Place attachment

Here's a question that seems to have an obvious answer:

Does where you live make a difference to your life ?

I used to discuss this with students...

• Why do you live where you do ?
• Who decided where you live ?
• When it's your turn to decide where you live, where will you live ?

Of course, the place where people live has a huge impact on not only their current life, but also their future life choices. Why is that ?

When people live in a particular place, they obviously develop an attachment to that place.

What might be the nature of that attachment ?

More to come...

Check this idea out (via Waitrose)

Just been writing some material, which is partly related to the idea of FOOD MILES. Came across a resource on the Cambridge Plant SCIENCE website which is quite nice - it's geography of course... but that's by the by...

Then got to thinking about WAITROSE.

In each / (most ?) store, they have a Waitrose Community Matters scheme.

At the check out you will be handed a GREEN TOKEN along with your receipt.

Near the exit you will find three transparent plastic boxes with details of three schemes in the local area. Each month £1000 is shared out between the three causes, and the amount each receive is proportional to the number of tokens that have been placed into each box.

In many stores, there is an obvious "favourite" cause, which has loads more tokens than the rest.

Why not hand students a token at the start of a lesson where there is going to be a variable outcome at the end. At the point where the decision is made, they place their token in the relevant box. The boxes could perhaps be taken into each class in the year group which is being taught that same lesson, so that the year group's views could be collated...

Results could then be presented in a display area which was set up to show the results of these year group polling activities.

Travel Writing Competition

If you're going to be writing about places, why not enter your explorations of a special place into a competition which is being organised by the British Guild of Travel Writers.

The theme is: "A very special place"

Mike Parker on Radio 4

Mike Parker recently published a book called "Map Addict". He was also kind enough to contribute an article to the recent GA Magazine.

Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 featured Mike. He can be heard here, talking to Fi Glover (link may expire) Saturday Live also has a resident poet, who responds to events on the show:

Extract from poem read out on the programme

Please hear us sweet OS
In this, our humblest confession
Oh font of this great nation's topographical obsession
Five thousand years of history waiting to unfurl
You, simply are, the greatest mapping system in the world

HHL Day 2

Yvonne Roberts was one of the speakers at the 2nd day of Handheld Learning 09. I wasn't in the building, but was following remotely via Twitter, and the conference hashtag #hhl09

She quoted that 65% of students say they still copy off the board. I also found this quote in an earlier article that she wrote.

Education in the state system in England is a 19th century folly. It has been moulded by an arcane set of rules and concepts that have no evidence base and certainly very little proof of success. It was based on schools producing canon fodder for the world wars and manual labour, in the main, for the mines and factories. Sitting in a classroom for an hour writing down what the teacher says, mute and unquestioning, does not work with the grain of most boys' temperament – and it's not all that appealing to girls either. It's also no preparation for the modern, fast paced, constantly changing world.

What's required instead, is problem solving and collaborative learning; pupils asking questions, encouraged to bring their life outside the class into school – skills with computers and the internet for instance, work to keep their curiosity alive. More genuine participation; more mixed ability; a better focus on the individual child so no one drops behind, their lack of progress camouflaged by the ridiculous notion that in education, "one size fits all". It's happening in a growing number of schools but this change goes uncelebrated because of the dictatorship of the DCSF, fearful of educational "mavericks".

Yvonne Roberts

On the same day, Ollie Bray wrote a good post on his blog about some research into the way that young people interact with technology.

Here's a summary:

• They personally own 8 devices (including MP3 player, PC, TV, DVD player, mobile phone, stereo, games console, and digital camera)
• They frequently conduct over 5 activities whilst watching TV
• 25% of them agree that “I’d rather stay at home than go on a holiday with no internet or phone access”
• A quarter of young people interviewed text or IM (instant message) friends they are physically with at the time
• They have on average 123 friends on their social network spaces
• And the first thing the majority of them do when they get home is turn on their PC

What are the implications of this for teachers of geography, who share a learning space with double digit numbers of these young people many times a week....

Teaching Geography

The Autumn issue of Teaching Geography is now available to download by subscribers from the Geographical Association website.

The paper copies should also be arriving in the next few days if you haven't already received it. On looking through you may notice in particular, a nice article describing the creation of a miniature landscape inside a burger box.

This is the last issue in the old format before a redesign and relaunch for the Spring 2010 issue.

Photo Sketch

Thanks to Neil Winton for leading me to this fascinating idea.

Draw a sketch and it creates an image...

PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo.

Made in Oxford

Via the FLICKR blog came a link to MADE IN OXFORD.
A collection of photos of a particular city.

Why not start one of your town or city ?

Building windmills

Just browsing a new set of resources posted by Ollie Bray.
He describes a CPD event in Scotland called BUILDING WINDMILLS.
The name comes from a Chinese proverb which is quite neat:

"When the winds of change come, some build walls, others build windmills"...

Check the presentation out, and let me know what occurs to you...

The Changing Learning Landscape: Building Windmills Ayrshire 2009

View more presentations from Learning and Teaching Scotland.

There was also an excellent presentation from Andrew Brown, which included some useful examples of CROWDSOURCING content. Follow the links from Ollie's blog post to find the further content...

Independent Schools Regional Conference - 22nd October

This event takes place later this month...
SW Regional ISWG Conference
Thursday 22 October 2009, starts 10:00am
Queen's School, Taunton.
Lectures and workshops aimed at those teaching KS3 to A Level. Contributors include Simon Ross, Dave Holmes and Bob Digby.
Six free places are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

To try and claim one of those places you need to e-mail Paul Baker.

Contact via the GA Ning

Other details on the event are as follows:

“Taking a wider view – enhancing your school geography”

This Conference is open to all those teaching 11 to 18 year olds and will focus on updating geography, fieldwork (including overseas), writing in geography and map skills. The course will be run by David Holmes and Simon Ross, who are teachers and authors as well as experienced INSET providers. David also has 10 years experience as a senior examiner at both GCSE and ‘A’ Level. Delegates will receive a CD of resources and good lunch, plus refreshments throughout the day.

There will be a number of workshops and practical sessions throughout the day; depending on numbers, delegates may be able to choose several from the following:

· What’s happening in school geography at a national level – how does this affect me and my department?

· Improving writing in geography – making it count for assessment.

· Using the school grounds as a valuable (and often under used) fieldwork asset.

· Enhancing the value of overseas fieldwork – practical ideas and managing the entire process

· Lesson ideas for updating practical map skills

· Using GIS without knowing doing GIS – strategies to use in the new controlled assessment.

It could be you...

If you haven't already picked up on this from previous blog posts, Rick Cope over at GeoPacks has been posting a monthly free resource to the website HERE.
These are all high quality resources, and well worth downloading. Registration with name and an e-mail is required.

The latest freebie is the FIERY FINGER OF FATE which helps you pick a particular student: an alternative to Russel Tarr's excellent Class Tools SLOT MACHINE perhaps ?

Thanks to Rick for his generosity...

Handheld Learning Conference

Down to London today for the Handheld Learning Conference 09, held at the Brewery, the Barbican. It was a free open day, and a chance to meet with a few people, and work on the train on the journey there and back.

Wild Knowledge, who the Geographical Association have worked with on a number of projects were there exhibiting, and talked about their browser based interface which works well with a number of devices, including a nice touch screen mini tablet which they were demonstrating. With the introduction of 'GEARS', this also means that student work can be collected offline, and then uploaded on return to the school or college or learning base.

Wild Knowledge website is worth a visit to see how this technology might be used in your mobile learning projects.

It was also a good chance to meet up with a few old friends and meet some new ones, including a few Twitter contacts. There were others I unfortunately didn't get a chance to meet with as they were embroiled in presenting or participating in sessions. How did I know where they were ? Because the Twitter hashtag #hhl09 was being used by those at the event, and this allowed me to follow the

Ollie has posted a range of blog posts since the event, and during the event, which bring the area of new technology in the classroom. I'll mention them in a later post...

Found objects

A nice idea for a fieldwork activity is to use JOURNEY STICKS

Victoria Ellis blogged about her use of these, and also provided the picture above.

Kenny O' Donnell led me to this ARTICLE on the URBAN TICK blog

Takes the same idea of FOUND OBJECTS and might be an interesting context for a fieldwork activity...

The Journey Journal

The Journey Journal is the latest product of the GEOGRAPHY COLLECTIVE.
It is a passport sized journal, which can be used with students who are being taken out of school for an authorised absence.
Could also be used with foreign visits: perhaps language trips as well as the obvious geography fieldtrip connection.
Also useful with adults... why should children have all the fun ?

Everyday Geographies: Primary blog

An e-mail I just received reminded me of my colleague Wendy North's EVERYDAY GEOGRAPHIES blog.

This hosts a range of ideas and resources that primary colleagues and secondary colleagues alike would find useful...

Wendy has just been added to the list of Primary Geography Champions, and would be a valuable contact for those teaching in the Yorkshire and Humberside area in particular.

TES Education Show

The TES Education Show today. Early start for the train down to Olympia.

Met up with Dan Ellison to talk about the new Geography Collective product: the JOURNEY JOURNAL, and also a first meeting with Joe Dale. Joe was presenting in the slot after me.

Here's the handout that I used...

Look at it this Way

View more documents from GeoBlogs.

and a slightly edited version of the presentation I used...

Look at it This Way: ICT in the Geography Classroom

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Thanks to all the teachers who contributed: you were all credited and thanked...
Many thanks to those people who came along and participated, and to Indra for the picture of me demonstrating Richard Allaway's "sink or swim" activity...

Urban Earth West Yorkshire

A reminder of the latest opportunity to get involved in an Urban Earth adventure.

This will take place on October 10th in West Yorkshire.

The West Yorkshire conurbation includes Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield. Covering an area of some 592km2 this is going to be a 27km, 9 hour walk starting in the morning and finishing as the sun disappears over the horizon.

The precise route including start, finish and middle points will be decided closer to the time. It will start and finish close the public transport so that you can join in without a car and on a small budget.

Let's make this a big one. If you know anyone in West Yorkshire, invite them along to capture this massive urban area...

Visit the NING to sign up for the event, and see other Urban Earth goodies...

Such as this video made in Sao Paulo:

Find more videos like this on URBAN EARTH

Rio 2016

Announced at 6pm last night was the destination of the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics.

Rio de Janeiro

Latest Worldmapper Images

The latest Wordmapper maps have been launched, and have been featured in various newspapers and the BBC NEWS page.

The latest batch of maps explores population density, and shows the impact of the major cities in a number of countries. Check out the WORLDMAPPER maps and get "a different view" on the world.

Waving, not drowning...

While I type this, I am still waiting for my Google Wave invite to be processed...

Not sure that I'll end up using it, but am going to give it a go of course..

Birds on a Wire

An article from the DAILY MAIL led me to one of the most creative things I've seen in a while.

It describes a musician called Jarbas Agnelli, who saw birds perching on wires, and thought of them as musical notation. The VIMEO video below shows the result of his response...

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

The final piece is really melodic and has a nice feel to it, and the accompanying images have been pitched just right...

Mark Keall evening for Norfolk geographers

If you're in the Norwich area on the 12th of October, the Norfolk GA branch is holding the annual Mary Keall evening.

Mary Keall taught Geography from 1928 to 1964 at the Blyth School.

Mary travelled widely and her teaching was enriched by the experiences she gained. After her death in 1986 the Mary Keall Fund was set up with donations from her former colleagues, family & friends, to help those who wished to extend their geographical knowledge by travelling.

In recent years the fund was administered by the Norfolk GA and this year the final recipients were students from Sewell Park College, formerly the Blyth School.

This evening you can see and hear reports from those students on their fieldwork in Iceland and Ashley Hale, the current Head of Geography, will talk about some of his recent ‘geographical adventures’

Mon. 12^th October 2009

7.30 pm

Sewell Park College – left turn off Constitution Hill travelling out of Norwich on the B1150

Free to members. Guests £3

Further details + directions (if needed) from David Stannard

01603 453118

"How to be an explorer of the world"

Finally got hold of my copy of this today. Had first seen it in the hands of Dan Ellison. The book has "connections" with a range of other books, such as the MisGuides, and the Rough Guide to Experimental Travel.

The book, by Keri Smith, suggests a range of actions which involve the reader interacting with the world. It's one of several books in a similar vein that Keri has produced.

Looking forward to using some of the ideas.

Can be ordered from AMAZON (and other online retailers)

The geography of the radiator...

Today is apparently "Central Heating Day": the day that for many families, the heating goes back on.

How has Central Heating changed our lives ?

An interesting BBC Magazine article...

UP

My son can't wait to see the latest Pixar film: UP, which has been a long time coming.

The plot involves a balloon salesman who ties balloons to his house and sets off on a journey.

There is also a young companion called Russell who makes a lot of having a GPS device so that they will never be lost, although he then loses it...

Portuguese Journal article....

APOGEO is a journal for Portuguese geographers. The latest edition features an article I was asked to write earlier in the year.

It is called "Action Stations for UK Geography", and if you can read Portuguese, it is described here...

Thanks to Pedro Damiao for his request, and very nice production of the finished article.

obrigado Pedro

eu espero que seus leitores apreciam o artigo

(any translation errors entirely down to Babelfish... :) )

Are you old ?

Image by Flickr user Y.Ballester made available under Creative Commons

UK Older People's Day is today

When are you an 'older person' ?

The BBC news website has an article on a new tool from the Office of National Statistics.

This allows you to explore the age profile of counties of the UK from 1990's up until 2031.

Clicking on an area generates a second line in yellow which allows you to compare that region with the UK as a whole...

Where will the elderly population be concentrated as the century grows older ?