Christmas Blogging Break

I'm about to take my annual break from blogging for a few days...

Thanks for reading the blog this year.

Image: Ronald Lampitt, who also illustrated 'The Map that came to Life' and many Ladybird books...

GI Learner Conference chapter

Earlier this year, as blogged here at the time, I visited Salzburg again, this time to visit the GI Forum, which took place at the University of Salzburg, as part of my work with the schools and universities who are taking part in the GI Learner project, funded by ERASMUS.

This involves my school: King's Ely, and will involve students a little more as we move into 2017, and we finish creating a range of student resources which are shared across the schools.

I presented a workshop at the conference, as part of our double workshop.

We also had a paper presented, with me as a joint author, and this has now been published as part of the conference outputs....

You can download it by following the link...

GA Teachmeet details for 2017

David Rogers has revealed the details and signing-up form for the Teachmeet which will be held to coincide the GA Conference in 2017.

The timing is not ideal for some as it is after the Easter holidays, but this remains the essential CPD for teachers of Geography, and is worth seeking special permission to visit.
Hope to see lots of you there.
I'll put myself down as a deputy speaker in case there are gaps, or people who have to withdraw at the last minute. Will be good to see lots of new speakers and attendees.
Also get your ticket from the Eventbrite page if you are wanting to attend.

Emojiography

A few weeks ago, partly coinciding with Practical Pedagogies (see recent posts), I came across a really nice idea using emojis.
For a while, we've had an emoji sheet by the classroom door where students can choose a quick feedback on what they felt about the lesson that had just finished.
This post used the emojis as a resource and a stimulus for discussion during a lesson, and reflection on themes, by providing a symbol with several meanings - a simple semiotic stimulus...

It was the work of Jonathan Taylor, who tweets at @HistGeoBritSec. He'd shared his ideas for megacities.

Loved the session on starters & plenaries by @HistGeoBritSec #pracped16 - Great new ideas. pic.twitter.com/2UOdMTUpLV

— GeographyPods (@MattPodbury) November 3, 2016

There are plenty of posts on the twitter feed, and quite a few teachers seem to have been using the idea following Jonathan's session at Practical Pedagogies.

I created a bespoke set of emojis to related to the work we are doing on the Nepal Earthquake. This goes alongside the resource that I wrote for the British Red Cross, which has been well received by lots of people.

I decided to try it with this context, and came across this website where you are presented with a list of emojis and selecting a particular symbols adds it to a tweet box, which can then be sent, and therefore screenshotted...

There's also the Emoji Copy website or Get Emoji, which allows you to build up a list by copying and pasting the icons into a box once again...

A few colleagues then tried the idea having seen it on my twitter feed, and had the idea of perhaps building up a 'library' of emoji boards for use in Geography.
And I came up with the name of 'emojiography' for this sort of activity....

Have you tried this? Share an emoji board...

Image: Alan Parkinson - example of student work