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Place in School Geography

Just been reading back through a paper that was passed to me at the GA Conference. It was written by Dr. Phil Wood, and looks at the concept of Place in the Pilot GCSE specification.

Update: an excellent resource in 'The Guardian' on Saturday the 13th of June, which looked at some authors who are particularly associated with places, and how their books can help evoke a place, and changes that take place there...

Which books / authors are your favourite invocations of particular places ?

This might be a nice idea to use with learners, in terms of the geography of some classic books.

How about the landscape of 'The Gruffalo', or the Lake District landscape described by Arthur Ransome ?

Add your thoughts below...

Map of the Day

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“They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

Chumby

Just over a week ago, I ordered a CHUMBY: a weird device which can act as a whole range of objects ranging from an alarm clock to a photo frame for Flickr images...

It is wireless, and can then receive streams of data of various kinds, or run what are called WIDGETS. It intrigued me, and I quite liked the idea of it sitting on the desk and providing another portal for Twitter updates, weather forecast, news headlines etc, Internet radio stations etc.

These widgets are growing in number (though not quite as fast as iPhone apps...) with over 1000 now available and all for FREE (unlike some of the iPhone apps)

Update: up in Scotland at the moment, but my Chumby is waiting for me at a parcel depot - need to pay some import duty... will be back to you next week...

1000 up !

Back in June 2007, I started a NING network to prepare for the planning of the new Edexcel 'A' level course which I was due to start teaching from September 2008, and which I felt was the most innovative of all the courses.

Today was a milestone in the development of the network as it passed the 1000 members mark, when Dave Lawton joined.

Thanks to all the members and all those who have contributed to a discussion or added a resource.

Home - Yann Arthus Bertrand

Now available specially for WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY.

Yann Arthus Bertrand's "HOME" movie

Free Secondary Geography CPD at Leeds University

The annual event for secondary geographers will take place later this month: on Saturday the 20th of June, at Leeds University.

http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/downloads/school/corporate/Teachers_Workshop_May_2009.pdf is a PDF file with all the details that you will need. Some excellent sessions.

Visit the website for more details on how to book - there are still spaces available.
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/corporate/ga

The event is free, and delegates will be given refreshments, a buffet lunch and materials to take away.

Sinking Lands (Cont.)

A few months ago, I blogged about Dan Box, who had won the RGS's Journey of a Lifetime award to fund a trip to the Carteret Islands.
His journey is now complete, and there are various postings on the website of 'The Ecologist' (the latest edition of which has a focus on Sustainable Cities)

The story can be read on Dan's BLOG.

Don't look back in Ongar...

Yesterday was a long day which took me to the mid-Essex Geography network for a living Geography event.
Thanks to Graeme Eyre, who is also a PRIMARY GEOGRAPHY CHAMPION for the invitation to the Anglo European School.
There was a good turnout for the afternoon and twilight sessions that we put on.
First up was an hour of LIVING GEOGRAPHY.

Essex Living Geography

View more OpenOffice presentations from GeoBlogs.

Graeme then ran a session using Google Earth as a GIS, and has kindly shared his handout below....

Google Earth as a GIS

View more Microsoft Word documents from gceyre.

Met a few new geography chums, including Paul Cornish who is involved with THE GEOGRAPHER website, and also old friend and former SPC colleague Stuart Hitch, who told me of a new licensing agreement for Geological Maps.

Check out the BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY website (good to see that they are also on Twitter, speaking of which, persuaded a few people to sign up to see what the fuss was about)

Check out the GEO INDEX

Then it was home up the M11 to catch the last 15 minutes of the latest Geography FLASH MEETING.

Meet the British

Excellent BBC4 programme which is made up of 'promotional films' made by the Government in the last century...
Catch them for the next few days on iPLAYER- great stuff !

Union Jack for a month...

Phil Tufnell painted a Union Jack on the One Show last night, and it's available to loan for a month.

Could be a focus for discussions on "Britishness"...

Global Dimension

A global dimension pack: "Exploring Together" has been sent to all headteachers, and contains leaflets on how to explore this curriculum dimension in each of the main subjects.

The weblink above takes you to a web page where you can download each of the leaflets separately if, for whatever reason, that pack has not made it to you....

Google Earth and beyond...

An article in yesterday's "Education Guardian" mentioned a few of the GA's current projects.

There was a plug for YOUNG PEOPLE's GEOGRAPHIES, particularly the work done in Nottingham.

One exciting trend is encouraging young people to help shape subjects with teachers. As a part of the Young People's Geographies project run by the Geographical Association, key stage 3 pupils from three Nottingham schools used handheld devices to capture their experience of the city's market square. Pupils recorded their own narrative while answering a range of more conventional geographical questions about the area. Elizabeth Barratt, director of humanities at the Nottingham Emmanuel school, says: "They were able to capture places and spaces in a more immediate and personalised manner."

There was also mention for the work that is being done in Rotherham as well, with hand-held devices by Tony Doddsworth and colleagues.

Also interesting to see Barrie Morgan from CENT in Rotherham talking about the podcasting work that he's been doing with a primary school in Rawmarsh.

More on this to come...

Mapumental

Mapumental

This is a new, currently BETA only, mapping service produced by MySociety in association with 4ip, and explains what the voting that was going on at SCENIC OR NOT was all about.

Could be of use to Geographers...

"Geography Training" launch day

Geography training has a new face: well, two "new faces" actually, or should that be "old faces"...

From 1st June 2009, a new geography CPD provider is available.

Launching today is a new CPD training opportunity for colleagues in the UK, and beyond...
GEOGRAPHY TRAINING joins together the Geographical Association's own Alan Parkinson, with International Baccalaureate specialist, and creator of Geography all the Way: Richard Allaway.
In addition to the existing face-to-face and online CPD opportunities available from the Geographical Association, we offer a tailored service, with training to match your needs, at a venue to suit you.

Areas of speciality:

• Creative approaches for the teaching of Geography
• The use of Information and Communication Technology in Geography teaching
• Recent changes to the Key Stage 3 and GCSE programmes
• International Baccalaureate Geography - including the 2009 syllabus change
• IGCSE Geography
• Training focused upon application such as Google Earth, GIS applications, web2 tools etc

If you are interested please get in touch to discuss our availability and the necessary fees.