THE "WHAT'S NEW" ARCHIVE
(AKA
What's Old...)
Last updated July
2008 - this page now ARCHIVED
I realised in July 2006 that some of the websites
and details mentioned in the What's New page weren't actually featured on other
pages, so if I deleted them they would be lost... This is an archive of previous posts, starting in
March 2006 & most recent at top, in true blog style...
February 25th
Start of
Fairtrade Fortnight. Some plans for the 29th too. Just been watching the
OUR BIG FAIRTRADE ADVENTURE film. Also used the YOUNG's Prawns to
Thailand story to start some work on FOOD MILES.
This is an interesting topic for other year groups too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/6146974.stm - jobs
were cut in Scotland though - the students don't know that yet...
Tomorrow on More4 is
BLACK GOLD: another excellent
resource to have in the Geography department.
Also watching the new Jonathan Meade's
program "Magnetic North". I like it a lot - love watching his
documentaries and picking up some esoteric gems. Good stuff on the development
of seaside resorts in different European countries. At the end of school we
looked at issues relating to an INDUCTION WEEK (or so) for the new Year 7
pupils. Do any of you have one of these ? If so what does it include ?
Also a chance for people to book onto
a 90 minute workshop which looks at the use of the INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD.
My session will be called "Developing your
Interactive Whiteboard Skills". Thanks to Joanna Blackmore from
SLN for sharing her MIGRATION revision movie.
February 24th
Lots of marking. Got sent plenty of
pictures of celebrations following Mark Beaumont's completion of round the world
cycle ride. Added details of new
AFRICA SoW produced by colleague Miss Muncaster.
Also some new materials on
POPULATION MIGRATION produced this week.
February 20th
Contacted today by Laura from a
company working with Sky Learning. On 24th February at 7pm on National
Geographic Channel, there is the showing of a film made by Mark Lynas based
on his rather worrying book:
"Six Degrees Could Change the
World"
Sky Learning
has teamed up with Richard Allaway, author of
www.geographyalltheway.com,
to create a Study Aid for students of GCSE and A Level geography. There’s a
mixture of tips, case studies, key points and practice questions developed in
line with National Curriculum and exam board criteria to compliment your
revision and see you hit your target grades. The Study
Aid is based on
the National Geographic Channel’s latest documentary “Six Degrees Could Change
the World”, which will air 24th February at 7pm on Sky Channel 526. Straight after, you can log on to
Sky Learning where Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees will be available to
participate in a live webchat.
Don't forget to tape
SIX DEGREES WILL CHANGE THE WORLD is on National
Geographic on the 24th of February at 7pm.
February 19th
Registered a while ago for
uLEARN: the new product from
the company that produced Infomapper.
Details from Charles Worth.
It's FREE to register.
uLearn offers:
·
A FREE open cross-curricular resource
library including links to every free and open resource created by every Grid
for Learning
·
FREE Web 2.0 tools to highlight the
most popular resources, linked to your areas of interest
·
Sophisticated yet simple tools for the
creation of online resources (web pages / links) FREE
·
Easy upload (even for video) FREE
·
FREE tools to link resources (with
associated maps if required) into Personalised Learning activities
·
A rich set of maps and aerial imagery
·
Drag and drop map selection
·
Easy drag-and-drop linking to maps
FREE
·
Safe educational social networking
providing multiple tools to create communities of users with the same learning
interests FREE
·
Thematic mapping (e.g. displaying
pupil achievement data on maps) FREE
·
‘Activelink’ tools enabling you
instantly to pull information from multiple websites regarding any location on
the planet FREE
·
Access from home FREE
·
Commitment to ongoing development
With the
exception of detailed mapping uLearn is
available without charge to every school in the UK. This means
that, for the first time ever, every school has access to the same free
GIS-enabled schools-only learning platform. The shared nature of the new
service is already coming into its own. We have sold mapping licenses to both
Northern and Southern Ireland (amongst others). Southern Ireland in particular
is using it as their key tool for the teaching of geography. They are
therefore busy uploading resources to serve their curriculum. But because this
is a shared tool there are now 2578 with the word Geography either in the
description or as a Tag, in the open uLearn Resource library for all
teachers to access.
In addition to
this, although it is only in the early stages of our planned development,
uLearn includes safe schools-only Social Networking tools.
February 17th
Thought I'd keep a bit of a record of
my half-term 'holiday'. Not a day went by without some work imposing.
Plenty of ongoing projects. An interesting story on whether the
Polish
tide has turned in several papers this week. The Times had it on its cover -
rising costs of living, alongside a growing economy in Poland are leading to
many people returning home. Also spent some time on the
NEW EDEXCEL section of GeographyPages to
prepare the grounding for the next lot of planning. Thanks to Chris Lloyd
Staples for some more excellent planning materials relating to the CfBT
conferences. Skyped some friends in France.
Friday 8th
Broke up finally ! It's been a bit of
a half term all in all... Just got a departmental review when I get back and a
load of other deadlines to meet. Watched Mr. Benn on DVD with my son.
Continued to write the 82 Year 9
reports that I had to write. The deadline had been extended for a couple of days
due to a fire in the USA where the servers holding the online reporting system
was held. Globalisation in action ! Just as well really as I would never have
finished them all in time as well as marking the most recent GLOBAL LIFE
assessments.
Completed an article on the use of
Nings to support learning for the next issue of Tony Cassidy's Teaching and
Learning newsletter, and sent it off.
Saturday 9th
Marked a set of books and continued
with the reports. Filled in an order for some resources for the department. Also
some thinking relating to the 6th form field day in Cambridge, and also a few
possible leads for new residential experience. Also a bit of work on the
Secondary Geography Quality Mark project. Working through some of the 7 steps
that are involved in applying for the SGQM.
Out for a pint at the club on the way
back from Hunstanton. Nice to sit with a pint and relax for a few moments.
Sunday 10th
Out to Holkham Bay for a walk along
the dunes and out to the beach. Lovely sunny day once again ! Marked another set
of books and continued with the reports. Spent another 3 hours and FINALLY
finished them after a week of them occupying every spare moment. Just got to
finish marking the latest assessments and feeding those in to the reports as
well. Thanks to Tony Cassidy for sending me a timely resource on the Sharia
controversy, and also to Danny O' C for some great student hazards movies. We
will be using this as models for new AS level I think.. Choose your hazard.
A bit of work on the forthcoming
CfBT Eastern regional conference (later this month !)
- also set up new page for the conference, and working on presentation and
exchanging some e-mails.
Monday 11th
Over to Cromer in more bright sunshine
apart from one large patch of fog near Fakenham which suddenly descended. Quite
busy and the pier was busy. Hot chocolate on the pier theatre in the sunshine,
and into the town. Free entry into Cromer Museum in February if you're in the
area.
Tuesday 12th
Getting a little more cloudy. A spot
more marking done. Have a lot of materials to mark relating to a
GLOBALISATION assessment.
Wednesday 13th
Foggy day. Fog never lifted all day
and chilly ! Out for some bits and pieces in Hunstanton. Took over blogging
duties from Val Vannet on the final leg of Mark Beaumont's journey. He's cycling
up through France towards the finish line at Paris.
Thursday 14th
A cold and cloudy start once again.
Some work on book, and also a BECTa project. Family out to see the new 'Water
Horse' film.
Friday 15th
Into town, and into work for a few
hours in the morning to do some sorting - trying to sort out some new filing
cabinets to make sure that all the 'old stuff' is moved out, and the new stuff
comes in. Have a wealth of resources and want to make sure that people can find
them. The MART is in town in King's Lynn. Mark Beaumont finished his epic
round the world cycle tour ! Followed him in with a few final blog posts at
GEOBLOGGING WITH MARK.
Saturday 16th
Another frosty start, and a sunny day
to follow. Got stuck into a few small jobs and some website work to add
resources and update.
Spent a couple of hours planning my
session at the CfBT conference in a couple of weeks. Thanks to Chris Ellesse
from SLN for some great new resources on planning.
A new CONCEPT
page put up to share resources for new KEY STAGE 3.
Out to help run quiz night fund raiser
at my local club. A packed hall: fish and chips and a quiz. Apparently one of
the teams were on the 'Eggheads' at some point.
Agenda and various letters written.
Reading DAVID ROGERS' blog
which is going to follow the rather unwelcome attentions of an OFSTED subject
inspection immediately after half term.
Sunday 17th
A very sunny morning after a hard
frost. Out to take some pictures and then upload them to Flickr. Made a FOOD
set. You're all welcome to use them, but give me a credit...
Some more marking, and then with
Countryfile on Severn barrage, added some new content to my Edexcel 'AS' page.
Some more FA Cup football on BBC and then Sky.
February 6th
Thanks to Helen Young for passing on
details of her new website... GEOGRAPHY GEEK - plenty of resources !
New resource on Immigration to
Australia up to Slideshare: TEN POUND POMS.
January 26th
New journals now available for
download from GA website. You
can download the article on Digital Learning Resources and also samples
from the new 'Geography' journal.
Thanks to Alex Murchie for some great pics of the
'birds nest' Olympic stadium in Beijing, which is apparently attracting loads of
tourists in advance of the games.
Also check out new resources on GTT website
made by people who've been on curriculum making courses:
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/curriculum-making/teaching-ideas/
Also an excellent CPD unit on GLOBALISATION:
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/ks3-resources/online-cpd/globalisation/
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/curriculum-making/teaching-ideas/does-your-shopping-measure-up/
- does your shopping measure up ? - like this one...
Also a new idea on me: the 'information race' via
Victoria Ellis:
Students are in groups, and each group has a set of information (e.g. textbooks,
print-outs from websites, etc.). At the front, I have a set of questions for
each group, each set on different coloured paper, and each question on a
separate slip of paper. Students collect question 1, find the answer in their
information and bring it to me - if their answer is satisfactory, they get
question 2, and so on. I tend to vary the questions in terms of the length of
the response and the level of difficulty - a couple of quick answers to get them
started, then some longer ones with shorter ones in between. Often include at
least one question that involves them drawing a map or diagram, and have
recently experimented with having a task on the last one, e.g. creating a poster
with the key points that they've learnt, or some kind of mini-DME based on what
they've learnt.
January 22nd
Up to Sheffield for a meeting at GA
headquarters, relating to the Secondary Geography Quality Mark.
BECTa article that I wrote along with
Val Vannet included in January 2008 issue of 'Teaching Geography'.
This will shortly be available for download from the GA website.
GA Webwatch in the latest GA Magazine
too.
Site also linked to from the new
Ministry of Defence DEFENCE
DYNAMICS site, which has some very useful resources on the BOSCASTLE
floods. I will be adding these to the flooding page shortly.
There is also a good link back to this
site with a nice review:
"Acclaimed
resource, featuring extensive resources to support all levels of Geography
teaching. Site acts as a highly effective portal to many other websites which
feature topic specific resource materials. The content also contains useful
links throughout."
January 14th
GeographyPages featured in the
January 2008 issue of Secondary Teachers magazine, sent to all Secondary schools
in the UK.
"Hugely popular
website created by geography teacher Alan Parkinson..."
Thanks to Mr. Dixon for hosting a very
fine cheese and wine evening at the weekend, and letting us drink his very fine
vintage Bordeaux.
The CfBT Conferences are filling up
rapidly so make sure you get a place booked.
NEW MANAGING FLOOD
RISK RESOURCE on the GA website.
January 8th
Added some new TOURISM, LANDSCAPES and
CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY materials.
Also lining up some interesting
projects and events for later in the year, which I'll report here when they
happen.
Contacted by Kathleen Braden from Seattle Pacific
University, who told me about a project exploring American and Russian
Geography. This was a joint project between academics from both countries.
They produced a book: BEYOND BORDERS, and the distribution of the book
was unfortunately delayed. The book is now available free of charge as a range
of PDFs and Maps. Click HERE
to visit the project website for more information and to view the maps.
January 2nd
Final day of the holiday..
Trying to get back into school mood today, and
failing...
Welcome back to Tony Cassidy's
RADICAL GEOGRAPHY. Look out for
new content soon, and some old classics...
Don't forget to sign up for your
free CfBT
REGIONAL CONFERENCE for the new KS3
Upgraded my
ANIMOTO account and downloaded a few
long movies already. Check out ANIMOTO for cool movies. Another cool place to
get movies made is BOOKR,
which uses your FLICKR pictures to create an animated book you can flip
through.
Val has taken back the blogging of
Mark across the USA.
December 26th
Mark now left New Zealand en route to
San Francisco. Follow the
BLOG here.
Lots of interesting news stories over
the Christmas period:
-
Earthrace: biofuel fuelled boat aiming
to circle the globe
-
Independent on 'the unluckiest baby in
the world', born in Sierra Leone
-
Independent on London as the capital
city of the world
-
Fog which has delayed many people's
Christmas flights
-
Poles leading to increase in Catholic
church attendances
-
3 million tonnes of waste to be
created by festive packaging - an extra 750 million glass containers and 500
million cans
-
Leicester to become the first city
with 'ethnic plurality'
-
Justin Rose: winner of European
Order of Merit committed to becoming carbon neutral in 2008
-
Global warming is melting Santa's
grotto at Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle - this is a story I shall refer back to
again...
-
China - new law will make the trading
of 7 species of wild birds illegal from January 1st, because of shortages in
their numbers
-
The value of peat bogs
Also thanks to the 583 visitors
that I had on Christmas Day
December 21st
Started to blog on GEOBLOGGING:
followed the route from Kaikoura to Picton.
Today is also the end of an era for
Campbells in King's Lynn as the last tin of soup leaves the factory. Campbells
Soup is going to change its name to Bachelor's Condensed Soup
December 13th
A good purchase is BRITAIN IN 2008.
Down to London today for Pilot GCSE
Sounding Board meeting with the Awarding bodies. A very interesting day ! Also
reading "You are here: Personal Geographies" by Katharine Harmon.
December 6th
Added some new JELLY BABY
resources to my SLIDESHARE
page. Don't forget to book your place on your
REGIONAL SUBJECT SUPPORT CONFERENCE. Just been watching Dispatches:
Britain Under Water, which features some heart-breaking stories of the
Summer flooding in places like Toll Bar and Dinnington. The report on the
flooding has been released, and this
BBC NEWS story talks
about the failings in the summer. This also links to a whole range of
FACTS AND FIGURES.
Apparently KING'S LYNN is one of the 10 places most likely to flood, and
the most significant chance of property is in BOSTON just across the Wash with
the River Witham running through it. There is more severe and erratic weather on
its way according to the MET OFFICE. Interesting analogy of the flood
resources that were available: "like having a king sized bed and only a single
sized duvet...." The
OUR WORLD FILM FESTIVAL will take place the night before the GA
Conference has been launched on the GA Conference page.
December 2nd
Tony Cassidy, a virtual colleague of
mine, spent half term in BANGLADESH. As part of the trip, he had to
produce some resources. A week or so after he returned, CYCLONE SIDR hit
Bangladesh - the worst since 1991. Tony's
CYCLONE SIDR RESOURCES are a hefty 26Mb download and would provide
you with 6 weeks of lessons. If you would like to use these resources and
find them useful, please click the button below and make a donation to the
CYCLONE SIDR
DISASTER RELIEF FUND organised by Oxfam.
December 1st
First lie in for about 3 weeks today.
Finally stepped up to Digital SLR this week with the purchase of a Nikon D40X.
Nice piece of kit !
Just catching up with
Earth: the Power of the Planet - superb so far. Amazing scenes on the
methane filled lakes of Siberia - you can watch some video clips by following
the link...
BBC News article coincidentally
talking about the 50th anniversary of the
KEELING CURVE.
There is also an article in today's
GUARDIAN Weekend magazine by Guy Browning. Read it and see what you think...
How to do
Geography Out to Ancient Mariner in Old Hunstanton last night for a meal,
and enjoyed a pint of Barnstormer from Bath Ales. Recommended !
November 27th
Just taking stock of all the things
that I've done since the weekend. Sunday was spent with author John Widdowson
refining a certain forthcoming textbook. Some interesting stuff in the papers:
FAVELA holidays at a place called the Maze,
London mapping, Liverpool's regeneration as part of its European City of Culture
status.
Also news of another project I might
be involved in which links my home town Rotherham, the summer floods and some
Google Earth stuff, and also finalising a bid for another exciting possibility
for 2008.
Clone Towns featured on the ONE
SHOW and updated my page with a few new additions, also relating to
MILL ROAD campaign against TESCO. A
NEW STATESMAN
article on Clone Towns by Andrew Simms is worth reading.
Did some reports today, and also did
some materials relating to PARK HILL FLATS in Sheffield (see forthcoming
blog post)
Off to Leicester tomorrow for GA
Project meeting. Don't forget next Tuesday's
GUARDIAN for my BECTa supplement on Geography resources.
Still very much enjoying David Peace's
THE DAMNED UTD., and going to move on to GB84 about the miners' strike
when I've finished it.
November 20th
Busy weekend with a trip up to York.
Some new bits of the A1 open, which made a change after nearly 20 years of
struggling round the same old junction. The section north of Doncaster is now a
great bit of road.
Yesterday it was down to London (on a
Monday evening, I must be mad) to a Chartered Geographers event at the RGS. A
mad dash out of school (thanks to Mr. Brown for taking the last part of my
lesson) and down to the RGS in the rain - ice rink outside the Natural History
Museum. Had a reception and meeting complete with a few glasses of Rioja - then
it was into the theatre where I'd been presenting a couple of weeks earlier to
see a lecture by Nick Crane on his
GREAT BRITISH JOURNEYS
series. Started with some outtakes from the series, then to talk through the 8
people who he featured in the series. Had an hour or so on the train back home
and a wait at King Cross as I just missed a train on the way back, to read David
Peace's excellent "The Damned Utd." about Brian Clough's 44 days in
charge of Leeds United.
Previous lectures can be viewed at the
RGS-IBG website if you are a member or fellow. There are some great resources
there.
Later this week is Year 11 options
evening, and next week is the Young People's Geographies
meeting.
Worth checking out the Daily Telegraph
newspaper (or website) all this week for some very useful articles on how
RURAL LIFE is changing and some of the issues facing Rural settlements.
My EAL resources went live on
the GeographyTeachingToday
website this week as well.
Also the dates of the
CfBT EASTERN REGION conference have now been
posted - sign up your
November 11th
A couple of days where the visitor
numbers have topped the 3000 mark, and had over 700 visits to my page about the
1953 Floods. All down to the storm surge which caused damage to the Norfolk
coast. Special feature in the EDP, and some good images online.
Also added some links to a new section
on Andrew Stacey's website. This has some useful materials on the importance of
saving RURAL POST OFFICES.
Also some images relating to the
Storm Surge of this week.
http://www.stacey.peak-media.co.uk/Suffolk/Suffolk%20Surge%20Nov%209%202007/SuffolkSurgeNov2007.htm
November 8th
Just back from Network meeting where I
had a little input on the new KS3 (thanks to Rob Lodge for the claret)
and had an impressive presentation by Jon Hootton and 4 students who had visited
Shanghai and Dongtan as part of an exchange with Chinese school. Also a nice
pressie from Sandy Betlem of NEAD of a flash drive loaded with lots of
nice environmental links and ideas for the GLOBAL
MESSENGERS project, and early stages of planning a conference.
Loads of Geo news in the newspapers in
last few days:
-
REGENERATION MONEY WASTED:
good reporting on Five Live yesterday
-
THE BIG IMMIGRATION DEBATE
- on Newsnight tonight (and website for a while afterwards) - check out the
debate
-
Where will the 3 million
new houses that we need be built ? On the Green Belt ? - Times article
-
PALM OIL and destruction
of rainforests
-
INCREDIBLE HULK and other
movies being filmed in favelas
-
Report on impact of
SUPERMARKETS, and Tesco opening in USA
My latest plan is to get the GOOGLE
APPS work up and running that Noel Jenkins is using, hosting it on my
domain, but I may wait until the promised VLE appears in school, as it must I
understand by the end of 2008.
October 31st
Got a mailing from
Christian Aid with
information about new resources on Global issues on their website.
Also sent me a nice TREES and
CHIMNEYS board game which looks at climate change.GLOBAL
FOOTPRINT
There's also a poetry competition in
association with DIVINE CHOCOLATE
(Fairtrade) judged by Michael Morpurgo.
Also a good poster related to the
CRAZY CLIMATE.
Scottish schools looking at the issue
of reducing their school's GLOBAL FOOTPRINT have a useful site I've
linked to (on a postcard I picked up at SAGT...) They will also all apparently
be getting a copy of 'An Inconvenient Truth' next year too, as with schools in
England.
Also worth mentioning that Tony
Cassidy has returned from a half term visit to Bangladesh and has started to
post about his trip and has
also put up a large set of photos on his FLICKR account.
October 28th - clocks have gone
back...
A very busy 10 days since the last
update. To begin with was the end of term, and then a drive down to London - the
M25 is always a pleasure...
Then had 4 days with the family in
DISNEYLAND PARIS, travelling
by EUROSTAR and TGV. A few timetabling issues along the way, but the EUROSTAR
legs were very pleasant - recommended ! A few of my favourite images on a
FLICKR SET here. You're welcome to use them as a teaching resource. Paris
was flipping freezing !
The
GUARDIAN have launched
a new website which aims to explore ways of reducing our carbon footprint:
TREAD LIGHTLY.
CHECK OUT 2 NEW
SITES FROM THE RGS-IBG (SAGT Award Winners 2007)
YOUR CLIMATE YOUR LIFE
PASSPORT TO THE POLES (see more
on this site on the Global Warming page) - get your school involved.
Up to Edinburgh at the end of the week
for the SAGT Conference.
Read my
ILLUSTRATED ACCOUNT of the conference at the
GEOGRAPHYJAZZ blog.
Just about to light a fire and get
sorted for the week to come...
Also worth mentioning an e-mail I
got giving a link to a report on the
Carbon
Footprint of the Live Earth concerts (PDF download)
Also check this out:
http://liveearth.visiblestrategies.com/
October 19th
Over to University of East Anglia to
speak to the PGCE colleagues on what I called "Butterfly Geography". The
presentation was similar to the one I used last year with some updates, and was
also based around work as an RSA Subject Adviser. Some good ideas. Investigated
some ideas of what was 'enduring' in geography.
Thanks also to Jon Wolton for
sending me a flash drive and lots of RGS resources following an INSET day last
week.
A lovely morning drive over to Norwich
- perfect anticyclonic conditions... Mist in the fields and a lovely sunrise.
October 12th
Friday night... Thank goodness. What a
week. Had some very full days at work with numerous school events including
performance management, reports and parents' evenings. In between had 2 days of
hectic stuff, and also trying to fight off some virus which left me really
tired.
Tuesday was very wet: over to
Gressenhall for Norfolk Geographers Conference. Went through some 'Digging
Deeper' work that he did at the RSA meeting, and also some Self Evaluation work.
Then I ran 2 workshops: one on SEN, where we looked at Affective mapping,
and the use of my literacy activity as well as classroom organisation. The venue
was great: we were in the Chapel for the first sessions. Thanks to my colleagues
on SEN working group.
If you are visiting
GRESSENHALL there is an ECO HOUSE display as part of the working
farm. Royal Geographical Society on Thursday. My wife was organising a BIG
DRAW event at her school, recreating the Sergeant Peppers Album cover. Down
on the train, and met up with various folk at the RGS: into the Ondaatje theatre
to set up, and then delivered my session on Study Skills with Blogs, Casting and
Nings. Check out all the details HERE. new
website launched by the RGS to support the choices that people make to
CHOOSE GEOGRAPHY at degree
level. Also came across the AMBASSADORS page which features some short
video clips of various ambassadors. One of whom is Lucy Verasamy from Sky
Weather. I taught her 'A' level Geography.
The clips are on the
RGS website, and one, which is rather good, says how Lucy had "great
teachers..." - you heard it here first...
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/ambassadors/ambassadors-online/ to
see the clips
Added information on COURT CHALLENGE
to school's being able to show "An Inconvenient Truth" - this has now been
allowed to be shown as long as it is used with the court advice.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm - BBC News article
which has information...
Doing some ideas on:
A week to half term. Got fieldtrip
and then a day speaking to PGCE students at the University of East Anglia.
Got a rather nice resource from the
NFU: WHY FARMING MATTERS: an introduction for secondary schools - some great
photo cards and a CD of accompanying resources well put together. Farming will
struggle to stay on some programmes of study other than the more recent ideas of
consumerism and food miles, or perhaps rural rebranding. Also heard on
Countryfile that setaside is being relaxed for next year because of shortages of
grain, which have forced an increase in the price of pasta in Italy for example.
http://www.nfuonline.com/nfuwfmlive/
http://www.face-online.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=997&Itemid=940
- ORDER FORM for the booklet
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc-home/vtc-ks4-home/vtc-ks4-geography - new
GCSE resources on Welsh NGFL site
October 8th
A busy week again. Sheffield on
Saturday was an adventure... see the blogs for more...
Contacted by Hugo Ahlenius from
Stockholm with this message.
Me and my collagues, at the UN Environment Programme UNEP/GRID-Arendal, have a resource that might be of interest to you, and your readers. We have created
a website collecting hundreds of maps and graphics on environmental issues, that we have been preparing for publications and
events over the years. There is quite an extensive archive of maps (including interactive maps) on climate change, waste, pollution,
poverty and biodiversity in this resource: http://maps.grida.no/ Thanks for considering this!
Some great maps and diagrams here, particularly useful for the blogs on Pilot Geography.
September 30th
Final day of a rather hectic month,
which is as nothing compared to the next one to come... Spent the day in London yesterday at
the Radisson hotel near the British Museum. Managed to nip over and catch the
queues, and buy some terracotta replica figures. Was down for a conference to set up a
new support network for the new NATIONAL CURRICULUM which is due to be
introduced for Year 7 from September 2008.
Have been taken on as one of over
20 Regional Subject advisers, who are working in a unique partnership
between the QCA, DCSF, CfBT and the Geographical Association.
More on this to
come shortly.
If you teach in the EAST OF ENGLAND
and want to get involved in some networking to support new KS3 developments
for next September, why not go to the new NING and request an
invitation...
http://geography08support.ning.com
September 20th
Geography and Blogging
A new resources has just appeared on the Geographical Association website.
It's a new online journal called GeogEd.
The first item is an article by Phil Wood called Advances in E-Learning: The Case of Blogging in School Geography.
This looks at blogging in geography, and name-checks the article I wrote for Teaching Geography in 2004, and then mentions some current Geog Blogs, though sadly not the 'original' GeoBlogs...
Fame (ish) at last...
September 15th
OK, so that was a rather busy week...
All groups now been taught, and
starting to plough through other administration as well as various other
projects and work, and marking...
SEN stuff, EAL stuff, book editing and
resources, fieldtrip administration etc. Also don't forget to come and see me
at the RGS STUDY DAY or the
SAGT CONFERENCE on similar themes of study skills.
Finished a forthcoming item for
'Teaching Geography' today too... And also preparing my resources for
the visit to the UEA
Finished off Robert MacFarlane's
"The Wild Places" which is a fine piece of work.
More students joining the NING.
Good news.. Need to develop the community !
A lot of interesting news stories this
week - some added to the POPULATION page in particular, and thanks to Mr.
Stone for telling me about the great ice animations at the Cryosphere site - the
NW passage has been found !
Also more details of the BECTA OS
Map PILOT, which we're also involved in.
Check out new GA project:
http://www.geography.org.uk/projects/buildingsustainablecommunities/onlinecpdunit/
This was flagged up in the papers:
book to accompany a new BBC series coming soon... Description:
In this lavish companion to
the BBC series "Earth: The Power of the Planet", renowned science writers Iain
Stewart and John Lynch use stunning imagery and the latest scientific
discoveries to explain how our remarkable planet functions. Earth has survived
four and a half billion years of being 'stirred from below and bombarded from
above' but at the start of the twenty-first century our planet faces new
threats, brought about by human actions. It is the perfect time to look back on
an extraordinary life and give Earth a thorough health-check. Each chapter
focuses on one of Earth's most powerful forces - meteor impacts, plate
tectonics, the ocean, atmosphere and ice - and explores their central role in
keeping Earth alive. These are the forces that drive our planet and shape its
destiny. We discover how a devastating cosmic impact blasted a huge chunk of
Earth into space to form the Moon, how Earth nearly froze to death when it was
completely encased in ice for millions of years, and how Earth's remarkable heat
engine, its molten core, saved the day. Earth has been able to sustain complex
life thanks to an extraordinary number of lucky breaks and coincidences.
Let's hope the sun keeps shining on
your weekend...
September 8th
End of a busy 'week'.
Did a bit of tidying of the 6th form
pages, and added sections to the AS and A2 Human sections in particular.
Several students now joining up to the
NING: http://kesgeographers.ning.com
- more members needed.
September 3rd
So that was summer... Back in for INSET today and 8 hours of
sorting out and reviewing and planning. Added some new materials for the units
that we're starting off with in the NEW KS3: Our Place, Crime and
Globalisation
Also looks like we might be going
ahead with a new course: AQA Environmental Studies - more to come soon....
Well done to Val Vannet for getting
GCSE into the TES Scotland last Friday... Great publicity...
August 24th
Just back from a short break over to
Liverpool, and to Crosby Beach to see Anthony Gormley's "Another Place". Nice
and sunny! Tide was well out, so none of the figures were underwater. We'll go
back and see them in the New Year to see them in different conditions.
August 21st
And so the rain came back... Not as
bad as HURRICANE DEAN though, which is churning towards the Yucatan.
Still enough to bring down some trees locally though...
August 16th
Well done to all KES Geographers on
their AS / A2 results today - most of you got what you deserved, and several of
you surprised us !
August 13th
Just back from a trip to Cromer
Carnival. Some pics on my Flickr page, but you
get a nice feel for the place here:
http://www.tournorfolk.co.uk/cromer.html I climbed the tower of St. Peter and
St. Paul: the highest church tower in Norfolk, and 172 steps, and got some good
pictures from the top. Also some chips from Mary Jane's. Lots of people fishing
for crabs off the pier, and some pink poodles too...
Just watching Sanjeev in
Kolkatta. Good detail on Howrah bridge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howrah_Bridge the busiest in the world.
A few new projects to work on as
well... Started my new blog project for one.
Just to let you know about a new
GeoBlog I've started as part of my investigations into Cultural Geography.
You'll find at it http://cultcha.blogspot.com
- Required reading for all Year 11
Geographers...
August 1st
Just spent a lot of money: Eurostar
and Disneyland Paris tickets for the family, plus train and accommodation for
SAGT conference, plus 2 nights over in the NW and Wales to see the Anthony
Gormley installation ANOTHER PLACE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Place and try to get over to
Portmeirion too.
SAGT Conference is moving to
Edinburgh Academy this year, and have just downloaded the latest details for the
27th of October 2007
Programme
From
8.30
Registration and Publishers’ Exhibition
Coffee and bacon rolls will be served in the dining hall
9.30
Publishers’ Awards
10.00
Presidential Address (Colin Tucker)
10.15
The
Royal Scottish Geographical Society Lecture
‘Climate Change Research:
A View from the Tropics’
Professor Sandy Tudhope
School of Geosciences, Edinburgh University
11.05
SQA
Awards
11.20
Seminar Session 1*
12.10
Lunch
& Publishers Exhibition
13.30
Seminar Session 2*
14.20
Fraternal greetings from the Geographical Association
14.30
Hodder Gibson Lecture
‘Action Speaks
Louder
Education for Sustainable Development… the choice is ours.’
Phil
Williams
Plan-it Eco
15.25
Vote
of Thanks
I'm doing Seminar 10: here are the
details of my seminar.
Study Skills
Going beyond
CTRL-C, CTRL-V
Alan Parkinson, Head of Geography,
King Edward VII School
King’s Lynn, Norfolk
This
will be an opportunity to see a presentation which will be given at a Royal
Geographical Society conference earlier that month. It looks at some ideas for
using Web 2.0 technologies (don’t worry, that’s simpler that it sounds) to
sustain student involvement between lessons.
I will look at the
use of weblogs, podcasting and the use of social networks such as NINGS. I
will also flag up useful websites which offer content to support students in
the run up to exams, and try to provide a range of strategies for going beyond
“cut and paste” (which explains the strange title) It will be broadly
complementary to the sessions run by Ollie Bray, Rob Chambers and Val Vannet. As in the last two
years, I would appreciate some interactivity. If anyone who has particular
documents or websites that they have used to support students and doesn’t mind
sharing them could e-mail them to me at
a.parkinson@gmail.com , I will add them to an online resource that will be
created at the website. Although it might not always seem like it, ICT should
be saving us time and effort…
Sun has finally come out and have
spent time in the garden, plus a day on the golf course yesterday.
New MOD website launches in
September with Geography content on Boscastle and Migration including refugees
from the Balkans.
July 25th
Was recently contacted by Chris, who
is behind a newish site called SURFING
GENIE. The website aims to get us all
visiting UK beaches rather than heading off abroad, and also provides a key
resource for those interested in surfing, which is a growing sport in the UK.
Has link to an
animated GIF showing
the surf height in the Atlantic, and perhaps most useful is a search function
which allows you to find a beach to suit your needs within the UK.
July 23rd
Summer finally here, although the
weather is anything but... It's now the term of Gloucester, Warwickshire,
Gloucestershire etc. to take the brunt, with the rising waters of the Severn and
the Avon. Added a new page about the
FLOODING IN JULY 2007
Been very busy with various writing
projects, but still managed to watch a lot of the Tour, and begin to relax a
little. My wife back today from a flying visit (literally) to Cork. British
Eurosport showing the whole of Stage 15 of the Tour today.. And it's raining outside. Lucy on Sky
telling us that more water is on the way.
July 12th
Got a flyer for the
BROAD FUTURES
resource. This is put together by a range of organisations. Has resources and
also schemes of work for sustainable themes. Also exploring the new RGS Climate
site :
Your Climate Your Life a
little more, and it's an excellent resource.
July 10th
A lot has happened in the last 5
days... First of all on Friday was the final
meeting of the Young People's Geographies project. This introduced me to
the THINKING SPACE resource produced by Dan Ellison, and I duly ordered 30 of
them...
On Saturday and Sunday, the
TOUR DE
FRANCE set off from London. Over the weekend, it was the 2nd
SLN FIELD WEEKEND. We had a very enjoyable couple
of days where we explored the coastline and had a few rather pleasant meals. Roll on Cuba 2009 ?
On Monday, I went down to a meeting to
develop some new resources for the
GEOGRAPHY TEACHING TODAY website. If you haven't already visited, or
haven't visited for a while, there is a growing amount of material going up on
the site.
July 5th
Update from RGS-IBG which gives
details of 2 very useful websites which you might want to visit.
Your Climate Your Life
is the first. This is a great looking website, which has the hand of Simon Oakes
on it, and also some contributions from Noel Jenkins. Well worth using in the
final few weeks, perhaps linking with Live Earth (the Musically Sound bit...) Also try the Moving Here, resource
which looks at people moving into the UK:
TEACHING MIGRATION.
Also details of the RGS-IBG AS/A2 Revision
conference which features: me ! Reminds me that I need to start preparing
something... Some E Learning credits orders also to
sort today, as well as some podcasting equipment.
June 29th
Tuesday was the start of a
nightmare for thousands of people in Rotherham and Sheffield - my home area.
Some new FLOOD RESOURCES here. Also a productive Friday spent putting
together some SEN resources with other working
group members.
June 24th
Wet weekend again. Loads of little
projects ongoing and pottering away in the little time I have. Added a new section for the new KS3 PoS -
head over to the
GeographyTeachingToday website for more details of this. Also ordered my Tour de France shirt -
this year's design is very geographical....
June 20th
I thought the end of term was supposed
to be a quiet time ! Invited to speak to Geography mentors
at Homerton College next week: standing in for Rob Chambers. Also got an SEN meeting coming
up, looking at writing materials to support students with the new topics in the
KS3 PoS
Also a new idea from Rob Chambers: the
VOKI site, which allows you to create
animated figures on a customised background and then 'give' them words to say
either by using a text to speech facility or by using a microphone or sound
file.
Thanks also to Bob Lang for
sending a CD of materials from Edexcel event related to the new GCE (AS/A2)
specifications. Plenty of useful materials to support the planning for the new
topics which we will be delivering from 2008. On the back of this, I also this
week put up a new series of pages which can be reached from the
NEW EDEXCEL page, where I will put the ideas
that we develop at KES for the new Edexcel Geography specification, which is the
one we will be delivering from 2008 (at the moment....) Also a new
NING to support the
development of new units and materials. Which is not my number one priority at
the moment obviously but is worth thinking about in terms of gathering useful
articles and links between now and 2008. Going to
GLASTONBURY ?? Keep an
eye out for the G TEAM TENT... They will be on hand with a tent full
of free goodies to hand to the 150 000 punters... Hope they have some wellies... Some flash flooding around the
place last night: I unplugged my router because of the lightning (an old trick
my granny taught me)
June 13th
Various other projects appeared in
last few days. There's a growing movement towards
making Christmas a plastic carrier-bag free one. The organisation called WE ARE
WHAT WE DO is behind the scheme to change people's attitudes to packaging and
waste.
June 9th
GA Secondary Committee meeting in
London - some interesting discussions on the busy time that is going to face UK
geographers and geography students in the next 5 - 10 years. On the way back, started to read
Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist", which has made a good start on the
real price of coffee (nicely timed with the launch of Black Gold movie. Also got
a Tour de France magazine to develop some resources around that. Some recent articles of interest: one
on growing fertility rate, and one on David Beckham's flight schedule for
next season which I think would make a good piece of work: his carbon
bootprint (do you see what I did there ?)
June 8th
Spent the day at a CLIMATE CHANGE
CONFERENCE at Carrow Road in Norwich. Met up with a few familiar faces.
A wet trip over in the minibus, and
chat to a few people. They were setting up for the George Michael concert which
my wife is going to next week.
Have added a WORD DOCUMENT with
details and weblinks from the day. Was impressed with the presentation
from Jason Borthwick from EARTHLY
IDEAS, who runs the Burnham Deepdale venue where the SLN meeting is
being held in July. He is a diversification consultant. Check out some of his
website tips:
http://www.earthlyideas.co.uk/usefulwebsites.asp
Also my MOO CARDS arrived -
very nice !
June 5th
World Environment Day - a guide
in the
GUARDIAN for some simple things that you can do and an image gallery. Such
as switch off your computer. Unfortunately, I've got a set of reports to write
by midnight... Lots of new blog posts to get stuck
into too... Also ordered a new FREE pack from the
Ministry of Defence called DEFENCE DYNAMICS. Resource is aimed at 14-16
year olds, and comes in the form of a CD ROM with supporting materials. It
covers a number of interesting topics using the context of the services, and has
maps and other materials. Looks good !
June 4th
So that was half term...
Thanks to Danny
from WHERE-WOLF for sending me a
complimentary GRID REFERENCE FINDER. Check them out -
as Danny says "Get one, or get lost!" Happy to feature
other resources that I get sent for free... E-mail me for details...
May 26th
Half term finally here!
(and with it the rain...)
Good luck to all
Year 13s with their exams, especially members of my form group.
Spent several hours today working on
the images and lesson sequences for my book, and having fun creating some of the
resources that will be used. Need to consolidate the various ideas which are on
3 separate computers at the moment. Some changes from the original ideas taking
place. Also added an EAL
page as part of my forthcoming involvement in another project. New TESCO article on
GEOGRAPHY IN THE NEWS site.
Very useful article on
WIND
TURBINES at Marshland St. James near King's Lynn, which have been in the
local news in fairly tragic circumstances. Wind Power is an emotive issue
locally. Don't forget to get your
FREE DVD on Wind Power from
http://www.windpower-dvd.org/
May 21st
It's a NING thing... My latest
trial is with something called NING,
which allows you to make social networks. A great plan by Dan Raven Ellison
and co. to
distribute badges at the London Live Earth concerts is now featured on Geopolis.
May 20th
Just found this usefu site while
doing some work on Pilot. In 2001 there was a Census: a count of population.
Interestingly, just last week, there was a Census test carried out in some parts of the country: Bath and North East Somerset, Camden, Carmarthenshire, Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent.
You can download some FACT SHEETS on the test from THIS PAGE.
Some interesting discussion on SAMPLING
here.
May 12th
Another lost weekend of marking and
assembling Pilot portfolios. Rainy week all round, which was much needed. Added new materials to many of the AS
and A2 pages for revision - the REVISION page is the most visited of the
pages on the site at the moment. Don't forget to get the COASTS stamps on
Tuesday. Visit the Daily Telegraph's new
EARTH site:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/index.jhtml
Also going to try and get some ODEO
podcasts produced in the week - if I get a moment tomorrow I'll do some, but not
looking likely...
Good luck to all Year 12s,
who went off on Study Leave yesterday...
May 7th
Busy week coming up now for PILOT
GCSE: both for teachers and students ! Spent most of the day in Norwich on
Friday producing some pre-release materials for the exam and taking a look at
some of the coursework that has been produced by other centres. Thanks to
colleagues from Rosemary Musker (especially Penny Parry for her booklet),
Notre Dame and Thorpe St. Andrew schools for their input. New materials now on
the EXAM PREPARATION page if you're a Pilot centre. Also got the RGS-IBG newsletter and
annual review, and confirmation that Val Vannet will be awarded the Ordnance
Survey excellence in Secondary teaching award in June at the RGS-IBG AGM. Well
done Val !
Also reading through my latest GA
MAGAZINE. A good illustrated conference review, and my latest WEBWATCH
article all about BLOGGING. If you're a GA member, you can
download a copy from the website. Just reading through some of the
materials from the conference sessions which I was unable to attend. Rain for first time in weeks today -
well, it is a Bank Holiday after all...
Also, my biography now added to list of CGeog
(Teacher) on RGS website.
May 1st
Busy week. Over in the sun through the
Norfolk countryside to Gressenhall Rural Life Museum near East Dereham for the
afternoon for an SLN working group meeting: the resources we put together will
soon be available on the site. Also sorting out coursework issues,
and lots of other departmental issues. Plenty of marking and reports of course
as well. Check out this BBC article for a flavour:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6611083.stm
Just under 2 months to the Pilot GCSE
exam.
Preparing resource packs for a meeting
on Friday on the PILOT GCSE PRE RELEASE materials. Lots of new materials on the
BLOGS too. Lots of resources for others. Plans for various other INSET sessions.
April 28th
Two months to go to the Pilot GCSE
exam!
Earthquake this morning in Kent which
occurred as I was watching the BBC breakfast news about quarter past 8. Turned out to be around 4.3
on Richter scale or so. Lots of structural damage in the area around Folkestone
and electricity and phones were affected.
Pictures appearing on the internet and weblogs very promptly, including a
seismograph. Lots of news footage during the day. Epicentre off the coast of
Folkestone in the Dover Straits, and lasted around 5 seconds. Added a quick
POWERPOINT on new page.
Also lots of worrying stuff in the
Independent about evidence for Global warming and possible futures.
Remember the SLIDESHARE resource I
mentioned to several groups: try those posted by VAL VANNET for example:
http://www.slideshare.net/ValVannet or mine... More to go online when I get
a moment...
April 24th
Richard Allaway introduced me to
SCRAPBLOG: http://www.scrapblog.com -
will need to see whether it works at school before seeing if I can use it for a
revision tool: produce a SCRAPBLOG for a particular topic and then share
them with other people. Slideshare doesn't work at school very well, so we'll
see....
Also check out the GA website for the
details on the GA CONFERENCE with lots of good materials going up
there....
April 21st
Next week there are plenty of
programmes on 'Britishness' to look forward to, and also ones on SHOPPING
for those of you who are into Geographies of CONSUMPTION. Don't forget EARTH DAY TOMORROW !
Check out the WORDSWORTH rap at
http://www.golakes.co.uk
Revision materials from Cramlington
School
http://www.cchsonline.co.uk/gcsehl/geog/geoghl.htm
Tesco are now apparently 'richer than
Peru...'
April 19th
Recommended viewing: THE HUMAN
FOOTPRINT : Channel 4 April 26th at 9pm - set the recorder ...
Recommended listening: THE REITH
LECTURES on Radio 4
April 17th
Today I heard those three little words
I most look forward to hearing....Back to school
New Pilot materials now on the blog
for those who are enduring the ongoing computer problems. Apologies for this,
but we will do what we can to reduce the stress. I will get the coursework for
you later today all being well....
http://www.field-studies-council.org/fieldstudies/ - great new archive of
articles - great resource for higher level students & their teachers...
April 13th - 14th
Check out the GA
Conference Report - it was a great weekend. Materials already appearing on
the GA WEBSITE.
Also check out
ANDREW STACEY's wonderful image
galleries of the conference and beyond...
Also at the conference, I heard about
Rob Chambers' wonderful recent creation: the GEOGRAPHY DIRECTORY 2007,
which runs to 180 pages. To download it you'll have to go to
GEOBYTES then clicking on the
DEPARTMENT link which is down the left hand side of the screen, and then
choosing the GEOGRAPHY DIRECTORY download - be warned thought that it's a
chunky 5+Mb and will take a while to download on dial-up (but then, who has
dial-up these days ? - oh, you do....) A must for every geography department and
student wanting in depth revision materials... Here's a FRENCH version of the
resource with live links:
http://clioweb.free.fr/peda/chambers/chambers.htm probably something to do
with Daniel Letouzey!
Thanks to Tony Cassidy for producing
some shopping materials (though the downloads keep running out...)
Also back from the
conference to find out that I had received the certificate to confirm that I
have been granted the qualification of CHARTERED
GEOGRAPHER by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) - a great
honour !
Well done also to Tom Biebrach
CGeog and Sally Sumner CGeog
April 7th
Sitting in the garden as I write this:
lovely sunshine - warmer than average weather. A writing day...
Later on, will upload the GA
Presentation on GIS for Beginners (well, my bit anyway) to SLIDESHARE.
New
BBC
Interactive Map on the effects of Climate Change, and Emma Johns has
produced a good worksheet to go along with the map.
Also saw report on the BBC News about
one way of reducing the carbon footprint of a trip to Australia: a 12 week coach
trip on the OZ BUS. Could be a basis for a
lesson: itinerary planning, tracing the trip, creative writing etc. Would
certainly like to go, although it's £3750 and I doubt I'll get the time off
work. Also came across the CASA Google Maps
download and some of the maps that have been produced with it, such as the
WORLD GDP map.
A sort of do-it-yourself Maplecroft.
April 6th
A lot of marking done today - reports
to come... Reading "Return to Akenfield" - some
good links with rural-urban relationships and the growth of second home
ownership, also got "Three Sheets to the Wind" by Pete Brown to look forward to.
Fetched my wife and daughter from the airport.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6524251.stm - report from IPCC
meeting this week - widely reported
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6532323.stm - some sort of agreement
reached
Investigating the idea of
NEOGEOGRAPHY which seems to be spreading online. Also a new feature on GOOGLE MAPS to
allow you to create your own maps (MY MAPS) with drawing tools. Good for
FIELDTRIP maps - Simon Renshaw has already had a go...
April 4th
To Cambridge on the train with my son
to Sedgwick museum... Some great new finds by Noel Jenkins:
new GOOGLE EARTH blog:
http://www.gelib.fox-fam.com/ Somebody shooting rabbits in the field
beyond the mill at the moment, and a double sacking on 'The Apprentice'...
April 2nd
Over to Norwich to take my wife to the
airport for a flight , then out to Woodbastwick to the Woodforde's Brewery Shop,
and then lunch at the Fur and Feather - recommended if you're in the area, as is
their Sundew Ale - then out to Happisburgh for a few pictures, then pootled back
along the coast and via Felbrigg Hall home. A few internet problems tonight -
not connecting to the server - hopefully OK tomorrow.
Tony Cassidy has launched instructions
for making a WEBCAM WALL: would be a fantastic talking point as students
come into the classroom:
http://radicalwebcamgeography.co.uk/2007/04/02/creating-a-web-cam-wall/ -
also some details on a new websitecartoon building idea called TOON DOO.
I suggest you check out the WEB CAM WALL INSTRUCTIONS and have a go. It seems to
work on one of my computers but not the other.
Now added the
CAMBRIDGE FIELDWORK DATA for 6th Formers - you
will need to add some more details to this over Easter. This is a little lacking
in detail.
April 1st
Finally....
What a term that has just been...
Added lots of new materials to try to
support various groups: more PILOT GCSE
materials on weblog, new REVISION materials
for the GCSE groups, new AS POPULATION MIGRATION
materials (ready for a hectic April as we cover the remaining materials, and
thanks to Simon Oakes for some useful guidance on population movement) and
data from the recent CAMBRIDGE FIELDTRIP. Also
a new QUARRYING page following the well received Doreen
Quarry Queen video last week.
-
Ordered my free EU maps from
http://www.europe.org.uk/maps/
-
Great posts on
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
relating to Burma's new capital and Millau viaduct.
-
Thanks to the student who passed on a
set of OU Course S278 Science Level 2 books 1, 2 & 3, a rock kit and DVD. Sure I
can find a use for these!
-
Currently reading James Lovelock's
'Revenge of Gaia', and Andrew Simms' 'Tescopoly' - recommended.
Of course, having read the first
couple of chapters I then had to go shopping - quick pootle through glorious
sunny, crisp North Norfolk and a quick pint in my local (as you do...) and then
it was into...er... oh OK, Tescos. (hypocrite !)
Hope to see some of you at the
University of Derby on the 13th and 14th of April.
New blog from Tony Cassidy called
SHARE GEOGRAPHY:
http://www.sharegeography.co.uk - we need a few more people who are willing
to do that.
March 19th
The start of another very hectic week.
Had to cancel a few things this week, as exam groups need to take precedent as
we come to the end of the courses for AS and A2. Still quite a lot to do on
Population migration with the AS group.
Had a very pleasant weekend down in
Suffolk. If you are in the SAXMUNDHAM area, can I recommend the
GEORGIAN HOUSE HOTEL as a
place to stay - very friendly welcome, good food and accommodation.
We went to Southwold on
Saturday. On Ian Murray's recommendation, we went to
Southwold Pier - usually we stay
closer to the centre of town, but instead we hit the pier and the beach. Breezy,
but sunny day. Visited the UNDER THE PIER show. This includes a range of
quirky and bizarre home made arcade machines and experiences.
http://www.underthepier.com has details on most of the machines, and some of
them were made by Tim Hunkins.
TIM HUNKIN's website has details of the machines that he built for the
attraction - very imaginative.
Some of them have a geographical link.
I loved the MICROBREAKS one, where you can take a package tour in 3
minutes without creating a large carbon footprint. Check out the attraction if
you're in Southwold !
Then it was into the centre of
Southwold for a quick trip to the ADNAMS brewery. I own quite a few
Adnams mugs, clothing, posters etc. and I'm a big fan of the BEER FROM THE
COAST campaign and its graphics. Blogged about this already... Some good
bookshops and quirky galleries too. Wandered back via Dunwich, and also a view
of
Adnams' new environmentally friendly distribution centre on the road back
towards Blythburgh.
On Sunday, it was Aldeburgh.
Weather was turning very much colder. Very windy and wandered along the shingle,
and at the end of the High Street is the famous Aldeburgh fish and chip shop.
There was a long queue, but 'the girls' very kindly stood in it, while we amused
the kids on the beach. Fantastic fish and chips. Good shops too... Back late on Sunday and spent some time organising
TECTONICS page for first time in a
year for students, and also planning materials for the week ahead. Lots of timetable changes
this week too. Snow forecast for some areas early next week. We'll see...
March 11th
Doing work on the
GA CONFERENCE workshop. Thanks to Tom Biebrach for
his hard work on this, and my other colleagues on the SPC.
Also lots of marking and coursework
stuff. Also reading EVERYTOWN - interesting reading the mixed
responses and reviews in the various papers - on Saturday and Sunday - not
everyone warming to the book. Reviewed some work I've been doing for
GA too, and some overdue stuff on Gifted and Talented for my colleague Mr.
Chappell. Some great new ideas from virtual
colleagues: Noel Jenkins has produced an excellent teaching resource
using GOOGLE EARTH and Philip Pullman's NORTHERN LIGHTS book. Check it
out ! Also, Mark Batchelor and colleague at Bushloe School have a nice idea for doing a book review from the Horrible
Geography series as a literacy crossover.
Lovely high pressure day, and out to
do some gardening at Old Town club - the bikers were out in force in Hunstanton
and family fun on the beach at Wells.
March 7th
Busy day and added some new materials
on FOOD MILES and
WIND ENERGY for lessons coming up.
Had to miss out on a Geography network
meeting at Holt Hall yesterday, which was a pity. Lots of details on next week's
YOUNG PEOPLE'S GEOGRAPHIES meeting being provided
by Di Swift today (also caught a Teachers TV programme on Globalisation which
featured Di at GA Headquarters) A useful diagram showing the
KEY CONCEPTS in Geography,
which I like.
Also working on some new KS3 SoW for
YEAR 8 for after Easter: SHOP 'TIL YOU DROP &
MOVING AROUND - we still need to decide which
one to go for !
March 3rd
Out to Wells next the Sea, then back
via Adnams brewery shop for a crate of Broadside and an explorer Shirt. Then
produced a quiz for local primary school and a pottering day of work ahead...
March 2nd
E-mail from Philip Collie of
Schoolzone to say that GeographyPages has been rated a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED site by Schoolzone.
I'm already a 5
star site, so is a 5 Star rating better or worse than a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ? Thanks for the award
!
Also got sent details of a new visitor
attraction planned for Devon in association with the Met Office, which is now
based in Exeter. It's to be called WEATHERWORLD, and you can download a PDF
brochure by visiting the WEATHERWORLD
site.
Also added a major set of posts to the
KES PILOT weblog following a visit today by Mr. Clarke to the department
to talk about planning in King's Lynn.
Another very busy week, and at least
another 4 to come !
March 1st
St. David's Day - lots of daffodils at
school today. Also teaching about FAIRTRADE
FORTNIGHT and COMIC RELIEF.
Had very interesting meeting yesterday
in Sheffield at the GA headquarters as part of my role on the Pilot GCSE
Sounding Board. It was good to meet up with Di Swift and Nicky Reckless again,
plus Justin Woolliscroft, Phil Wood and Professor Noel Castree. We discussed a
range of issues relating to the course and the forthcoming GEOGRAPHY 21
conference. Make sure that you sign up - its FREE ! For me, this was very
interesting CPD. Had a fairly swift trip up to Sheffield on Monday evening and
stayed with a friend in Sheffield. Monday night it was down to a favourite pub:
the FAT CAT at the entrance to Kelham Island to drink Pale Rider and chat to
some friends who are emigrating to New Zealand.
Another interesting period came after
the meeting. Dropped Noel off at the Railway Station, and then realised that not
only had all the road and building layout down from the University changed, but
also the roundabout outside the station had completely gone. Ended up going up
the hill past Park Hill flats, out to Mosbrough along the Supertram tracks and
then realised I was going back in time to 1988 and my second term as a teacher
when I worked in Eckington on the edge of Sheffield, and here I was on the road
that I used to take each morning by bus through Swallownest, except virtually
everything has changed and just now and again a building or a landscape feature
jumped out as being 'familiar'.
The theme was picked up by my latest
Amazon Marketplace purchase: "I'm a stranger here myself" which is about Bill
Bryson's return to the USA having spent around 20 years living in the UK, and
his response to returning 'home' and finding everything had changed.
Watched interesting Time Team special on Pugin.
Earlier in the week it was down to
Bury St. Edmunds for a meeting related to the new Performance management
arrangements. Interesting times once again....
Also had a couple of pieces of good news, but I'll
have to wait until next month to tell you what it is...
February 25th
Finished Lynsey Hanley's 'ESTATES' -
excellent book. Some resources to come, although some interesting discussion and
letters querying some of the comments. Also started Philippe Legrain's
'Immigrants' book, and even after one chapter I can visualise the resources for
population and migration that could come out of it.
Also watching new CLASS CLIPS
programme, with Dan Ellison's consultancy - interesting clips and programmes
1. Urban regeneration / Olympics in
Stratford 2012
2. Geography of Graffiti through
enquiry including some good use of GPS and GIS.
3. Geography of Pets - dogs more
specifically as a tool to explore key geographical concepts, with Jo Norcup
from GEES
4. Clubbing tourism in Ibiza.. what
are the +/-? How do the impacts change with proximity to clubbing centres?
5. Journey of a UK product... follows
the production of Yeo Valley yoghurt from cow to shopping basket
Added some new materials to the
aa;ll;sdfklds';'loxcp'kpds'k;zck[;pdgorjg0ayggoe[tih9wueg8wutg-p[ju892u0tw9eugt4ougo3ut
- sorry about that, I had to pretend to be Mummy Pig from Peppa Pig who is
working on her computer at the moment on the video we're watching.... Oh dear,
Peppa has just crashed the computer....
Just
spent 2 hours backing up all my resources to an external hard drive.
How did Daddy Pig mend the computer by the way ? Well,
he switched it off then switched it back on again. Of course...
Also working on some new ideas on landscapes in
cartoons, Immigration and lots on the weblog for the PILOT GCSE.
Read Peter Jackson's chapter "Cultures of Difference"
in the 3rd edition of "The Changing Geography of the United Kingdom" published
by Routledge - great stuff for the Pilot. I
think this year has been the one where I've had my own mini "cultural turn"
towards the human aspects of Geography. Good
piece by Joan Bakewell in 'The Independent' on Friday:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/joan_bakewell/article2296800.ece
Also getting stuff ready for FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT,
which starts tomorrow - plenty of chocolate in.
February 22nd
What a wasted week ! Had a virus since
Monday night and while I've been off, I haven't even felt up to doing work, and
also been looking after my kids who are also poorly. At least managed to
watch a range of TV and catch up with some programmes on the Sky+ box, and made
some notes on TESCO (Dispatches programme),
BIRD FLU (Bernard Matthews),
CONGESTION CHARGE extension, MIGRATION (BBC News 24
report), PEAK DISTRICT (Countryfile) and
CHINA
Also preparing for some catch-up with
my Year 12 group on the ideas of POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS and
MIGRATION.
Also updated the
TURKEY EARTHQUAKE materials for Year 9, GEOGRAPHY OF
SPORT for Year 7 and some new PILOT GCSE
pages for our potential Year 11 modules which we shall decide on soon.
Also got details from
THE FORUM in Norwich. They are holding an event: the
EARTH EVENT over the
next few months which I think has great potential for us to visit.
It features Yann Arthus Bertrand's
EARTH FROM THE AIR photos,
which have already been displayed in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh. I saw the
pictures when they were in Birmingham and it's an impressive exhibition. There's
a teachers' twilight session in March which I'll try to get to if time permits,
and well also make some connections with the
CIVITAS initiative.
There's also a photo competition
open to school students, which will be judged by
HARRY CORY WRIGHT and others.
February 18th
Trip away for a few days: down to
Orpington. Started with a journey down the M11 - black soil of the Fens,
creative driving on the M25, Canary Wharf and Thames Gateway from Queen
Elizabeth bridge, remains of downed trees from the storm. Next day it was into
London. My son is really into Underground Ernie at the moment, and we made a
trip in to ride on the Underground. Ernie has a lot of games on the website, and
my son likes working out the routes on the Underground map.
Into London Bridge station: London Eye
and Big Ben, and on to the underground at Charing Cross - to Hamley's,
then through to Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square. An attempt underway to
break the record for the largest number of people eating chips - loads of free
cones of chips being handed out: more details at
http://www.lovechips.co.uk - and
through Chinatown with lanterns up for the New Year, and into Stanfords and Muji,
then Long Acre and Covent Garden; down to the Strand and back to Orpington. Down
into Orpington for lunch.
Friday it was out to Bluewater: like
the Eden Project, it's built into an old quarry. Wander round and hit the Lego
shop - lots of bowls on the conveyor belt at Yo Sushi!. Saturday morning it was
out to Greenwich Park on a bright and sunny morning. Down to the Observatory and
onto the Meridian line. Pottered around and then had winter vegetable casserole
in the Pavilion Tea Rooms (recommended if you're in the area) and then it was
back to Norfolk up the M11.
Friend Conor's 2nd book "SAGA" now out
- available on Amazon but probably not in the shops yet.
Spent the day pottering ready for
tomorrow - back to work.
February 8th
Earlier this week, I was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society - a great honour!
Thanks to David Rayner for his
reference, and to the RGS-IBG. I hope to pop
down soon....
Lots of 'virtual' colleagues based
further south and west off
school today due to snow, and SEN Workshop I was due to go on been cancelled -
just a few random flakes in King's Lynn though.
New POLAND resources taking shape this
weekend too.
February 4th
Another rather busy week - is there
any other type ? A combination of extra work, consultancy work, admin, reports
and writing. Lots of interesting e-mails. Down to the IoE on a frosty morning
yesterday (typical winter anticyclone!) and very useful meeting planning for the
GA Conference workshop on GIS. Thanks to everyone for their contributions and
suggestions. Some fascinating stuff in Lynsey Hanley's "Estates" book.
Papers full of GLOBAL WARMING - every
paper full of stuff from the IPCC meeting earlier in the week.
Independent's was written by Mark Lynas,
and the effects of a 6 degree Celsius rise are a bit worrying ! Just watching Countryfile while
marking some books on another frosty, sunny morning. Pity that report writing
website not working ! Youth Ranger Programme in the Peak
District featured, and lots of familiar places in Hope Valley, Flo's campsite,
Stanage Edge, Castleton and Treak Cliff Cavern (went there on a school trip...).
I always wanted to live in the village of Hope so that I could say "Oh well, I
live in Hope...." Piece on the Brontes and the influence
of the landscape on their work
A bit of a freeze coming soon
apparently for the week: some Arctic air (Air masses !) on the way for the week,
and possibly some snow for Thursday.
Also enjoying Stuart Maconie's "Pies
and Prejudice": lots on cultural references to the North and what it means to be
Northern... A good PILOT resource. Also just catching up with Nick
Middleton's new series "Britain's Worst Weather" and wondering how many times
GEOGRAPHY will be mentioned. Well, it's a good start, because he mentions it
in the first sentence....
First episode was called FLOOD,
and looked at flash flooding, Boscastle, Lynmouth, Carlisle 2005, 1953 East
Coast Floods and coastal flooding in London compared with New Orleans. Some good
footage to use in lessons and interesting to see the Visitor Centre in Boscastle
where the flood is highlighted in displays. Useful details on convergence over
Boscastle and graphics, and details on London Gateway developments.
Also watching Michael Palin's Great
Railway Journey from Euston - where I was yesterday - to Kyle of Lochalsh.
Interesting to see how young he looks. Coffee on the train cost 21p. The old
story about how train drivers were asked to go full speed when they went
alongside roads. Pause in Crewe, where Stuart Maconie was also this morning in
his book, and the National Railway Museum.
Also new addition to Adam Lawson's stable
is GEOGDOCS which, like GeoBlogs
and Google Earth Users Guide was funded by an RGS-IBG Innovative Geography
Teaching Grant.
January 27th
Another busy week.
Royal visit to the school on Wednesday
by the Queen for centenary.
http://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/2007/01/25/the-queen-norfolk/ - who's
the woman in the blue Gore Tex in the background ?
Various meetings with Chinese visitors
from our partner school in Chongqing: amazing city ! They were impressed with
Google Earth and the IWBs. The plan is to exchange information between the
schools, and get the Pilot GCSE groups involved. Set up a new CHONGQING
page.
Photo trip to Millennium Community in
King's Lynn - results on Pilot blog.
A great Guardian resource on Migration
in the magazine today. Grab it while you can. Lots of detail on Britons abroad.
Also this weekend, make sure that you
do the RSPB Garden Birdwatch and help collect data on bird species which
may be being affected by Global Warming.
Some time spent on various projects,
and also 4 sets of reports to write, plus some details for a 6th form
conference at UEA.
Also new GIS page for GA Conference
2007
January 23rd
Contacted by Kye Askins of
Northumbria University to remind me about the MY WALKS project. This was
featured in the Today Programme on New Years Day: here's the details:
A team of academics
from Northumbria University’s Divisions of Geography and Environmental
Management have recently launched a new website, entitled ‘mywalks’. Mywalks is
a project designed to encourage people to open their eyes to the ‘hidden’,
perhaps less glamorous corners of their towns and cities - basically the things
around you: the man-hole cover, the tower block, the back lane.... ‘Switch off
your mp3 players and look around’ is the message. Don’t rely on ‘experts’ to
tell you what is worth looking at or appreciating; break away from the tourist
trail, which directs us to admire a parade of ‘landmarks’ in any city or town,
and engage with the less obviously picturesque sights (or in some cases, the
downright ugly…). The aim is to get people thinking about their immediate
environments from a different perspective, and to appreciate that geography is
everywhere around them, it’s about re-engaging with our immediate urban,
day-to-day, city, country, local, taken-for-granted environments and
geographies. Through the ‘mywalks’ website,
http://nuweb.northumbria.ac.uk/mywalks/intro.php, everyone can share
‘their walk’ and the experiences they encounter, with others.
January 20th
Another eventful week!
Preparing a week of
CHINA resources for our visitors next week,
which also include The Queen. Lots of assistance from people around the world.
Also various consultancy type
things, and a review of a new 'A' level resource to write.
Thursday was the day of the
YOUNG PEOPLE'S GEOGRAPHIES meeting in Leicester.
This meant leaving the house at 6.20am, and picking up the students to drive
to Peterborough. It was forecast to be very windy, as it has been several
times this year. We had a few problems with the wind trying to open the
minibus doors, then had an easy enough trip to Leicester, although the train
apparently hit a small tree on the way. Then it was up to the meeting at the
New Walk Museum. We did a tour of Leicester city centre, and then back for
more sessions which you can read about by following the link. Back to the
train station and fence around a church near the station had fallen down.
Train was delayed by 12 minutes, then it changed on the board to 'Delayed' and
then "CANCELLED". Oops...
No-one seemed to know anything, so
it was out and into a taxi, and negotiated the fare, then all in and a
familiar drive along the A47 past fallen branches and a lorry tipped over on
its side. Then had a car parking issue (later resolved - thanks to GNER) and a
final trip back to school to drop off the students. Then discovered that the
bypass around King's Lynn was closed (power lines down) and ended up winding
my way through the back roads of the Sandringham estate back home... Arriving
home just under 13 hours after I left...
Got back to find a large eucalyptus
tree in the garden was down, damaging shed and fence and falling across the
neighbour's garden.
When I got back, I searched through
FLICKR and got a whole host of
images that had been uploaded that very day. Also searched the news networks
and newspapers for material as well.
Also added a new
CYCLONE page, thanks to contributions from Jodi
John, who teaches at the British School in Manila.
Friday was a marathon report writing
day, interrupted by various other matters, which ended at 10.30pm. And so to
bed...
Just back from trip to Hunstanton,
and the sea is still very choppy with some large container ships standing off
out in the Wash.
Coming up tomorrow is the result of
the BBC's CLIMATE
EXPERIMENT.
I took part in this, so helped with
the results - more on GLOBAL WARMING page. Here are
the details of a programme on tomorrow:
Climate Change:
Britain Under Threat
Sun 21 Jan, 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm
"Sir David Attenborough is joined
by Kate Humble and Matt Allwright to investigate how climate change will
affect Britain. They reveal the results of an experiment designed to predict
the weather Britain can expect in the 21st century, and learn how it will
affect where its people choose to live, the cars they choose to drive and the
natural world they treasure."
Neighbour with a chain-saw came
round to help clear the fallen tree from my garden. Thanks Mick !
January 16th
Preparations for YPG, Farm Visits,
Cambridge Fieldtrip, UEA Conference.
Lesson planning for various groups,
plus 3 sets of reports to prepare for Friday.
David Lambert, Chief Executive of the
GA is doing the London Marathon along with Vanessa Lawrence, Director General of
the Ordnance Survey. Why not lend them your support, financial or moral...
January 14th
I thought that last term was busy... Has been a hectic week. Had a day on a
MIDDLE LEADERSHIP course, looking at ways of improving team leadership. Also had a day in London to meet up
for an exciting project! More on this in January 2008. Stormy weather on the way
down, and train stopped by tree on cables at one point.
Also lots of interesting Geo sites and
news. Good Equinox program on Birmingham and London Tornadoes. Excellent for A2
Geographers at my school. Plus lots of new blogs and stories relating to climate
change and sustainability.
Also trying to get some shape into
some reports, plan revision sessions, mark books etc. Also plans for work on SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES, and looking ahead to meeting of YOUNG PEOPLE'S GEOGRAPHIES.
Also latest issue of GA MAGAZINE was
made available for download, to which I contributed 5 pages of material.
Dan and David looking for the next
generation of GGiPers: a committee to take the group forward. Vote now for who
you want to be on it.
Looking forward to some new books
ordered from Amazon: "Estates" and "Immigrants", plus new Harry Pearson.
January 6th
Check out PASSPORT TO THE POLES:
a new project with RGS-IBG backing following a helicopter trip between the
Poles.
Also thanks to VAL VANNET for her
images of the ALPS over Christmas. A contrast to the effect of the
anticyclone in the UK.
Also later this year, Michael
Palin's new series on the NEW EUROPE. I loved the contrasting reporting of the
EU Expansion in The Sun and The Independent earlier this week.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6233697.stm- interesting article
on our demand for STONE from LEDCs - child labour and other links: do you still
want your granite workshop in the kitchen ?
All
next week on SKY NEWS:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/greenbritain
Also updated GEO BLOGS page to
add in some recent blogs by colleagues and SLNers.
http://www.curriculumbits.com – in coastal area – some FLASH animations -
thanks to Noel for tipoff...
Check out the
HYPE MACHINE for lots of mp3 downloads and to hear tracks...
My source for those PHOTO JAM soundtracks...
http://www.hull.ac.uk/hullga/meetings.htm - get a powerpoint by Alex Deakin
on Extreme Weather here... Good to cannibalise...
January 1st 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL VISITORS
Hope you noticed the new front
page.
Coming soon: some more updates. Had
over 1.26 million page views in 2006.
Lots of blogging activity: check the
GEO BLOGS page for more new ones, and a reminder of some favourites. Have now
started adding links to those which are of particular benefit to KES pupils to
the front page.
Best of luck to all those students
who have exams coming up later this month, or later this year...
December 27th
Back to work today following a whole 2
days off Geography... Spurred on by article in 'The Times' with Rita Gardner
talking about how Sat Nav is reducing mapskills (and commonsense if some of the
stories are to be believed about people being misled...)
Added some new
FOG resources and Soils links thanks to e-mails received.
Why not play this STERN REPORT game:
http://www.futerra.co.uk/xmas06/
December 26th
Keep going on the Geography Cup
website and having your 3 daily games. What are your Geo-Resolutions for
the New Year ?
Also thanks to the 876 visitors I
had yesterday, on Christmas Day itself !
December 21st
Finally on holiday, and the freezing
fog is lingering over the Norfolk coast.
In the news is the approval given to
the building of the LONDON ARRAY. This will
be a huge development which is likely to become more common if we are to reduce
fossil fuel use. Lots of links on the website use too.
December 21st
Finally on holiday, and the freezing
fog is lingering over the Norfolk coast.
In the news is the approval given to
the building of the LONDON ARRAY. This will
be a huge development which is likely to become more common if we are to reduce
fossil fuel use. Lots of links on the website use too.
December 17th
Christmas countdown continuing!
Had my BETT Supplement article
published in the Guardian this Tuesday. Check out
GEOGRAPHYJAZZ for more details
on the article and how to read it.
New computer arrived yesterday - I finally have an up to date machine !
Pity my wireless network is so blooming slow! Bring back cables!
Lots of Christmas additions planned.
Keep coming back for more as GeographyPages starts its 8th year in various
incarnations in 2007
Keep going on the GEOGRAPHYCUP - the
UK needs to stay in front, which is where we are as we speak...
Also adding some
RELIGIOUS STUDIES resources as a cross-curricular
pages, relating to INSET that I'm doing for colleagues next week. This could be
adapted to most subjects...
Will be using some familiar
POWERPOINT TEMPLATES and IMAGE ideas... Also some worrying Global Warming
stories relating to lack of snow in Alps and not even snow in Moscow, and the
river isn't frozen. David Attenborough on Sunday AM this morning.
December 10th
Weekly round-up - all the latest
reaction is increasingly going on the blogs. Been enjoying the Space
Navigator - recommended for improving your Google Earth experience! A good
Christmas present. Lots of Geography this week. Some new
materials on the blogs relating to Millennium Communities! Thanks to Sarah Chadwick for responding so quickly with a mystery.
Some useful images on the BBC News site.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4953&&edition=1&ttl=20061209112450
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6163931.stm - 1000s of Post Offices are
set to close - huge impacts on Rural Communities. We will be investigating this
with 6th form groups.
Ordered a new DELL Computer today -
getting a little fed up with my ageing machines, so 'invested' some of the money
earned recently, and got a machine which is VISTA ready and comes with a free
UPGRADE. Due to arrive in time for Christmas, and it'll take me all holiday to
transfer all my stuff across and get the various plug-ins and software loaded.
Might treat myself to a new wireless router while I'm at it. You know I deserve
it.
Also a trip to a windy Hunstanton -
windsurfers enjoying themselves, and over for a birthday party at the Pier
centre in a biting wind. A few glasses of 'Fireside' ale as well.
Lots of new blog postings. Came across
some new Google Earth ideas, and also downloaded some nice end of term
activities courtesy of several SLN folk. Many thanks!
December 1st
Space Navigator arrived today and need
to install, then check it out on Monday. Looks good - reassuringly chunky and
shiny.
November 30th
Noel Jenkins has posted about a
great new device called the 3D SPACENAVIGATOR. This is a sort of
joystick-style device which allows you to explore 3D worlds such as GOOGLE EARTH
and SKETCHUP.
Here's Noel's description of the
device:
"The SpaceNavigator is a 3D input device that
provides a delightful way of interfacing with Google Earth. A gentle press on
the top results in a smooth gliding descent towards the ground. Equally
intuitive hand motions allow the user to navigate within the virtual globe,
and after a couple of sessions my mouse was confined entirely to essential
clicking operations.
It is a lovely object, comprising a heavy stainless steel base and a stumpy
joystick surrounded by a blue LED. The experience is still quite novel, though
on reflection, I’ve spent a lot more time in the past few weeks exploring the
earth purely out of interest, rather than an urgent desire to find a crucial
placemark in time for a lesson the following day. Certain operations, for
example flying around a mountain or valley feature, or following a route
through a 3D city are considerably enhanced with the SpaceNavigator, since you
just keep watching the screen as your hand does the navigating. By comparison,
a mouse now feels clunky, especially when tilting the view.
Setting up the SpaceNavigator for initial use was
straightforward, with a well constructed tutorial part of the software. It
plugs in to the PC via a USB port and the driver installed with ease. The
joystick and two buttons can be customized via a control button and
preferences saved for different applications."
Ordered one earlier this week - will let you
know how I get on when it arrives....
Just remembered I needed to get some
AIDS resources up in time for tomorrow, and
they're now available. Just in time...
Thanks to Tony for the link to some of
his AIDS resources - noticed that he's finally had the time to add a few new
bits to site - like me, he's been busy blogging and doing new courses. Also used
his YOU TUBE downloading hints, and thanks to Riva and Firefox plug in I have
some useful video starters.
A good statement on the use of
LEVELS by David Lambert now available to
download (WORD DOCUMENT) via SLN FORUM. Worth reading for the next time you're
asked to report levels on Year 7's.....
Also added new
AMAZON page as a case study for DISTRIBUTION
INDUSTRY (needs some more work though....) in response to a posting by jhc on
SLN FORUM
http://www.bigpicturesmallworld.com/index.shtml - good movies to watch and
use
November 26th
Some interesting new sites this week. The first is via Tony Cassidy, and is
called WOOPHY. http://www.woophy.com -
try it and be excited.
Also on Saturday, my son got the DVD
"Cars" for his birthday, and had a chance to see all the detail that you miss
the first time round. Great section on crossing the USA and the arrival of the
INTERSTATE which meant the decline of small towns on the old Route 66. Lots of
Geography in here.
Also an AIDS page in preparation for World Aids Day on
December 1st.
And finally, was contacted by Laurel via the
PILOT GEOG BLOG and
I recommend you check COLD PHOTO blog.
A pity they don't have that grant in the UK !
November 19th
Another hectic week over, and an
equally hectic weekend..
Spent a day this week in Leicester at
the first meeting of a new project called YOUNG PEOPLE'S GEOGRAPHIES. More on
this to come soon. This will involve the school in 3
further meetings at the New Walk Museum in Leicester. Some fascinating
presentations and some new leads to follow. Check out the ENQUIRING MINDS
project from FUTURELAB.
Just back from a weekend up in York.
The trip up was rather wet, coinciding with Friday evening and a torrential
downpour which meant that we were only 75 miles down after 2 hours. Had a pause
off the M180, then crossed the floodlit Humber Bridge as the rain finally
stopped, and then a familiar trek from Hull across to York. My son's 5th
birthday, and a trip to Creepy Crawlies (recommended if you're ever on the York
Ring Road with some fractious kids) Back down today in bright sunshine all the
way. Just taking a 5 minute break from marking essays and Treasure Islands. Some
PILOT resources been added for MY PLACE. Enjoyed reading Tony Cassidy's
weblog on his Pilot Coursework for Wanda Lust, and Rob Chambers sent me a fine
list of PERIGLACIATION links which I will need to explore shortly before
finishing off my VON THUNEN powerpoint. Also enjoyed Noel's "50 ways to leave
your levee" powerpoint.
November 14th
Congratulations to Team Geography who
got the most votes to form the editorial team who will produce the Radio 4
'Today' programme for January 1st 2007: to get the New Year off to a
Geographical start!
And tomorrow is World GIS Day
apparently, and there are some new GOOGLE EARTH layers for Geography Awareness
Week in the USA.
November 2nd
Coming soon: the GEOGRAPHY CUP !!
Also attended e-learning conference
today, and had a session on Blogging from Peter Ford. Interesting stuff...
October 20th
Finally made it to half term ! Lots of
coughing and sneezing colleagues, and I had a touch of the lurgy myself. It's
been a bit of a half term all round ! Not really had time to pause for breath,
and the half term holiday looks like being rather packed too. Still, you're only
middle-aged once !
Getting geared up now for
SAGT Conference. Just hunted out my passport. Looking
forward to seeing Geographical colleagues old and new. I'll be packing my GGiP
T-Shirt.
A new BLOG produced by
John Gardiner who wrote the official Google Earth Users' Guide. Click HERE to
visit the BLOG and HERE to visit the USER GUIDE (Version 4, but guide is also
available for earlier versions).
You might have missed my appearance in
the Lynn News. If so, go to the BLOG and read the latest postings. Also doing a tape of Steve Leonard's
AMAZING ANIMAL JOURNEYS featuring Aurora the Polar Bear and her cub on
Svalbard. Great programme and full of Geography.
Doug Belshaw's blog also led me to
BUBBLR which I like a lot... But then I like thousands of sites and if I had
the time I could use them all !
http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/
- add speech bubbles to photos and make cartoon strips - could ask your students
to make like a photo 'Geog' story (rather than a photo love story....)
October 8th
Not a lot of new stuff on the site
lately, and there won't be this side of Christmas (apart from the ongoing
Pilot GCSE additions) due to lots of internal
deadlines plus external projects. Out to the Norfolk coast yesterday on
a bright autumn day. Had lunch at Felbrigg Hall, then down into Sheringham which
is currently fighting a battle to avoid Tesco having permission to site a store
there. Steam engines puffing away on the coastal route, then back via Cley next
the Sea, where we saw the first pink footed geese of winter - they'll soon be
twice daily visitors, sometimes in their thousands, flying over my house to and
from their feeding grounds...
I am going to transfer most of my
updates to my blog at
http://geographyjazz.blogspot.com - pop by some time...
Spent time today cooking for a big
family meal, then the rest of the day marking GCSE coursework and doing some
SAGT slides and an article for GA Magazine. Also tidied out the shed, and hunted
out my wellies ready for the salt marsh !
Also check out this GOOGLE
opportunity:
http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html
October 4th
"The best cure for lazyitis is double
geography..." (Gail Platt - Coronation Street...)
October 1st
A very busy month to come. Spent some
time at a kid's party doing my Google Earth booklet and trying out a FLASH
animation.
September 29th
Bought a copy of the book of Al
Gore's "an inconvenient truth" (in trendy lower case) for the
department. More resources available at the website to support the book and the
film. The trailer can be seen online, and it has had very good reviews from
several geography teachers I know. Of course, you can't get to see it in my
town....
Make sure that you go to the PILOT
GCSE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE and download the resources that have been made
available.
Also preparing some new
NEW ZEALAND
photo galleries, with some great images by Simon Hathaway an old friend of mine
(as in, I've known him a long time rather than he's old, although he is actually
old...)
http://www.globalgang.org.uk/disasterwatch/ - new game from Christian Aid,
and rather good. Look for clues and spot the disaster that is approaching....
Just putting together some HALF A
MIN quizzes using the wonderful new
CONTENT GENERATOR program.
Also having a look at the Guardian's Learn Premium resources for GA Magazine,
and was contacted by NSIDC in the US.
September 23rd
Catching up with
OLLIE BRAY's
weblog, which also had a lead to a rather nice MUG which you could buy for a
GEOGRAPHER friend of yours. It's a global warming mug which changes as you put
coffee or tea into it to show the effects of Global Warming.
Also registered for the PILOT GCSE
VIRTUAL CONFERENCE which will run for a couple of weeks and posted on a few
of the FORUMS.
Also interested in the recent Richard
Branson announcement that he is going to put all the profits from his Virgin
transport businesses to fighting global warming.
Also just downloading the software to
try to create a MEDIASCAPE: an idea from FutureLab - looks intriguing...
http://www.createascape.org.uk/create_a_mediascape/index.html
September 20th
Added a new MOVIES
page.
Also thinking through structure for a
GCSE evening tomorrow which is aimed at suggesting how parents can
support their offspring. Plus my indicators stopped working on
the car - cue the hand signals that are in the Highway Code but haven't had to
use before... Turning left is fun!
September 17th
Added a lot of new GCSE PILOT
materials that I've done over the last few weeks. Thanks to Tony Cassidy for his
input here too. The blogs are developing nicely.
Watched 'Cars' today. I like the elegaic quality of the scenes in Radiator Springs,
particularly when Sally the Porsche tells Lightning McQueen about how the town
was bypassed by Interstate 40 to save just 10 minutes driving time, and how
small-town America declined. Also like Filmore, with his "sweet tasting organic
fuel". The cross-country animation with Mack is also rather good.
Also new link is to the National
Geographic's MY WONDERFUL WORLD campaign. This is an attempt to improve
the geographical literacy of people in the USA in particular. Has some
interesting FLASH content.
September 13th
Another plethora of ideas from Russel
Tarr. This takes the form of CLASS TOOLS: a set of 11 new FLASH based
applications for producing a variety of teaching resources either 'live' or
ready to use in Word or HTML format. I like the POST IT activity, and the
HAMBURGER essay planner for 6th form. Also check out the TIMELINE and other
ideas...
Also discovered Val Vannet's
HIGHER
GEOGRAPHY BLOG which has some very useful postings - a useful digest which
will develop over the year... A little like some of my resources - only
better...
September 12th
Programme I was involved in as Subject
Adviser was shown last night on Teachers TV (and was also repeated tonight - and
will be several times over next few days) - good to see my name on the credits,
fame at last ! - TOP 10 ON THE WEB FOR GEOGRAPHY is the programme..
http://www.teachers.tv/strandProgramme.do?strandId=124951&transmissionProgrammeId=380082
I was asked to supply my suggestions
for Top 10 Websites for Geography Teachers, and to comment on some websites
which were thought to be useful. In the end, the programme asked the opinions of
staff at Henry Cort Community College in Hampshire.
For anyone who's interested, here is
the text of the e-mail, suggesting the Top 10 sites I supplied in April of this
year, which eventually fed in to the programme that was shown last night... How
do they compare with the choice of Henry Cort colleagues...
TOP 10
1. The
GA and RGS-IBG jointly billed as subject associations…
http://www.geography.org.uk
http://www.rgs.org
2.
http://www.sln.org.uk/geography
The
Staffordshire Learning Net is possibly THE place for geographers in the UK to
congregate and, via the Forum (which has over 25000 archived posts on all
conceivable geographical topics) to network and share ideas and resources.
This is the place for geography teachers to be inspired, and there are
numerous colleagues who have cause to thank Chris Durbin and Kate Russell who
set up the forum.
3.
http://www.met-office.gov.uk/education/index.html
4.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/
5.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/education/ - including Mapzone...
6.
http://earth.google.com/ - download GOOGLE EARTH !
7.
http://www.geographyphotos.com
Geography is all about images, and this site, which was Highly Commended at
the GA Awards 2005 deserves to have a lot of success. It offers copyright-free
images of a high quality, many taken by geography teachers, organised into
useful folders.
8.
http://www.geograph.org.uk
This is
an excellent site which has the aim of collecting (at least) one
‘geographical’ image for every 1km grid square in the country. After just over
one year, the site has over 120 000 images, and 25% coverage of the country. A
visit to any area produces a photomosaic which offers a real sense of place,
and images can easily be searched by category to provide the perfect picture
starter for a lesson. Images can also be viewed in Google Earth.
9.
http://www.globaleye.org.uk/index.html
Winner
of a GA Gold Award, this site features a series of magazines with online
support, including photography, activities and lesson plans. The material
tackles contemporary geographical issues, is well-presented, and reinforces
the idea of place and citizenship.
10.
Teacher Produced sites:
There
are a range of excellent teacher-produced sites which are leading the
development of interesting resources.
http://www.geographypages.co.uk – Alan Parkinson
http://www.geointeractive.co.uk – David Rayner
http://www.juicygeography.co.uk
– Noel Jenkins
http://www.radicalgeography.co.uk – Tony Cassidy
http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk
– Noel Jenkins
http://www.georesources.co.uk – David Rayner
http://www.geography-site.co.uk – David Robinson
Would be good to mention some or all of
these.
I think another thing to mention would be
that all of these offer FREE resources – teachers are short on two key
commodities: money and TIME and these sites will save them both as well as
providing what Chris Durbin said “ Real Geography has real outcomes” and these
help produce ‘real geography’…
Also my latest Webwatch feature is
in the new GA Magazine (PDF available to download from website)
September 9th
Weather warming up again, and getting
down to some serious preparations for SAGT Conference sessions on Google Earth.
Needed to get a firm structure and also produce the pack of resources the
delegates will be getting.
Also getting a little addicted to
YOU TUBE
& this little FLASH game (works well on IWB if you capture the flash file):
http://www.browserarcade.com/games/other/snipe/
YOU TUBE has tens of thousands
of videos, which could make great STARTER clips, and can also be saved as .FLV
files (which can be played with a Flash viewer) if you have Firefox as a
browser. What do you mean you still use IE ?
Also doing some more PILOT GCSE
resources. Coming up soon on the GA's VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) is a
Virtual Conference related to the Pilot. More on this to come...
Doing some resources using a number of
books which have descriptions of Svalbard (or based on it) including Tim Moore's
excellent "Frost on my Moustache".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5279796.stm is a BBC report on Coastal
Flooding in the UK, and King's Lynn and several coastal villages are included as
being at high risk. Ooops.
Also yesterday I ordered my 220 FREE
MAPS FOR SCHOOLS thanks once again to the Ordnance Survey. Make sure that you
get yours !
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/freemapsfor11yearolds/ - you should have
your user name and password...
September 4th
Some new KS3 ICT pages to get ready
for my 2 lessons of ICT this year.
September 2nd
Those last few days when you are
pottering around and trying to get your head round going back to work...
Apparently this summer was the 2nd
hottest on record.
John Motson just said that Andorra has
the longest life expectancy of any country in the world as part of his pre-match
commentary. Nationmaster confirms that Motty was correct.
Started 2 new blogs in the last few
days: the first is a general Geography miscellany at
http://geographyjazz.blogspot.com
The second is for students at KES who
are doing the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography:
http://kespilotgeography.blogspot.com
August 29th
One year on from Hurricane Katrina
hitting New Orleans.
August 28th: Bank Holiday Monday
Tony Cassidy reminded me of this
classic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4530149.stm
Also reading lots on Al Gore's "An
Inconvenient Truth" movie.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/ is the companion website...
http://www.climatecrisis.net/downloads/ - some useful documents related to
global warming.
Also added a new
POLAND page to include some details on the large
number of POLISH immigrants in particular which I noticed while in Dublin, and
has been heavily featured in newspapers in the last couple of weeks.
And of course you have to watch "Carry
on Camping" whenever it's on.... yack yack yack !!
And there are now over 1000 signatures
on the GGiP WEBSITE. Well done to all involved.
August 26th
The Great Bank Holiday getaway
underway, and lots of roadworks and other traffic issues. If you are flying, why
not visit this site: CLIMATE CARE and work out
your carbon offset...
Alternatively you can now offset your
carbon by sending a text message...
You can send a text message WLT CARBON
to 87050 - cost is £1.50 plus standard network rate... Site run by the World
Land Trust
http://www.carbonbalanced.org/sms/index.htm
http://www.carbonbalanced.org/sms/text-message-carbon-offsets.htm - a list
of what your offset equates to....
Well done to Dan Raven Ellison, Sarah
Hack, Rob Chambers, Barney Goodrich and David Rayner for their efforts yesterday at BBC
Television Centre in editing the footage which we shot on location around Europe
for the GEOGRAPHY OF HAPPINESS project.
(Apologies to anyone I missed out... get in touch and I'll add you to the list) I will
perhaps host some of the Ireland snippets we shot for a while on the relevant
page. For a view of the project, head off to the
VIDEO BLOG or click the image
below:
August 23rd
Another geography trip: to Sheffield
this time for a meeting re: GA Magazine. More on this to come soon.
Interesting focus on Immigration in
today's Independent, which is often a good place to find relevant Geographical
articles.
August 21st
Back from the Geography of
Happiness trip to Dublin: 3 days sampling the craic, hen parties, abusive TV
channel critics, ladies with 'issues' exhorting us to smile, be happy and smile,
4am trumpeters, rain, Gaelic football, Guinness, Liffey boardwalk, Easter Rising
tour, spire, Shiznit, full Irish breakfasts, Temple Bar, St. Stephen's Green art
sales and all the other things we packed into 2 days, plus some filming - watch
out for more details soon on where to find it, and perhaps you might see it on
the BBC in the future.
A long and tiring weekend, but very
worthwhile. More details of this are now available on the
DUBLIN BLOG page.
Also some good holiday reading:
Golfing Mongolia by Andre Tolme and No Holiday by Martin Cohen.
No Holiday book suggests 80 places NOT
to visit, and why. Some interesting suggestions and of course a lot of
geographical reasoning for their position in the book e.g. Aral Sea, Beijing,
Chernobyl.
August 5th
OK. Starting to do something after 2
weeks of R&R
Re-organised my GIS section to add a
dedicated page for GIS and also for
AEGIS: the piece of software which we will be
using at a workshop at next year's GA Conference. Expect more on this
over the next few months. A useful GIS guide can also be downloaded
from the Ordnance Survey website.
Also added new page relating
to another project I'm interested in: this is a forthcoming virtual conference
for those centres teaching the PILOT GCSE GEOGRAPHY.
This will be held at the new GA Virtual Learning Environment - contact Phil
Wood if you want to take part and you haven't already been contacted.
Can I also remind anyone reading
this of a deadline which is coming up which may interest you. In 2003-4 and
2005-6 I applied for, and was lucky enough to be awarded an INNOVATIVE
GEOGRAPHY TEACHING grant by the RGS-IBG.
http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Grants/Teaching/Innovative+Geography+Teaching+Grants.htm
- has details of this year's deadline of 29th September.
http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!70F64BC910C9F7F3!1231/ - loads of
free stuff for Windows XP - search through and you'll find lots of useful
stuff for the ICT-confident geographer
But first I got side-tracked into trying out
QUIKMAPS, as recommended by Noel Jenkins (look out for his bad parkour
video....) - these are rather good and I'm sure GCSE students could find a use
for these in their GCSE projects. Great that you can also view them in
GOOGLE EARTH.
Will also be
useful for the PILOT GCSE MY PLACE unit: to produce localised maps with
personal landmarks identified...
Also ordered some free posters from ENCAMS:
http://www.encams.org/home/index.asp - there are some good games on the site
too
July
22nd
School's out - so spending the day
working and sorting out odds and ends before a trip to Scotland. On the 20th, it
was
World Jump Day. This was an effort to change the orbit of the earth to
forestall the effects of global warming by getting thousands of people to jump
and change the earth's orbit. Not sure whether it was achieved yet. Thanks to
Dan Ellison for the picture of his students taking part. Will post one of me if
I get the chance.
Had a hot week. St. Swithins Day (July
15th) was hot and dry, so we could have this weather until the end of August !
Lots in the news about the heatwave. Apparently it's going to get baking again
next week, but should be cooler in Scotland hopefully.
Out to Imperial War Museum Duxford
yesterday for an activities trip: good new displays in the hangars, but hot for
me though - the day before had organised a GOOGLE EARTH day, and had 5
enthusiastic participants who produced a nice display showing some of the
fascinating places to be explored using Google Earth. A weekend of sport ahead
with Tour de France and British Open.
Also been setting up and exploring my
new iPAQ hw6515. Downloaded my free Tom Tom map, and explored that on the way to
Duxford. Some exciting low bridges on the way - just how high was the minibus
again ?? Also sent my latest GA Webwatch article.
Plus, putting some ideas and weblinks
together for a new 'secret' project. More to come in about 12 months time! (you
ain't seen me right ?)
Interesting article in 'The
Guardian': apparently it's an emerging rule of thumb that if you get 100 people
online, one will create content, ten will 'interact' with it, and the other 89
will just look at it. If you're reading this, why not interact with my content ?
Getting to grips with all the projects
I have on the go at the moment. These include a range of interesting
creativity-related projects. Thanks to Tony Cassidy for passing on
details of an excellent talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED talks.
http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=ken_robinson&flashEnabled=1
Started reviewing my projects which I
have lined up: book ideas to collate, WebWatch and ICT resources to prepare for
a meeting at GA in late August, Pilot GCSE resources to prepare for September
and for other projects relating to APG, ongoing 'secret' project, the Google
Earth Users Guide PDF, outline for session on GIS called Future Fieldwork at GA
Conference 2007, presentation for SAGT 2006 in October, and of course all the
usual preparation for new KS3 and beyond, plus trip to Dublin for Happiness
Video project.
July 9th
A nice relief from the heat this
weekend. Had a trip round the coast on Saturday to visit various places
along the North Norfolk meander, and to source some presents. Out through Fring,
Docking, Burnham Market and Burnham Overy Staithe to Holkham, and Adnams shop.
Good new gallery at BRINGING THE OUTSIDE IN, then Wells and BIG BLUE SKY, inland
to Walsingham (Great and Little...), Thursford and Hindrigham, then over the top
road to the River Glaven valley and the King's Head pub at Letheringsett (
http://www.letheringsettkingshead.co.uk ) - I recommend the fresh haddock
fillet - good chips too! - and a nice pint of Elgood's. Onwards to Morston,
Stiffkey, Blakeney and Brancaster, and a brief stop at Titchwell RSPB reserve,
before ending up back in Hunstanton, which was rather busy.
Also spent some time today on various
projects:
- putting together few bits for the proposal form
for the GA SPC's workshop next year at GA Conference. We are doing a double session
(hopefully) which will involve looking at Future Fieldwork, using GPS.
Also looking at GIS. Need to get AEGIS 3 explored over the summer too.
This was helped with the news this
week that my bid has been successful for a GPS enabled PDA. Have gone with an HP iPaq HW6515
- they cost around £350.
- working on some resources to
supplement Noel's GE Diamond resource - though he beat me to it: see the link
below to the newly updated page
- a bit of GE related stuff
- some quizzes for the SRS handsets
for the end of term...
Also looking forward to 3 hours of Stage
8 of the Tour de France on Eurosport today. A nice Geographical logo....
June 28th
Thanks to Emma Johns for
producing a diagram to help pupils consider the different VIEWPOINTS that there
might be on a particular issue, and which uses the acronym GREAT. It's a 1 slide
POWERPOINT file (217 Kb)
Excited about some forthcoming
resources from Noel Jenkins, which he promises will be even better than his
Montserrat lesson. Check out
http://www.googleearthairlines.com which Noel flagged up recently.
Also making some new
BANANA
resources for CONSUMERS unit on Pilot. Lots of good ideas coming soon.
Also coming soon is a project for the
SUMMER HOLIDAYS. Watch this space for more !
Found
http://www.vaguefacts.com/archives/cat_geography.html on my
wanderings.
June 25th
A few things to potter with this
weekend. First of all I had a preliminary play with PICASA 2. This is now
integrated with GOOGLE EARTH and allows you to GEOTAG photos and albums, and
create web albums to share photos online.
http://www.ogleearth.com/links.html - has a long list of GE related links,
and I need to get to grips with a few of those
Also had to formalise my plans for
next years KS3. We have an extra lesson in Year 8, and will look to extend our
coverage of some topics.
Also wasted a bit of time by watching
the England vs Ecuador match.
June 17th
Writing this on the train down to
London for GA Secondary Committee meeting. Sun is shining. Hot day ahead.
Spent Wednesday at Barnham Broom, near
Norwich for
the Norfolk Geography Conference. We started the day with Liz Taylor of
'Re-Presenting Geography' fame going
through some strategies for extending writing in Geography. Some very useful
ideas for using sequencing and sorting activities to develop writing skills in
terms of persuasive and discursive writing. I then ran 2 well received Google
Earth sessions looking at ways of using it creatively, but in a way that was
linked to creativity and real outcomes. Thanks to Noel Jenkins for his work,
which was flagged up and featured. I also looked at the new LIVE LOCAL images
and WORLD WIND plugin. Liz will also be at the
SAGT Conference in October along with
me. Conference details are now available to download from the website link.
Check out Liz's book at the CHRIS
KINGTON website:
http://sharedweb.srv.poptel.org.uk/chriskingtonpublishing/acatalog/Geography.html
Also download a much stripped down
version of the presentation I used to take people through some ideas for using
GOOGLE EARTH in the classroom, and linking it with pupil's work. Google
Earth (available midweek)
There was an input from Sandy Betlem
of NEAD, which was on the theme of REFUGEE WEEK. This takes place next
week.
Geography Awareness Week is the 26th
to 30th June on the theme of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
Thursday, I hosted a Whiteboard training
day - thanks to Jill Duman for her excellent session. I upgraded to SmartBoard
software version 9.5, which has a different looking interface, and created a few
small 'issues' which took a while to resolve. Lots of new Gallery Content to
download too, and some nice ideas for being creative. Great new feature where
you can choose a FREEHAND image capture tool.
Friday: continued to work on
preparations for next year.
New effort by Sarah Hack to
collaborate on sharing Schemes of Work. New website launched
GEOGRAPHYSOW. Check it out as it
grows.
Very interesting meeting, lots on
Quality Mark, and our workshops for conference 2007. Watch this space for more
exciting developments.
Adam Lawson has upgraded his movie
site to
http://www.geographyatthemovies.co.uk
June 8th
Well, we seem to have survived
06/06/06 and 06/06/06 am and pm.
Go HERE
to download the SAGT Conference Programme for October 2006, which features a
number of inspirational speakers..... and me.
June
5th is WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY. This year's theme is Deserts and Desertification -
more HERE. Check out the
FLASH movie.
Added new
McDonalds and Simpsons pages. Still in
rough form, but are there for people to comment on and add to as necessary.
DISCOVERING ANTARCTICA site
is now live - download the teachers' notes ! This is going down very well
with the students who have used it.
A fairly nice OCR A GCSE paper
today !
June 4th
Back from a trip to York. Weather was
very variable but good to be in Yorkshire again. Had the chance to do a
lot of organisation and Google Earth preparation in the evenings - lots of sunny
evenings. Young woman with a T-shirt saying "When God made Yorkshire he was just
showing off...", and while we were there North Yorkshire was voted the most
scenic county in England.
Out to Beningbrough Hall, just
NW of York for a wander in the walled garden, and a rather nice tomato and red
lentil soup. Into York to do a spot of shopping - now a £5 charge to get
into York Minster unless you have a residents' pass - good to see a German
market, wandered the Shambles, lunch in the White Star Inn on Stonegate, then up
to the National Railway Museum which now houses the Yorkshire Wheel. Out to
Scarborough on a day which had the beach full of pallid English flesh slowly
burning.
The Give Geography its Place
campaign is gathering momentum: some big names now signed up, and plans for
Teaching them a Lesson: getting the media in to see Geography at work, and also
posing naked except for a (very large) inflatable globe covering our modesty....
I'll leave that to the young 'uns...
May 28th
New sites this week are dominated by
http://local.live.com - the Microsoft
Virtual Earth interface introduction. This offers the chance to see oblique
aerial shots of parts of the UK, and better quality vertical shots of many areas
which are currently quite blurry in Google Earth. The age of these images seems
to vary depending on where you are in the UK. Noel Jenkins has then extended
this further by showing how the images can be added as overlays to
HERE
is a stripped down version of the presentation I prepared for UEA PGCE
colleagues on the 26th of May. The day went well, with lots of positive feedback on the site, and
some good contributions from the colleagues. Good luck with your careers! Also
good to meet David R Wright: best-selling author of mapping books, who did a
session on mapping.
Also this week, received copies of 2
new very useful GA publications: Fred Martin's 'e-Geography: Using ICT in
Quality Geography'
http://www.geography.org.uk/resources/egeography/ - has all the relevant
weblinks from the book - some good sites mentioned.
Other book was the new GA Secondary
Handbook: I now have a copy of each edition and this is by far the chunkiest
and the heaviest, and hopefully the most useful. Comes with a CD ROM of
various other materials - head to the GA website to order, and also to download
some supplementary materials, which mentions a certain GeoBlogs.
May 21st
A weekend of bits and bobs. Wet !
Preparing for a session with UEA PGCE students next Friday - a nice way to end
the half term. Also Google Earth sessions for 2 further conferences. Spent some
time recording GE movies, and trying to make progress on Users Guide ideas.
A new campaign to raise the profile of
GEOGRAPHY in the media: at
PASSION4GEOGRAPHY (thanks to Dan and GeoDave in particular for their efforts
on this...) - comes out of the
continuing marginalisation of Geographers.
Click the link, add your name to the
petition, and contact the media !
May 14th
GA News for summer now available to
download from GA Website by members. Features include a photographic report on
the GA Conference, and a 2 page Webwatch feature edited by my good self. Print
version to be posted
Over to Norwich for an SEN Working
Group meeting. Watch out for some ideas and resources on creating an 'Inclusive
Classroom' over the next few months from the group of teachers I'm working with.
http://www.face-online.org.uk/windwards/ - new resource produced by a group
of teachers who visited the Windward Islands to look at banana production. Worth
checking out for KS2 as well as for older pupils - thanks to Kate Russell for
letting me know about this.
Ordered my new textbook series for
next year's Key Stage 3: went for the excellent THIS IS GEOGRAPHY series,
written by John Widdowson and with an excellent teacher resource pack and
e-learning CD ROM, which has some great ideas and is very well presented (a
certain Noel Jenkins was apparently involved...).
It's the best of the various new textbook series in my opinion. Also recommend
BRYNTEG BOOKS if you want a discount on your book orders.
Spent a little of the weekend (OK, a
lot...) producing some Pilot GCSE materials and Curriculum maps relating to a
new website produced by RGS-IBG and related organisations called DISCOVERING
ANTARCTICA, which will launch on June 7th 2006, so it's not 'live' yet.
Click the image above to go to a new
page containing information about this 'must have' resource (only £5 plus £1.50
p&p)
Also heard that we've got funding
from GA and RGS-IBG for a Geography of Happiness project - more on this later
too on the new HAPPY page.
May 1st
May Day! - was browsing Amazon and
came across a new 'Common Ground' book called England in Particular. This led to
the Common Ground website which had some details on ABCs and HOW TO PRODUCE
them.
http://www.england-in-particular.info/abc/ab-index.html
Started a new mini collaborative
project which could be expanded and adapted to suit a number of purposes. This
is a photographic GEOGRAPHY ABC. A spooky
coincidence was that Tony Cassidy had just posted a similar GEOGRAPHY
ALPHABET product. Some letters started arriving within a few hours. Have to
say that it's going slowly. Still going slowly !!
Also a new
MINI GALLERY for 2006 of the new contributions. A lot of 'great minds
thinking alike' going on here.
And Tony Cassidy has launched a new
website for ROCK LOVING GEOGRAPHERS.
Also copy of CLOUDSPOTTERS Guide
arrived.
April 29th
May Day bank holiday weekend. Another
few irons put into the fire this week.
The preliminary details of the
2006 SAGT CONFERENCE (download the flyer) are now
available to download from the SAGT site. In addition to Roy Laming from ESRI,
and Liz Taylor from Cambridge University, delegates will be able to choose 2
from the following list of workshops, all of which sound great:
Using the ‘Geograph’ website to Develop Virtual
Fieldwork
David Rayner of
www.geointeractive.co.uk
and Roger Jeans, Ordnance Survey
Geography
for the 21st Century: 50 ideas in 50 minutes!
Ollie Bray principal Teacher of Geography,
Dunbar Grammar School
Google Earth : A User’s Guide
Alan Parkinson of
www.geographypages.co.uk
Head of Geography, King Edward VII School, King’s Lynn
WOW : Working Outwith Walls
Ian Hardie,
Geography and Educational Tour
Development Manager,
Rayburn Tours and former PT Geography at Mackie Academy
Making a departmental website work for you
Rob Chambers of
www.geobytes.org.uk
Using Digital Video to Get a Sense of Spatial
Places
Dan Raven-Ellison,
Lead Teacher of
Geography at Langtree School, Oxfordshire
Lots of downloads of materials from my
GA conference blog.
Also noticed that Web User magazine
Issue 134 has useful guide to Google Earth and similar virtual earths.
Also downloaded SKETCH UP: a 3D
model maker, the results of which can be posted into Google Earth, which is now
a free download. Check it out !
Also keep an eye out for
ESRI's ArcGIS Explorer
when it arrives soon, as a 'rival' to Google Earth.
April 22nd
A very busy week. After a day
moderating GCSE coursework on Tuesday, drove up and across the Pennines to the
University of Manchester for the GA Conference. Read my illustrated report on
the conference HERE. Worked on my new
SHEFFIELD FLOOD page.
One of my students misheard me when I
said I was going to be speaking at the GA Conference, he thought I said the G8
conference...
Also coming soon hopefully are some
PODCASTS. I have recommended to my students that they visit Rob Chambers'
GEOBYTES site where there are
already:
page is new for the
site - links to some geographical podcasts such as Rob's
Other great new ideas : Tony Cassidy's
new Geography Classified Ads resource, and this month's National Geographic
magazine (April 2006), which features an excellent article on Chernobyl and a
large map of Earthquake risk zones along with some great information on building
earthquake resistant buildings.
Also coming soon the 'My Places'
Google Earth project for SAGT 06, and beyond. The
USERS GUIDE will have to occupy some of my time as we come up to Summer, and
also my DROUGHT mystery...
Don't forget
MINIGEOGS either as we come up to revision time.
April 15th
Easter Holidays coming to a close. A
lot of activity during the 2 weeks, and a few days 'off' too...
Just back from a trip to Norfolk /
Peak District / North Yorkshire. Managed to take in the Scroby Sands Windfarm
project near Great Yarmouth, Norwich, the Peak District including Castleton, the
Chestnut Conservation Centre and a rather fine lunch in the Cheshire Cheese in
Hope, plus York - a view of the Yorkshire Wheel, and Fountains Abbey and Studley
Royal. Some new pictures on the relevant GeographyPages...
A few bits of 'work' done during the
holidays too: a 2 page article was featured in the OCR Pilot newsletter,
which is distributed to all centres offering this qualification, also a bit of
work for Teachers TV and some GA related stuff: watch out for the next
issue of GA News...
A few new articles relating to
Geography following the Action Plan for Geography, most of them quite
patronising in tone, in 'The Guardian' and 'The Independent'.
Also some new information regarding
AQUA3 AFFILIATE LINK
Have
you got your latest Open Access Ordnance Survey Explorer Map?
We’ve
got it covered!
With the release of the
final 37 Ordnance Survey Explorer Maps on 03/04/2006, OS have now completed
the task of adding details of new countryside access land in
England and
Wales to all of
the relevant Ordnance Survey Explorer series of OS maps.
Working with information
supplied by the Countryside Agency, the new Open Access areas (Right to Roam)
are depicted on the revised OS Explorer maps by a yellow tint surrounded by an
orange boundary.
It is now possible to
explore and discover many areas of
England that
were previously off limits to the general public.
In total 251 Ordnance
Survey Explorer maps have been updated with the new Right to Roam details and
all are available to order now coated with the renowned Aqua3 laminate.
Will add a few more bits over
the holiday weekend. Also check out my del.icio.us BOOMARKS at
http://del.icio.us/geographypages
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