How to embed mp3 files in a blog. This is a response to a recent posting on the SLN Forum, which made me wonder how it could be done. A quick Google search led me to the Google Operating System weblog , which provided a solution. I had a quick look at a few places for mp3 files relevant to Geography, and my first thought was to use one off Rob Chambers GeoBytes site. So for a few days only, or until Rob tells me to get rid of the link ! This will connect through to the first one of Rob's Coastal podcasts : Energy at the Coast. Your mp3 file could also be saved on a website, or a VLE or a Ning. The code from the site was then added below to create (fingers crossed) a media player... and, well flip me, it worked ! Change the external URL to the address of the particular file you want to play and that seems to work fine ! Another step forward ! Keep an eye out for the new podcasts shortly to appear on GeographyPages.
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Sky News has been using a new Google maps mash-up created by a consultancy called Puffbox to collate images and news stories related to the Sheffield Flood. This blog post by someone involved even mentions the GEOGRAPHY word - and shows a pic of the map in use... Hundreds of pictures now on Flickr in various sets. Also check out the website of THE STAR : the Sheffield paper also got loads of stories and pictures.
If you are teaching about Sustainable Transport you might be interested in a new resource which was launched on 22nd June by an organisation called Foresight, which is linked to the Department for Trade and Industry, and the Office of Science and Innovation. The resource is called a CHANGE OF PLACE . Click for an 18 page teacher guide on the project. Also on the site is a series of resources: a range of task sheets in PDF format a selection of comic strip style activity tasks some supporting powerpoint presentations a board game to play a selection of images Very good for looking at the future for cities. Would be useful for GCSE and also some of new AS planning.
I did an hour (and a bit - I ran out of time as usual) session today at the Faculty of Education at Homerton College, part of the University of Cambridge. I was invited by Liz Taylor to speak to the ITT Mentors in a session to prepare for next year's cohort in the very nice new building that they have there. You can see a picture of the building here. I was delivering a session that had been prepared by Rob Chambers, and I then (skilfully) blended in a few other bits and pieces and also made use of John Barlow's excellent guide to setting up a weblog. If you were present and have found your way here , welcome ! Hope you enjoyed the introduction to terms such as "my favourite price" and "reclaiming your Sundays" As I said, all the handouts and features can be found on Rob's website which is named below: IGEOG . It was only after I'd finished that I found out that Rob normally has 2 hours to get through the material - no wonder I thought I rushed t...
Flooding As usual, the Independent has the best front cover of any paper: Also on the news this morning was watching the crumbling dam wall of Ulley reservoir - my grandma lives just down the valley in Whiston, and have spent many an evening in the Royal Oak pub in the village drinking a nice pint of Sam Smiths. Lots of pics of flooding in the Wicker arches in Sheffield, and also the Tesco's in Rotherham... Also on the theme of water and mud, the first pictures from the G Team's trip to Glastonbury are now available at the PASSION4GEOGRAPHY site.
Major Flooding in June 2007 The BBC have an article which links through to other useful materials for today... Some schools were closed, as this BBC article mentions. The BBC's Weather page has a graphic sequence showing the rain clouds in a great big swirl: Picture Copyright: BBC Weather The Met Office has given a range of as many as 10 severe WEATHER WARNINGS . SKY NEWS has video clips and other stories. Also worth going to FLICKR, and searching and then clicking the MOST RECENT tab, for example, here's a set of pictures taken today already online: http://flickr.com/photos/trayflow/sets/72157600479948290/
RSS, Geography of Hope and living Off Grid (and that's just the start...) Just been on another online excursion - perfect way to pass a Sunday evening... All started with me updating my RSS feeds , and setting up a document for a training session I'm doing next week, and I ended up discovering the site relating to a forthcoming book by Chris Turner called GEOGRAPHY OF HOPE , the (apparently final design for the) cover of which is shown below: This in turn led me to the OFF GRID site, which has a range of very useful resources for those teaching issues of Sustainability and dealing with the issues... One particularly useful article for those doing Rural Urban relationships (an Edexcel A level topic for example) is an article on EXURBIA: Defined as an area on the urban fringe of a town or city, with at least 20% of its workers commuting, it tends to have low-density housing. A US study said there were 10.8 million people living in the exurbs of large metropolitan areas in 2000 –...
Sim City for DS Went out to the supermarket yesterday evening (dodging the rain in Hunstanton) and as well as some rather nice Scottish strawberries I also got Sim City for the Nintendo DS. My daugher got her pink Nintendo about 5 weeks ago after saving up for ages, and I was inspired by Ollie Bray , who has posted several times on his weblog about the value of educational games (I even have a GeoGames page on GeographyPages) So we came to a deal: I can borrow her DS to play the game, and she gets to play it too... Everyone's a winner. It looks like I might have bought a good 'un. This game was apparently a major success in Japan when it was launched, and I read a 5 star review in the Independent this morning. The twin screens on the DS are used to good effect here, as one is used for the city view and one is used for the general management. We are currently building the city of LYNNY. I'll keep you posted on how I do.
Thanks to Pete from Panoramic Earth for getting in touch about his website which features over 800 fast loading panoramic photos from locations around the world. The one above is the Charles Bridge in Prague. There is also a blog , which features regular updates on the travels of Peter Watts. I am very jealous as I have just been reading about his travels to Skye, and there are lots of panoramas on the island now. This makes a free alternative to some of the paid-for collections that are available..
The G Spot at Glastonbury Right now, Dan Ellison and David Rayner are 'flying the flag' for Geography at Glastonbury ! David says: "We are in the 'Green Futures' area, near to the infamous Stone Circle and Sacred Space. We have a 30 foot flag pole with 'G Spot' pennant flying proud...." They'll be spreading the Passion 4 Geography word ! If you're at GLASTONBURY, visit the lads and say hello !
I was just catching up with Dancing Matt Click the website logo below if you don't know who I mean, so you can find him - the videos are good starters for a Geography lesson. Matt is dancing his way around the world. I suppose I should add his BLOG to Geo Blogs page. The first picture by the way looks like the 'chock stone' near the Prekestolen in Rogaland in Norway, which I have stood on - fabulous place ! Anyway, on his journal, he talks about a tiny laptop he was given to try called a FLIPSTART . This is a very small device which has some amazing features for its size and looks like great fun ! There is a very nicely designed website with animations which demonstrate the device's size. You can see some pictures on Matt's blog via the link above, and he says some nice things about it: It's adorable. The thing has everything a real laptop has, does everything a real laptop does. It runs XP, Vista, has Bluetooth and wifi, touch pad, light-up keyboard, 30GB ...
Just finished my KS3 pupil consultation and curriculum making exercise... These are the titles.... Keep checking the blog for more details. If anyone has any "really good stuff" on any of these topics which they can e-mail to me to save time that would be much appreciated. Watch GEOGRAPHYPAGES to watch these titles develop....
Skyway by Erin Butler
Skyway Originally uploaded by Erin Butler Just trying out a Flickr posting tool... Love this picture - let's set off on a journey together...
University of Leeds: 21st Century Geography More details are now available for this day, which I am attending in a couple of weeks time, and looking forward to it ! There will be four main sessions presented by active researchers in each field. Every session should be of interest in itself and will also be of relevance to various examination board syllabuses with material that you can use within the classroom. 1. Natural Hazards & Risk Perception: Snow Avalanches in Iceland Dr Chris Keylock The study of natural hazards is at the interface of physical and human geography and is an integral element in many of the A-level syllabuses. In this session we will start by looking at the scientific issues behind the initiation and dynamics of avalanches and strategies used for risk mitigation. In the second half we will consider the perception of avalanche risk and how this is mediated by social, economic, political and cultural factors. This will involve a practical introduction to the use...
Paul Merton in China Just caught up with my Sky plused programmes in this entertaining series. Some good geography hidden away amongst the travelogue, some funny lines and refreshingly honest 'grumpiness'... Check out the FIVE.TV website for some clips. An interesting Guardian Blog Post and comments... He visited SOCK TOWN . I was particularly interested by THAMES TOWN. Also just watching / listening to this as I meander through some online back alleys....
Burnham Deepdale Here are some excellent images by Andrew Stacey of the venue for July's 2nd SLN Field Weekend. An itinerary will be available shortly... The website for the venue is HERE and gives some interesting information about the environmental sustainability of the venue... Thanks to Andrew for the excellent images. See you in Fat Face !
Climate Change Conference: Carrow Road Spent the day on 8th of June at a Climate Change conference at the Top of the Terrace venue at Carrow Road: Norwich City’s football ground. It was pouring with rain when we got there – that’s climate change for you… The conference was organised in association with a number of groups, including the engineering firm MWH. Into the venue, which was very pleasant, a long bar and lots of lights in the ceiling (which curiously stayed lit the whole time despite not really being needed…) Collected a delegate pack – small amount of paper, and handed out in a hessian shopping bag. Also badged with the “Act on CO2” campaign (TV ads at the moment) Some useful contents from Anglian Water and the Recycle Now campaign. Outside, the stage for a George Michael concert was being prepared – my wife is going to it next week. Anglian Water were present with a Waterwise display with ideas for reducing water use, and MWH distributed a CD of information / presentations r...
Came across this concept lamp on my online meanderings this afternoon... It's produced by Lasse Klein. Exploring some ideas for PODCASTING, following Rob Chambers ' lead... Also going to get my students doing some GeoSquishing, which was spotted by Miss Ellis, one of my online chums... Visit the website to find out what I mean by GeoSquishing. Click the banner below..
Friday on Recycle Now Week is Garden Waste. I am part of a trial scheme in Norfolk to have a large brown garden waste bin, and as I have a rather large garden it's generally full most weeks... Went to a good climate change conference at Carrow Road in Norwich today, and they were setting up the ground for a George Michael concert as you can see below. My wife is actually going to the concert... Will blog about the conference tomorrow....
Send us a postcard... To raise the profile of Geography and also have a bit of fun and interactivity, this summer the KS3 pupils (plus Year 10) and also the Year 6's who will be coming in on a taster day, will be asked to send us a postcard from their summer travels.. Anyone sending a postcard will have their names entered into a prize draw (to be drawn in the year assemblies) to win a Geo Goody Bag... Also doing a Staff competition too for the most amusing card. All cards will then be put on a large world map display in the geography area, and we will also use the places visited as the basis for a piece of mapwork in the first term, and perhaps an assessment as well.
KES Students investigating Climate Change I'm off tomorrow with a small group of Year 9 students to Carrow Road in Norwich to a Climate Change Conference... There will apparently be around 200 students there from various local schools, who will be participating in workshop sessions and lectures aimed at getting the student voice. It's organised by DEFRA and other agencies. Jason Borthwick from Earthly Ideas will be speaking, and I presume there will be people from the local CRed initiative . I will filter some of these ideas in to the Young People's Geographies project that we are involved in. Maybe see some of you there ?
Andrew Marr's History of Britain... Interesting these days that you have to have the name of the presenter before the name of the programme to pique interest... Just watching this on BBC News website while doing a cover, and it's the 1950s - 60s. Just introducing immigration from Commonwealth, apparently all 800 million people had free right of entry to the UK at the time. Thousands from Caribbean arrived to find work as jobs were scarce at home, and inner city tensions. Lots of young men arriving without families. Watch it from around 28 minutes in, and take a look. Race riots in Notting Hill in 1958 - and calls for immigration controls... Some useful materials for AS/A2 Geographers. Doing some investigations on this topic, and came across a source of news videos which will probably be useful to someone. It's called NEWSFILM ONLINE . Some useful clips...
Wednesday in Recycle week is GLASS day... Here are some interesting GLASS facts from the website: The largest glass furnaces produce more than 400 tonnes – that's more than one million bottles and jars - each day! [source: www.ollierecycles.com ] Glass can be recycled again and again without losing its clarity or purity [source: www.britglass.co.uk ] Milk bottles are reused an average of 13 times before recycling [source: Surrey County Council] The UK has more than 50,000 bottle banks [source: www.britglass.co.uk ] One bottle bank can hold up to 3,000 bottles before it needs to be emptied. [source: www.britglass.co.uk ] We use around 2.4 million tonnes of container glass in the UK every year. [source: www.defra.gov.uk ] In 2005 we recycled approximately 1.2 million tonnes of used glass (known as ‘cullet’). [source: www.britglass.co.uk ] Making glass bottles and jars from recycled ones saves energy. The energy saving from recycling one bottle will: - Power a 100 watt light bul...
No go on the logo ? The logo for London Olympics 2012 was announced this week, and not everyone likes it... The logo apparently cost £400 000 and is meant to be a dynamic symbol of the games. There are already 40 000 names on an online petition to drop the logo, and some animated clips to launch it apparently caused seizures in some of the people who saw it. You can see a video and animated versions of the logo HERE . Also a chance to be creative... Visit london2012.com and make your own 2012 design For me, there is no obvious sense of place in the logo, which I think is important if it is meant to be representing what is good about LONDON as the venue for the games. Consider the logo for the Winter Olympics in 2010 The logo is a figure called an Inukshuk (different spellings exist) which is a stone figure made by the indigenous peoples of Canada. They are found in the landscape, and represent some place of importance. They are also identifiably Canadian... Think of Sydney's logo...