'A' level Geography teaching - your thoughts needed please...

I'd appreciate your thoughts on these questions if you teach 'A' level Geography. Many thanks I'm well aware that you already inspire and engage your students... but we all need a little purchase and some new ideas from time to time... :)

GA Annual Conference 2012

Keen young geographers - image by Bryan Ledgard and Copyright Geographical Association (2011)

The booking details for the GA Conference 2012 have now been added to the GA website.

Early bird conference registration is fixed at 2009 prices.

University of Manchester - 12-14 April 2012

Conference programme

Highlights of the 2012 programme include:

• Keynote Address by Professor Gill Valentine (Head of School of Geography, University of Leeds) on 'Living with difference'
• Public Lecture on 'Writing about identity, migration and cultural difference' by novelist Marina Lewycka
• Tony Allan (Kings College London) on water security
• Richard Battarbee (University College London) on 'Putting climate change into a longer historical perspective'
• Special event for PGCEs and NQTs
• Hands-on GIS workshops

Full details of all lectures and workshops will be added in November.

I should be there doing a session on the digitalearth project with John Lyon and possibly a few other things...

What future for social housing ?

Thanks to @geogolland for this link to a nice audio slideshow on the BBC News website which looks at the changing architecture of social housing, including mention of Garden Cities, the changing nature of house design,  concrete flats such as High Point 1, Le Corbusier, Park Hill and its 'streets in the sky' (whole streets of people moved from the old to the new housing), problems with high rise for families and the development of some low rise designs such as Dartmouth Park Hill.

Have the lessons of the past been learned ?

At a time when the planning regulations are being discussed, and have been in the news today and heavily tweeted on the #nppf hashtag, and the National Trust have expressed concerns, this is a geographical issue which will have local repercussions that might be the basis of a Controlled Assessment or other task....
I feel very grateful to be a home-owner...

Rainy old morning...

Which wasn't part of the plan... and put paid to my plans to get some fresh air...
Instead I read Ben Hennig's latest blog post and admired his latest wonderful map creation.
Also following his tweets and images from SOC2011

RAIN MAP explores Global Annual precipitation, and would be very useful for those studying WATER ISSUES.

There's also an animation of the changes.

Map produced by Ben Hennig
Copyright: SASI
Used with permission and with thanks

Office for National Statistics

Interactive content from the ONS is now all in one place.

Thanks to @worldmapper for the tipoff....

Mobile Learning infoKit

This new toolkit was released this week at the ALTC event.

Thanks to Doug Belshaw for the tipoff....
This will provide some interesting references and other material on the access that learners have to this technology and the way that they use it for a textbook chapter that I'm writing (slowly) at the moment.

It can be downloaded as a PDF and there is also a helpful SLIDESHARE overview, which I have embedded below....
Mobile Learning infoKit

View more presentations from JISC infoNet

Nice work !!

I'm a geographer...

I hope you've realised that by now.

"I'm a Geographer" is also the name of a really nice supplement on the places that a geography degree can take you. Produced for the Geographical magazine, it can also be downloaded from HERE as a PDF

Introduction by Rita Gardner

Via @globaldimension on Twitter

A Shift-Happens ish presentation looking at the use of mobile phones in Africa



Would connect with the mobile phone activity in the 'Into Africa' GA KS3 toolkit.

Iain Stewart at the GA Shropshire Branch

Just spent a while sorting through a groaning tower of stuff which I had to bring home from GA HQ in Solly Street last week, and which needs organising.
Came across a disc which was sent to me following my attendance at a lecture by Professor Iain Stewart and a PhD colleague Kate Donovan back in September 2009. Here are 2 sample slides from the materials...

One exciting date ahead for 2012 is a planned conference in Geneva, Switzerland where I will be leading some workshop sessions and Professor Stewart is scheduled to provide the keynote lecture.

If you can't wait for that, and can't get to Geneva, you have a chance to see him speak later this month.

Rob Morris of the GA Shropshire branch, which meets at Shrewsbury School sent me these details...

Geology Professor and BBC TV and Radio presenter Iain Stewart is coming to Shrewsbury School in September to give a lecture to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Shropshire Branch of the Geographical Association. Professor Stewart is a professor of Geoscience Communication at Plymouth University (the only one in the world) and should be familiar to BBC 2 viewers and Radio 4 listeners for his various programmes.

Prof. Stewart has presented a number of documentary series on BBC 2 that include

Earth: The Power of the Planet, How Earth Made Us and has also presented numerous editions of Horizon. He is a very familiar face to geography students at Shrewsbury through his TV programmes that deal with how Geography and Geology have influenced humankind's existance on the planet.

His next series due to be screened in the Autumn or early in 2012 is entitled 'The Green Planet' and is a journey going back 400 million years in Earth's history to discover how plants have shaped the face of our planet, taking a barren alien rock and transforming it into the home we know today. This will be the subject of his talk.

The talk will take place in the Alington Hall at 7pm on Wednesday 28th September.

Tickets are free and can be obtained by emailing Rob Morris (rhm@shrewsbury.org.uk).

Please supply an address where the tickets can be sent.

There will be a retiring collection for a charity of Iain's choice (to be announced) and Shrewsbury House, a youth and community centre in Everton in Liverpool that is supported by Shrewsbury School.

Link to Iain Stewart Horizon documentary on the recent Japan earthquake 

MyUK - good for Citizenship

This looks like it will be good for UK Citizenship type lessons.... MyUK



 Launching some time this month apparently.

Premier League Footballer Visualisation

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 !!

Update

For those following my latest tale of woe, here's my car....
Insurance company have (unsurprisingly) written it off, and I am now well out of pocket, but glad to be alive...
Thanks to all for the kind thoughts and best wishes.

Interesting choice of Google Ad at the moment as well.... Whiplash injuries.... Remember to click those ads if you get bored... I get a few pence if you do maybe....

New Harper Collins iGCSE books

I spent a substantial part of the last five or six months working on these books, which are now available for pre-order on Amazon and will be published in January 2012. They are for the Cambridge iGCSE Geography and are published by Harper Collins.
I came up with the format for the books and the central enquiry led approach, where the i stands for lots of things as well as international...
I wrote the introduction to the books.
I wrote a CPD section for the teacher guide on the theme of enquiry and how to use the book.
I read (and partially re-wrote) every unit of the book, along with editor Barry Page, and provided ideas for every lesson on how to extend what was contained in the book...
The books are badged as being "in partnership with the Geographical Association" and the GA is described as "the home of best practice in Geography teaching." If you're teaching iGCSE Geography then these books will be what you need to get the best out of the course, and your students. I look forward to seeing a print copy.

Word Cloud makers..

Nice post by Danny Nicholson, which identifies a range of WORD CLOUD MAKERS...

Here's a word cloud of the World Cloud makers...

JigsawGeo app for iPhone

I was contacted recently by Steve VanderLeest to let me know about the JigsawGeo app for iPhone.
It's produced by SquishLogic and is available on the App Store.


Steve told me about the apps, which are for a range of different continents and areas.


They would be good to have on a class iPod Touch (or set if they were available)

The apps were developed with feedback from a Grade 5 class studying geography.  The students took their review seriously and gave us many great comments, which we implemented in revisions to our app.  The result is a great game that provides beautiful maps, teaches elementary kids (and adults) the geography of important areas of the world, and is fun too.  

High scores get posted to our website so you can see how you stack up against the competition.  We take privacy seriously, especially for kids, so we ask that they only post their first name and we only indicate the state or region that the player is from (nothing more specific).   

You can find more info on the website:  http://squishlogic.com/JigsawGeo.php   

Your readers can find the whole line just by searching for JigsawGeo in the Apple iTunes app store.  The apps work on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices. They cost 69p.

For readers of this blog who are in the United States only, Steve has made available a special offer to readers of the LIVING GEOGRAPHY / CULTCHA blogs.


There are three free PROMO CODES below, which are available on a first come-first served basis. They are for the Jigsaw GEO Europe game.

The first US reader to use a code gets it, then it expires at that point, so first-come, first-served. 

These codes (only available in the US) expire on 3 Oct 2011.

YWRN6JHFMP6F

HXXWR9ME7AF4

4L3TA4KXXFA7

Who knows - when the new Curriculum review is published, this sort of knowledge might be the basis for a whole year's work !

BETT 2012

Some time ago, I submitted a proposal to do a Learn Live seminar at the BETT SHOW 2012.
I heard today that I was successful so will hopefully be able to get to the show if the session I am given is possible for me to attend.
The focus will be on Mission:Explore and Guerrilla Geography.

I wish I could remember what I said in the proposal though...

Somerset Geography Conference

When I met up with Noel Jenkins over the summer, he mentioned the Somerset Geography Conference that he was organising in association with Simon Ross.
Now the details have been placed online.

Sustainable cities: an afternoon conference for ALL teachers of geography. 

2.00pm - 6.00pm 

13th October 2011 

at The King Alfred School

At £25 it looks like pretty amazing value..

Register here

Snake charmer... - your help needed please...

View Larger Map


OK, here's a second Google Map in the last few days. This is not the location of another car crash thankfully, though it is a road I have travelled many times, including once in white-out conditions, which was an interesting experience.
The Bleaklow area is an area of heathland in the Peak District National Park. I am currently working on a number of writing projects, and this one is overdue, so I am trying to get it completed in the next week or so.


The work is part of the Royal Geographical Society's From the Field project which is funded by the Goldsmith's Company.
I am working with a researcher from the University of Hull (where I trained as a teacher many years ago) who is exploring the sustainability of ecological networks that form on heathland areas, many of which have been restored, and have also been susceptible to fires.


UK moorlands are of international importance due to a limited global distribution and their association with highly specialised and threatened species


We have previously done some work looking at fires in the Peak District park as part of the CAREERS IN GEOGRAPHY : GEOGRAPHY IN CAREERS resource that I wrote for the GA website (visit the PEAK PRACTICE section of the resource)


Please take a look at the landscape on the Google Map image above:


a) How would you describe the landscape that you can see in the image ?
b) What challenges do you think would face plants and animals in this habitat ?
c) How would you teach about the value of heathlands - where do they fit into your curriculum ?


Thanks in advance for any ideas...

Flickr

Just renewed my Flickr PRO account.
I now have well over 6000 pictures available on various Creative Commons license, and mostly arranged into sets.
Let me know if you'd like to use one...
Here's one of my favourites... taken very early one morning in my village...

Image: Alan Parkinson

New blogger interface

Interested to see a new interface option on Blogger yesterday..
This provides a much better set of analytics so you can now see who is visiting your blog, and the number of view of particular blog posts on a daily, weekly, monthly or all-time basis.
Good to see this blog regularly getting over 400 page views a day, and almost a half of those are from the USA, which is interesting.

ICT in the Humanities

You have a chance to attend a one day workshop in Central London called ICT for HUMANITIES which is being organised by InThinking and delivered by Richard Allaway of GeographyalltheWay

ICT for Humanities

10:00h - 17:00h, Saturday 1st October
Venue: Southbank School
Workshop Leader: Richard Allaway

Workshop details: 

Working on your own laptops, we will look at developing ICT skills and strategies that will make your life as a humanities teacher easier. The aim of the four sessions is to introduce a series of online tools, focusing on attaining fluency in a small number of tools rather than blasting you with too much information!

• "Social Bookmarking": We will use the online service Diigo to share your favourite website and online resources. We will explore the ease in which you can share resources, annotate the useful bits on webpages and set up 'groups'.
• "A Systems Approach to ICT": How could a range of ICT tools be integrated into your day to day work flow? Which ICT tools do I use most frequently? Why might you want to use them?
• "Google Apps": Google produces an extensive range of free online tools. We will look at how to use some of the best. We will focus on using them efficiently in your planning and preparation and using them to benefit the teaching and learning of your students.
• "Blogging with Posterous": We will look at what a blog is and why you might want to set one up. We will concentrate our attentions upon the Posterous blogging service - it's free and just requires you to be able to send an email!

Energy widgets

I was contacted by Albano Mattia earlier, who told me about a range of free widgets related to ENERGY ISSUES that can be inserted into blogs, website pages. These are updated frequently and might be of interest to those teaching about a changing energy budget.

Worldwide energy consumption (by country – figures updated every second)
Worldwide energy production (Crude oil, coal, natural gas, solar, wind, updated every second.)
Alternative energy production (by method: Solar, wind, hydro, etc..)
Crude oil clocks
Greenhouse gas counters
Oil & Gas news
+ Many more... 



Here's a sample couple for WORLD ENERGY CONSUMPTION and ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PRODUCTION so that you can see what they look like.

Iceland

Been following the current travels of David Rogers in Iceland (I'm not at all jealous....)
This came into my Twitter feed yesterday - a cheeky little video which shows the best of the Icelandic landscape... I visited quite a few of those places in October - can't wait to go back...
 

Some 'vital' geography work

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.

Not a good morning...

Just back home from a bit of a car accident. My son and I were driving along a country road heading for Norwich and a lorry pulled out on me. Slammed brakes on but couldn't stop in time and hit it at speed..
There was some difficulty explaining to the insurance company where it was as we were in the middle of a very rural scene... In fact, here it is... crash not pictured...
Car is not very well at all, and I'm bruised and sore currently... My son was checked out by ambulance, and we had the police and fire crews there too. So not having the best Friday ever...

View Larger Map

iCoast - the Dorset Coast

New iCoast website is excellent for exploring the DORSET coast.

Japanese Earthquake Drill day

The 1st of September is the date of the annual earthquake drill in Japan.
The date was chosen as this was the date of the great Kanto Earthquake in 1923

This year's drill was of course the first since the tusnami of March 2011, so had added poignancy and significance.

The BBC reported on the event earlier today.

Transactions of the IBG - currently free....

Some of the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers is now available as a free VIRTUAL issue. Some intriguing articles...

This one on a 'literary GIS' of the Lake District is an interesting one...

About Me

Just updated my ABOUT ME profile if you need to get in touch...

Have also added some Google Ads on the sidebar... I'll keep an eye on those to see that they're appropriate... Feel free to click on them if you're short of things to do...

Build a map

New from Google Maps
BUILD A MAP - watch the video to get a flavour for how it works...



Currently in BETA so you will need to request an invitation, but mine was provided almost immediately.

Looks like it has potential - the finished map can then be saved and embedded into blogs and websites. Would be useful for companies to have a custom map of their location etc. or for tourist attractions, schools etc. etc.

Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tipoff as always.