful ‘contact’ to follow over the coming days.

There was also the amazing story of Hiromitsu Shinkawa who was rescued from the roof of his house while floating many miles out to sea.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365831/Rare-glimmer-hope-tsunami-ravaged-Japan-man-rescued-clinging-roof-obliterated-house-middle-sea.html

The story of the town of Minami Sanriku is a sober, large scale example of the power of nature…

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/minami-sanriku-the-town-that-disappeared-in-the-japan-earthquake/story-e6freuy9-1226020730156

Finally, for those who would like to involve students in fund-raising, or donate to the disaster appeal.

Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org.uk/japantsunami

101 uses...

2011-03-11T00:44:00.000-08:00

Making a Geography pie...

2011-03-07T04:23:00.001-08:00

It's British Pie Week. We have a "Pie Society" at the school where I taught, and visit locations around the SE (and further afield) in search of good pies...

If Geography was a pie what would its filling be made of ??

For more on the analogy of cooking and geography (curriculum making), you can revisit my article, that was contained in Tim Handley's PGCE guide.

So, to make my Geography pie I'm going to start by chopping one red onion finely...

Chop One Red Onion Finely

What are the other ingredients that I should add ??

Twitter for news...

2011-03-06T05:43:00.001-08:00

I talked about the use of Twitter as a way of communicating, collecting information, crowdsourcing and other things at the NQT event...

There were 3 or 4 "urban-related" tweets in my overnight feed that I caught up with earlier 'today' while having my breakfast...
Part of my daily routine now is to look at what has happened while I slept, and e-mail any interesting tweets to my e-mail account, so that I have a record of the links, and can follow them up when I have a moment...

This weekend, there has been an urban theme to many of the updates. Several of them were from the excellent @urbanphoto_blog stream... You need to follow them if you don't already.

One led me to the Twisted Sifter blog, from which I got this remarkable image, which apparently shows the suburbs of Mexico City marching into the distance, irrespective of topography.

The images were from Pablo Lopez Luz

I haven't explored the site further, but it seems to have a range of interesting images and other content.
The second site, which was equally arresting is a description of the development of a new (or perhaps not so new it seems) 'city' stretching out into the Caspian Sea from Baku, and called Oily Rocks.

The Liquid Infrastructure blog has the story and more amazing pictures of this complex structure.

Next was the news of a fire in the Garib Nagar slum in Mumbai. One of the houses affected was the home of an actress who featured in the film "Slumdog Millionaire". Of course there were thousands of other people affected too...
This was followed up by another newspaper article on the slums of Mumbai, and plans to bulldoze Dharavi. One to extend into the idea of local politics and ownership of land...

This was followed by a tip-off from Bob Digby to an article on the increased threat that coastal settlements in the UK are likely to face
A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation relates to the idea of Social Justice, and looks at the impact on disadvantaged UK coastal communities.
Click HERE to download the report as a 1.4 Mb PDF file

The possible impacts on East Anglia (as featured in the report) are summarised below...

• Weakening and collapse of cliffs due to desiccation as a result of higher summer temperatures and lower precipitation; also cliff destabilisation as a result of decreasing vegetation cover.
• Weakening and collapse of cliffs due to increased precipitation in winter, which causes more water to penetrate into desiccated cracks.
• Higher rates of coastal erosion from higher sea levels, more frequent storm surges and weakened cliffs.
• High erosion will cause enhanced rates of longshore drift which may pose threats to the major ports of Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe and Harwich.

And finally, was an article by Rick Poynor on the book "Edgelands", which I am reading via Kindle app at the moment, along with some images of these peripheral areas.

So basically, Twitter - thanks to the Flipbook app - has replaced the need for me to buy a Sunday newspaper...

Mapping tool - Sketch-a-map from ESRI

2011-03-05T01:20:00.003-08:00

A nice mapping tool produced by / for the ESRI Education community , which offers a range of base maps, and tools to draw on top of the base map to create a personal map. I liked the text tool, which allows labels to be placed by clicking on the map.

The finished map can then be saved or printed.
Another option for map creation.

Try it out

GA Entry Level Membership

2011-03-04T03:04:00.001-08:00

You now have an extra opportunity to support the work of the Geographical Association through our new Entry Level Membership

The GA's new Entry Level Membership has been designed to offer a taster of the benefits provided by full GA membership. It's also an ideal top-up for geography teachers in schools with an existing GA Group Membership.

For just £15 a year Entry Level Membership will give you:

Print and online copies of GA Magazine three times a year - browse a free sample issue on the GA website.
Members-only teaching resources.
Discount vouchers from a great range of third-party suppliers including Thermos, Paramo and National Geographic.
A personal homepage on the GA website.
A fantastic photo gallery.
Evidence of your commitment to your profession.
Membership of your professional community.

Join online, download a membership form or call 0114 296 0088.

Looking for more membership benefits to support your professional development?

Then have a look at the GA's range of other membership options, starting from £29.50 a year, which provide all of the above plus:

One or more of the GA's journals in print and online three time a year. View free sample journals on the GA's website.
Discounts in the GA Shop.
Discounts on GA CPD events and Annual Conference.

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Exemplification of standards

2011-03-02T02:58:00.000-08:00

So far, feedback from delegates for the NQT conference tomorrow have suggested that assessment is one area that I need to spend some time focussing on - so I will.
This will be in the context of curriculum planning, as assessment is for learning, and also checking on progression...
The original APP work has turned into exemplification of standards....

To see examples of student work at each level from 3 to 8, visit the website and click the appropriate link...
You will see a portfolio of work which can be used to compare with work produced by students at your school. You might also get some ideas for developing some assessments of your own...

Tony Cassidy Slideshare

2011-03-02T02:31:00.000-08:00

A well as my own Slideshare account HERE, you would do well to visit the account of Tony Cassidy
One presentation that we will refer to is Tony's iPhone template...

Iphone Template

View more presentations from TonyCassidy

NQT: Things to do - 1: Flickr

2011-03-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

This is the first in what will turn into a series of posts on things that NQT Geographers could usefully be doing to expand their range of available resources and strategies.
The first one is to start using Flickr (or some other online photo storage utility such as PICASA WEB ALBUMS.

A free Flickr account can store 200 photos (there are some upload limits) - you can, of course, create more than one free account as long as you have more than one e-mail address...
A PRO account costs about £15 a year, and is well worth it for the fact that you can then upload unlimited photos to storage. My account now has over 5000 images which have been added over a number of years.

There is a useful Flickr app for iPhone and iPad which can be used to upload/view images.
Images can also be attached to e-mails which are sent to a free Googlemail account, but each set of photos would need to be attached to an appropriately named e-mail to allow for searching. This is another free option though.

One advantage of taking photos and storing them is that they might be useful a long time later.
This post features two photos that I took about 4 years ago...

Geographies of food...

New Mission Explore books

2011-02-27T09:18:00.001-08:00

In just over a month's time, there are two new Mission:Explore books launched on the world by The Geography Collective and Can of Worms Press.
Here are the front covers for those who are interested. They are already available to pre-order on Amazon so make sure you buy at least one copy....

There will be launch events in London on the 1st and 2nd of April, but if you are around in London on the evening of the 31st of March, you can join us at the Old Explorer, just a short walk from Oxford Circus.

Sign up to join us....

Plenty more to come in a month's time...

Edgelands

2011-02-26T06:58:00.001-08:00

Holiday reading...

Took the plunge into KINDLE apps....
An interesting exploration of the urban-rural fringe...
References Marion Shoard's classic article... (click to download PDF)

For a taste of the book, see this INDEPENDENT article...

How will this change the way that we use text with students ?

NQT Geography Conferences - March 2011

2011-02-23T05:01:00.000-08:00

The GA is putting on 3 conferences for NQT Geographers in London, Coventry and Sheffield.
I look forward to working with various delegates at these events to develop a range of options for career planning...

Image by Alan Parkinson

Rough Itinerary for the day...

9.00: Coffee & registration
9.30 : Welcome and introduction(s)
Tales from the classroom & exploring connections

10.00: Practical session(s) - Curriculum making & the Action Plan for Geography
To update knowledge of latest resources and thinking in school geography
11.00: Coffee and cakes

11.15: What can the GA do for you ?
Raising awareness of GA project materials for use in teaching and professional development
Curriculum-making activity

12.30: Lunch & optional fieldwork activity - “Mission Explore”

1.30: The next few years: where will geography take you ?
To produce a personal 'action plan' including important steps to take and professional development targets for the next year and beyond

2.45-3.00: Discussion on ongoing contact & networks

3.00: Plenary / feedback

3.30: Departure

All delegates will be contacted to provide some ideas for preparation in advance...
Outcomes from the day will be shared on this blog, which will become NQT oriented for the rest of the year, to develop ideas for new colleagues during these "interesting times"...

Olympics 2012

2011-02-22T12:19:00.001-08:00

Thanks to John Widdowson for alerting me to the existence of this website from the LEGACY COMPANY, which acts as a tremendous additional resource for those teaching (or planning to teach) about the Olympics 2012. It includes an excellent interactive map with a number of 'layers' which shows the true scale of the Olympic park, and the various developments that are planned.

The GA will be producing a whole range of resources for the Olympics nearer the time, and we have already had a range of Olympics activities including a teacher conference, and of course Bob Digby's ongoing tours of the Olympic Park (there is a chance to take part in one of these on day one of the conference)

There is a large section on the Sustainability of the Olympic site in John Widdowson's GCSE toolkit book, which is now available from the GA shop.

There is also a Top Spec Geography title which is forthcoming, and a KS3 toolkit publication too.
With the opening of the velodrome today, this is a good time to take another look at what is planned for the park, plus there is the ongoing talks about the football future for the Olympics stadium itself.

There is a useful brochure on Scribd which is embedded below...

Future of the Park launch brochure

Red Nose Day ? - there's an app for that...

2011-02-16T05:57:00.001-08:00

I hope you're planning to teach about the issues surrounding Red Nose Day on March the 18th this year.

You might be interested to hear that there's a new Red Nose Day iPhone app....

Masters in Space Residential Weekend

2011-02-14T11:29:00.001-08:00

You have a chance to book a place on a weekend with a difference... thanks to the Geography Collective.

Are you playful and creative, with a conceptual interest in space?

Develop new perspectives on the philosophy, production, exploration and representation of space by attending our Master In Space course and gaining a Master In Space qualification.

The Master in Space course is carefully (un)planned around a series of semi-structured units. All units are ‘unknown’ before the course begins, but are likely to include free, thinking, restricted, open, public, child-like, bound, exciting, eventful and other forms of space. While no specific skills are needed you can expect to immerse yourself ‘in space’ by working with paint, ink, typewriters, string, projection, sound and many other tools, mediums and approaches. You must successfully complete three units to become aMaster in Space.

Take this course to:

· immerse yourself in space and spatial thinking

· be awarded a unique qualification

· earn the right to wear (MiS) after your name

· meet like-minded people from different fields and backgrounds

· be playful, creative and explorative.

The course takes place over a Master in Residence all-inclusive residential weekend, from 6pm on Friday 18 November to midday on Sunday 20 November 2011.

The course costs £150 and includes:

· 2 nights in shared accommodation

· Fabulous meals

· Beer, wine and soft drinks

· All equipment and resources

· Official certificate of award

· Master in Residence Membership for one year.

Where is this course taking place?

Join us, at YHA Medway, a traditional Kentish Oast House in a country park setting, close to historic Rochester, Chatham Dockyard and the Kent Downs. Chatham railway station is two miles away. Trains from London take 40 minutes from St Pancras and one hour from Victoria.

www.geographycollective.co.uk

...

Terms & Conditions

The course fee is non-refundable.

You must be aged 18 or more to take part.

We reserve the right to change or cancel this course. If the course is cancelled we will provide a full refund.

All participants will be asked to sign a damage waiver on arrival

Tickets are available from EVENTBRITE.

I am #OneOfOneThousandGeographers - are you ?

2011-02-14T03:34:00.001-08:00

If you're a geographer, and are reading this, and also use Twitter, you need to send a tweet with the hashtag here: #OneOfOneThousandGeographers.
This will then be picked up by Dan from the Geography Collective, and we'll add you to the list... We're well over 100 now, and next stop, 1000 !

OFSTED Subject report

2011-02-03T13:49:00.001-08:00

The new OFSTED Subject report for Geography will be released tomorrow morning.

Professor David Lambert has already had a letter / report published in the Daily Telegraph today, and it is well worth a read. As always, a well informed and passionate defence of geography....

David references the late Rex Walford and explains the importance of geography, which is...

"...the subject that contributes more than any other to young people's knowledge of the world, their understanding of the relationships between people and places, and their ability and propensity to think critically and creatively about the ways in which we affect the planet we live on.

Given the vast ambition of the topic, it is easy to see how it can be badly taught. But it would be a betrayal of young people to give up on what geography can contribute to their education, just because it is hard to teach well."

Don't forget to add your comments to the GA website tomorrow morning when you've had the chance to find out more about the report and its contents...

100 up...

2011-01-16T08:47:00.001-08:00

The 100th post on the blog will mention the best way to support you if you are a geography teachers: membership of the Geographical Association...

There have been further additional changes to the GA website.... and not just the addition of a new FLOODING section responding to the floods in Brisbane, Rio de Janeiro, Sri Lanka and many other areas (and torrential rain falling in Scotland and the NW this weekend...)

This is what one of the new changes looks like. If you mouse over any of the headings on the top navigation bar, you will now see a large drop-down box appear, which will provide information about what that will connect you with, and links to all the main sections. This means that almost all the sections of the website are now just a mouse gesture and click away...

Don't forget that you can now comment on most of the pages on the website as well. If you scroll to the bottom of any page, you will see the form that you need to fill in. If you do not log in, these comments will be sent to the web admin for approval, and you will be labelled as a Guest. If you log in, you can change your profile and an image will then appear next to your comments....
The PROFILE option is part of the new members page which appears when you log in to the website. Here's mine, complete with profile image...

You can also comment on purchases that you have made from the GA shop.

'What if...there were no borders ?'

2011-01-16T05:33:00.001-08:00

That is the title of an event being organised by Act Global.

It's taking place on January 25th at the Royal Commonwealth Society, London from 6-8.30pm.

Are national borders meaningful? In an increasingly globalised world, we rely on goods and information moving 'freely' across borders. However, due to global inequalities, freedom of movement is a luxury for most people. In the world that we live in today, is it right that a banana moves more freely than a person? Is it fair to restrict movement of people? And to what extent is it actually possible?

Act Global Talks offer a space for teachers and NGOs to think, talk and come up with solutions to global issues of migration. The talks are being filmed and will be available after the event, along with a series of lessons and accompanying resources, which examine the causes and effects of migration, alongside critical connections and solutions.

Speakers include Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, Director, the Royal Commonwealth Society; Ian Gordon, Professor of Human Geography, LSE; James Hampshire, Lecturer of Politics, Sussex Centre for Migration Research and Nathalie Rothschild, Commissioning Editor, Spiked. There will also be the opportunity to hear from organisations who actively engage young people in global issues, including iceandfire theatre company and education charity WORLDwrite.

The panel discussion will be chaired by Sarah Spencer CBE, Deputy Director, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford (COMPAS).

Act Global connects teachers and students in taking action on global poverty-related issues. The project is run jointly by the Citizenship Foundation and Relief International UK. The Citizenship Foundation is an independent education and participation charity that aims to encourage and enable citizens to engage in democratic society. Relief International is a humanitarian non-profit agency that provides emergency relief, rehabilitation, development assistance, and programme services to vulnerable communities worldwide.

Get your FREE TICKET here.

Commercial break

2011-01-12T04:28:00.001-08:00

You deserve to get one of these for yourself, or your wife or husband or partner, or a friend, or as a prize....just buy one...

Now available from the GA's online merchandise store...

iPhone 3G / 3GS case, which has been given a GA makeover...
Show your support for Geography and the GA wherever you go, and protect your iPhone at the same time..

Can't wait for mine to arrive :)

Dr. Rex Walford - geographer...

2011-01-06T01:38:00.001-08:00

Earlier this week, one of the first e-mails to be received by GA staff after the Christmas break was the sad news that Dr Rex Walford, OBE & President of the GA in 1983-4 was missing after a boat accident in the Thames over the Christmas period.

Rex was one of the most influential post-war geographers and few teachers will have been unaware of his work, or gone through their career without encountering his huge contribution to geography education.

Image copyright Bryan Ledgard - Rex and Fred Martin at the official opening of Solly Street

My first introduction was in the form of the idea of Games in Geography, guided by my PGCE tutor, the late Vincent Tidswell. As a gamer myself, I enjoyed developing some of my own variations on Rex's ideas, and remember the contributions that Rex made to Teaching Geography.
I met Rex numerous times as he visited Cambridge University PGCE colleagues who had their placement in my school through the 1990s.
More recently, we met again at Madingley Hall for the 2010 Geography Teacher Educators' Conference, where I was privileged to hear him talk through his involvement in the famous lecture series in the 1960s, and showed documents from his remarkable archive. He was also present at the recent official opening of Solly Street, and can be seen on the front cover of the most recent issue of GA Magazine. He was also one of the many influential faces from Geography's past (and future) who attended a recent seminar at the Institute of Education.
Yesterday, I went down into the GA warehouse, and read through the issues of Teaching Geography from the time of Rex's GA presidency. One of the articles was by Rex himself on the issue of Marking in geography, and contained useful advice, written back in 1984, which still holds true today...

Article by Rex from Teaching Geography, 1984

A brief message by Professor David Lambert has been added to the GA website - there will be a fuller remembrance in future GA journals and events.

You can comment on the message on the GA website if you want to add your own messages to remember Rex. There are already plenty of messages on the website.

Day 1 of 365

2011-01-01T11:35:00.001-08:00

I've followed quite a few of these projects. The idea is that you post something each day for a whole year.
I've never done one before, mostly because I forget to start one on the 1st of January, and then decide to wait until the next time round.

This year I remembered...

Different people post different things: images, videos, song lyrics, poems, quotations... you can basically add what you want.
I'm going to use POSTEROUS for my 365 as I can post to it from my iPhone using the POSTEROUS app, but also have the option to e-mail posts to the blog as well. Never used it for more than the odd blog post either...

Visit the 2011x365 BLOG HERE, and feel free to subscribe...

This could be a good discipline for teachers to take a moment each day to reflect and share something with colleagues...

FrozenUK

2010-12-22T08:18:00.001-08:00

Started a new Twitter stream yesterday to collate stories of the Big Freeze...

Follow @FrozenUK for the cold weather geographical digest... or add #FrozenUK to your tweets and I'll pick it up and add it when I get the chance...

There is more snow falling as I type this...

Points of View

2010-12-16T08:39:00.001-08:00

A new feature was added to the GA website yesterday, following discussions by the Website Editorial Board earlier in the year, and some great work by the web team.

You can now JOIN THE CONVERSATION..
As a GA member, when you log in you will be able to add a comment to any page of the website and, if you have purchased an item from the GA shop, you can also add a STAR RATING and a comment. This will let us develop more of a community feel to the website (non GA members will have to wait for their comment to be moderated) and if you are logged in you can add an image to your profile.
I have added a comment to the page which contains my WINTER TEACHING IDEAS, so feel free to take a look at that and add your own thoughts...

The snow is falling again outside the window as I press PUBLISH POST...

New IB Geography course from the GA...

2010-12-05T04:25:00.001-08:00

The International Baccalaureate is being considered by a growing number of teachers as an alternative to more traditional courses.

IB Geography - Reflecting on the 'new' syllabus
This CPD course will help Post-16 teachers, both new and experienced, reflect upon the demands of the IB geography diploma programme.

The 'new' 2009–2017 syllabus will have completed its first cycle in the summer of 2011 and this one-day course will provide an excellent opportunity for teachers to reflect upon the first cycle and make plans for the next.

London - Friday 24 June 2011

Further details and online booking are available on the GA website

The course tutor is Richard Allaway, creator of the rather wonderful GEOGRAPHY ALL THE WAY website.

Google Earth 6

2010-12-05T04:18:00.001-08:00

A new version of Google Earth was released recently: GOOGLE EARTH 6...
It includes millions of 3D trees, and other improvements, including better integration with Google Street View

Go to the AMAZON for example, and you can wander the jungle and explore some of the tree species in the rainforest... I'm sure we can come up with some ideas for using this in the geography classroom :)

And don't forget my Innovative Geography Teaching funded project from back in 2005...

David Lambert at the SSAT Conference #nc10

2010-12-02T01:44:00.001-08:00

David Lambert gave a keynote lecture to the 2010 SSAT annual conference on Friday 26 November.

He addressed round 1500 school leaders on the question: are subjects in crisis?

Obviously he focussed on geography and made some positive remarks about the recent White Paper The Importance of Teaching and its intention to recentre the school curriculum on 'knowledge'.

You can see a video of David's lecture on the SSAT website (take a look at Dylan Wiliam's session while you're there....)

The slides that David used (you might want to listen to the presentation while watching the slides, or put them side by side on the screen...) are available via SLIDESHARE... and have been embedded below...
November 2010 SSAT Presentation

View more presentations from GeoBlogs.

If you're snowbound today & your school is closed take a look...
Think of it as a little impromptu CPD