G.A. CONFERENCE 2004
UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY
5th - 7th JUNE, 2004
A 'Bloggish' thing
GEORESOURCES has a 'VIRTUAL TOUR' of the city to get you started.
This was the first G.A. Conference I'd attended. There were a few GEOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS on the way down from Norfolk.
I went through the FENS - reclaimed land, areas below sea level etc., and paused at CAMBRIDGE. Wandered across Granta, lots of punts being inexpertly propelled along.
Down the M11, past the entrance to STANSTED Airport, with its Norman Foster designed terminal. Flew to PISA from there a few years back.
The official site is HERE, the site campaigning against the proposed EXTENSION can be reached by clicking on the logo below:
Down onto the M25.
I've talked elsewhere about Iain Sinclair's 'psychogeography' of the LONDON ORBITAL.
You can take a VIDEO TOUR round the M25 HERE in true London to Brighton fashion... The HIGHWAYS AGENCY also have a good site - check out the EDUCATION links.
Over the Dartford bridge, now has a lane for people who have signed up to DART - means they can drive through the toll booths without stopping.
On past BLUEWATER shopping centre. Built into an old quarry and a major shopping experience.
A great picture of BLUEWATER is available from Ian Murray's GEOGRAPHY PHOTOS site.
M2 and 45 minutes later, into Canterbury.
MAP OF THE UNIVERSITY was provided, but another good one is HERE.
Parked up in Keynes College.
Registered - tremendous organisation by Sarah Clarke and her team.
WORKSHOPS
I started off with GEOMORPHOLOGY THROUGH IMAGES by Professor Tim Burt, the mentor for my RESEARCH and my tutor for my dissertation when I did my degree 20 (cough) years ago...
Met up with Val Vannet from SLN Forum / High School of Dundee
Asked us to think: "Where did it happen for you..", and also to consider AWE and WONDER in the landscape. This linked in with the 60th anniversary of the Field Studies Council, of which Tim is the current Chairman. (Don't forget my page of FIELDWORK links...)
Considered different types of IMAGES, based on 'Models in Geography' literature.
ICONIC IMAGES
ANALOGUE IMAGES
DIGITAL IMAGES
Also about being CURIOUS with images. Mentioned the use of OLD POSTCARDS, and data such as WATER QUALITY which can bring out details of droughts, peat erosion, organic carbon release, global warming, water quality issues, reservoir sedimentation etc.
Also mentioned BICKNOLLER COMBE in the Quantocks, which I remember tramping round with an EDM 2 decades ago...
Discussed an image of the WASTWATER screes.
Then into the lecture theatre for:
CHRIS DURBIN's Keynote lecture:
MORE CREATIVITY WITH IMAGES
Started off with some PHOTOJAMS.
Then onto the PICTURE BOARD (a 12 number one!)
Mentioned SLN Geography and how it was important to get people communicating, and exchanging ideas. "I see 2 colleagues from Dundee and King's Lynn who've never met before, but have now..."
Some of the points I liked:
On Water Cycle diagrams, as someone pointed out - "Does it only ever rain on mountains ?" - what makes a good water cycle diagram - can students draw one based only on descriptions
Whenever you need a source, make sure that you get more than one
The views of other people (this links in with the GEO BLOGS idea) - a student taken to Dovedale - "there's nothing there!"
The problems of relying on views of places which are incomplete - how people will avoid going to places, walking down certain streets, visiting certain areas of a town or other countries because of what they THINK they are like rather than what they are actually like
Leads to PREJUDICE - most of us have PARTIAL PERCEPTIONS and we need to move to OPEN MINDED PERCEPTIONS.
Use resources to try to make pupil's experiences MEMORABLE.
PUT YOURSELF IN THE PICTURE - ask students to image themselves in the image.
DRAMA and PROPAGANDA
WORDS into PICTURES and PICTURES into WORDS rather than just WORDS into WORDS.
Using 3 COLOURS of POST IT NOTES to annotate pictures (don't need to use ICT necessarily) - QUESTION, ANSWER and CLUE.
Word Mats
Rather than the Literacy co-ordinator saying "What can Literacy do for Geography" it should be us saying "What can Geography do for Literacy ?"
STORYBOARDING
Some useful web references as always, and some ideas to use straight away.
Try the GLOBALAB site - some great images. An animation showing INTERNET use now and in the future.
Pictures of YANN ARTHUS BERTRAND. Check out this great INDEX from which you can view a large sample of wonderful images.
At the end, also met up with Ian Murray and Allyson Taylor and had a drink with Chris.
Then checked out the:
EXHIBITION
There were 2 exhibition spaces, with some tables between, where I placed my FLYERS and STICKERS, which seemed to be going. Ian Murray put some GEOGRAPHY PHOTOS ones there too.
At the entrance was the CHRIS KINGTON PUBLISHING stand: I noticed Liz Taylor there earlier, who was promoting the launch of the new resource: RE-PRESENTING GEOGRAPHY - which looks to be very useful. In fact the school I teach at was involved in trialling some of the materials and gets an acknowledgement.
A big GA stand.
Heinemann introducing their new 360° Textbook series.
mPowerTeach
GlobalEye
also session by Tony Thomas on Fieldwork, and lecture on Rural France
More to come on this later.
Then met up with DAVID MURRAY who was doing a session on the CLIMATE project the day after.
To get my accommodation. Very nice view down into the city from the room. Almost made you want to be a student again, and have 3 years before you needed to worry about anything important...
Down into the city as it looked like being a pleasant evening. Wandered the Cathedral precinct. Found (and sampled) the ale in 'The Bishop's Finger'.
Entrance to Cathedral precinct, Canterbury
Back up to the University and our for a beverage with the SLN folk, which involved...going back down into Canterbury again. They do say the best way to find out about a place is to walk round it...
The following morning, met up with 2 Portuguese Geographers over breakfast, then into the session on
EXTENDING LITERACY
Session by Graham Butt, from Birmingham University.
Some useful ideas and a well constructed summary of how the research supports the importance of developing and extending the literacy activities pupils encounter. Some useful detail on the problems when teachers only use CLOSED questions rather than OPEN ones. Also introduced me to DARTS: Directed Activities Related to Text.
Thought provoking and useful.
Lecture on Airport expansion - went very close to CLIFFE on my way home: airport plan which was cancelled, after a major campaign involving the RSPB and other groups.
KENT COAST
I headed off shortly before lunch to take advantage of the fact that I was in the area to visit the Kent Coast. Once again GEO RESOURCES had got their first.
The area of HERNE BAY and RECULVER has an interesting and varied history of change. I've added a range of new sites which I discovered, and which have access to better pictures than I've got to the AS COASTS section of the site.
Also visited WHITSTABLE, and then along to FAVERSHAM.
Then back alongside the Channel Tunnel rail link to LONDON
In the evening went for a walk along the DARENT VALLEY with friends. This was one of the areas featured in Iain Sinclair's "London Orbital" - we walked down from Lullingstone Golf Course, down to the castle and the river at the bottom. Our paths crossed here, as he came through here too. There was also an aqueduct which apparently appeared in a 'Harry Potter' film.
After a sampling of 'Spitfire', it was home.
M25: LONDON ORBITAL
One lorry had broken down, partially blocking one lane - saw it on BBC LONDON news. So by the time I reached the area there was a 10-15 mile queue. So I decided to detour North past Lakeside: a 'companion' shopping centre to Bluewater
Travelling through Essex, I had a chance to go through a few new places such as Brentwood: didn't see any 'Footballers' Wives' though.
As I was driving towards the M11, past Brentwood, I came across a sign directing me to the TOP SECRET Nuclear bunker. I was intrigued: the WEBSITE is here. It includes a VIRTUAL TOUR. There are also some amusing comments made by visitors...
On return filled in my FISCHER TRUST survey form, £1 goes to a project in South Africa for each form returned, and there's also a chance to get some publicity for SLN featured sites (and SLN itself of course..) Also got my BLOGGER shirt from the GOOGLE SHOP, which came very promptly. If you fancy some GOOGLE merchandise check out the store.
Pencilled the date for DERBY 2005 in my diary. I'll be there in a professional capacity...
