Geography and all that Jazz

This is an interesting one, and thanks to @angelamaiers for letting me know about TWITTER SHEEP. This produces a tag cloud of the sort of people who follow you: your Twitter 'flock'... Quite pleased with the emphases that my Twitter 'flock' seems to have.

Just been watching "Whatever happened to the Likely Lads" on Gold Classic TV from my youth. Good to see Tony Haygarth too... At the same time, was trying out a Twitter tip-off ZATTOO . It's basically TV on your laptop... Presume it's a bandwidth hog and needs broadband but just watched the first part of the News at Ten perfectly. Oh, and don't forget your COMIC RELIEF red nose, and to "do something funny for money" on Friday the 13th of March.

BETT was a couple of weeks ago, and finally found time just now to finish a reflective post... OS Stand: image by Alan Parkinson Saturday at BETT. Wandered down Hammersmith Road in the sunshine, and at half past nine, half an hour before the show started, there were queues forming outside, although not as large as earlier in the week. There were also several people sitting with their laptops outside the Wetherspoons pub - the pub may have been closed (or at least I think it was), but the WIFI was switched on ;) Exhibitor entrance was calm. Wandered through the main halls with space station style announcements: "the time is now 9.40 - BETT 2009 will open in 20 minutes". I liked the software produced by iBoard. This is primary software which had some nice activities. Tried a few which had been made available during the show. I liked this GOODEY'S MODEL style activity. TWITTER is getting a lot of attention at the moment, and rightly so. It's been responsible for most of...

New Eden Channel on Sky Sky Channel 522 WATCH THE TRAILER

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I have been preparing resources for a joint SfE / GA conference which was being organised for the new GCSE specifications, but has unfortunately been cancelled. One focus area was that of Avalanches What pedagogy could be used to teach about avalanches ? What approaches to delivering 'content' so that it sticks, and becomes part of the learning process, and can also be assessed in a way which allows students to achieve ? The first area that has to be tackled is to look at the specs and see what will be part of the assessment. Edexcel ‘A’: Avalanches and their management a. The physical and human causes and effects of an avalanche in a named location. b. Prediction and prevention of the effects of avalanches by forecasting, the design of buildings and defences, planning and education. So let's choose a location first of all. Where would be appropriate ? The Alps are a popular ski destination, and have been for many decades. There are many ski resorts, and the are...

Just caught up with this story in my clippings file, while sorting out resources for a conference next week. It's from the Guardian from December 2008 EGYPT SAYS NO TO USE OF GPS ON iPHONE Egypt has banned the import of all GPS-enabled devices, claiming it is a military-grade technology that can be used to help pinpoint government buildings or be used by terrorists. As a result, Egyptian buyers will not be able to use GPS even though the iPhone will cost them the equivalent of £463, compared with a maximum of £149 in the UK, plus contract. Apparently they're also not that keen on bloggers....

Listen to the Lough ... Radio 4 programme: The Lake - catch it on iPlayer while you can

You can't escape ASSESSMENT... but you could e-Scape assess..... The GA has been involved, with Goldsmiths College, in an exciting trial of a new method of assessing student's geographical work, using handheld technology (PDAs) to create a digital portfolio, which is then assessed using a method called ' comparative pairs '. This is a more robust method of comparison between individual pieces of work than the traditional method of moderating pieces of coursework. It was suggested by Alastair Pollitt, former head of research at Cambridge Assessment, based on earlier work in the 1920s (see later) The final report on the trial , written by Fred Martin with David Lambert has now been made available on the GA website, along with further details on the project. The trial involved schools taking part in a field visit to Porthcawl, and exploring the issue of rebranding on their return. There are links to other projects which involved the use of handheld technologies, and also...

iPhone in Geography Education Could this just be the best new piece of technology that is available for geography teachers ? A growing number of geography teachers are discovering the joys of the iPhone. Increasingly, the ways that they use them in their geography lessons and fieldwork are also being added to blogs and other online materials, perhaps because teachers who own iPhones are more inclined to use technology in their teaching ? Some examples of teachers who are using this include Ollie Bray , who has posted a series of useful tutorials on how he uses particular apps for the iPhone. I would also recommend John Davitt 's iPhone app: the RANDOM ACTIVITY GENERATOR , which is demonstrated here... Do you have an iPhone ? Do you use it in your teaching ? Please get in touch...

A great geographically related song from the end credits of WALL-E: "Down to Earth"... Has been nominated for an Oscar we discovered today... Here's another "hydrologically-themed" track which is a classic live favourite. Hopefully will get to see PG again this year... and finally another beautiful track from WALL-E with Peter Gabriel's touch on it. Used this as the mood music for an SAGT presentation:

Regular readers will be aware of my interest in fine single malt whisky. Earlier this week, there was an exciting opportunity to secure a bottle of the latest Ardbeg. Ardbeg is my favourite whisky, and also World Whisky of the Year. Supernova has incredibly high peat content, and I managed to order a bottle at 9.01am, a few hours later, all the bottles in the limited release had sold out... Will tell you what it tastes like when I get  it... If you're good I'll let you sniff the cork...

Next week, I am spending 2 days in Stockport at the Geography Teacher Educators' (GTE) Conference. This will be my first time attending the conference... Discovered this excellent presentation by Dan Sutch, who is part of my Twitter network. NCSL Hotseat: Teachers as Innovators View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: futurelab models of innovation ) Will be adapting some ideas from here to my purpose... More on that next week....

RSPB BIG GARDEN BIRDWATCH Will be spending an hour this weekend sat by the conservatory window doing the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Why not do your bit to collect data on changing geographical patterns of the most common species. You don't need binoculars, just a cup of tea, half a packet of ginger nuts and an hour of your time... Visit the RSPB website to download a data collection form.

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo . This video by Keith Loutit is incredible... Features the building of a sand whale as part of a campaign by Australian Greenpeace One for teaching about coasts / environmental issues ?

Teachmeet Review By the time we got through the door, there was hardly a seat to be had: so I stole someone else's. Ollie Bray had been throwing something together at the last minute, and with a minute to go he started copying a 180 mb video file from a memory stick and kept his fingers crossed that his name wouldn't come out first (as it happens, he was the last person up!) Check out my FLICKR images of TEACHMEET. Grabbed some free beer tokens, and a seat with John Davitt , who had a stuffed camel with him, for reasons that would become clear later. Image of camel by Flickr user cloudberrynine - Humph is sat on a pile of GA Magazines, which is nice... Around 250 people had signed up, and there were also others following on the flashmeeting, and a large MONITTER display showed the Twitter 'tweets' that had the relevant hashtags #tmbeet09 etc John showed us the LEARNING SCORE resource. This is a very powerful resource, which visualises the planning of a lesson sequence...

I like this...

Workshop on Learning outside the Classroom, due to take place on Tuesday 20th has unfortunately attracted little interest, and will not now take place. If anyone wants to see the resources that were going to be used, they are available on MY SLIDESHARE SPACE (along with plenty of other resources), and are embedded below for your perusal... Learning outside the Classroom View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: association geographical )

Tune in to Teachers TV at 7am, 4pm or 8pm tomorrow for a programme which features Head of Geography and Chartered Geographer Sally Sumner talking about blogging, and inputs on other collaborative online tools from Tom Barrett. Will be well worth watching... Will also be available to download once the programme has been broadcast...

YOUNG GEOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR COMPETITION Get your students in on this year's competition. More details at the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE website. The theme this year is ARCTIC. Sponsored by Explore – the leading adventure holiday company, this year's winners win a place on an Arctic expedition, prizes for your school and more. The competition is open to young geographers throughout the country under the age of 18 years We want you to carry out a project that involves a journey to the Arctic. What would you take with you and why? What would ensure your journey’s success? Your project should reflect a thorough investigation into the geography of the Arctic and a realistic portrayal of a journey to the North Pole. We would also like you to include one luxury item for your journey and an explanation of your item of choice and your reasons for choosing it. Your entry can take whatever form you think is most appropriate – be it a written report, a short video film, a photographic essay, ...

"I've got the whole WORDLE in my hands..." Rob Chambers has been at it again, and launched a new blog looking at Cross Curricular uses of ICT One tool which has obvious use for this, but has plenty of geographical use, is Wordle , and Rob has provided a link to an excellent presentation on how to use this tool. This is well worth referring students to.... | View | Upload your own Show me what you manage to produce with WORDLE. ..

Cultural Geography Just been adding some sections to the EDEXCEL GEOG NING which now has over 420 members. Come and join us if you haven't already.... Noticed that one of the options for the GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH topic (which is Unit 4) is: Option 4: The World of CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY (Extract from Edexcel Document) Culture Culture is a complex concept, with multiple meanings but universal importance to human populations. In many parts of the world consumption is the dominant, but not the only, culture. Culture varies spatially and has a distinct geography, with some areas being relatively homogenous while others offer greater diversity. Large urban areas often produce diversity, which is reflected in the population, services and built environment of cities. Attitudes to cultural diversity differ, both personal and political/national. Cultural Patterns Globalisation is seen by some as a key process in driving culture towards a global model, and media TNCs and communications technol...

A video from American satirical site "The Onion" New Portable Sewing Machine Lets Sweatshop Employees Work On The Go

GA Magazine The latest edition of the GA Magazine is now available to download from the GA website (you need to log in first...) This is a particularly good issue, but then I have to declare an interest: I edited the issue, along with David Rayner. In addition to the usual features, such as a particularly good Webwatch, there are some feature pieces on the concept of INTERDEPENDENCE . The middle section was the bit I edited. Highlights of the issue include: "Thinking inside the box": an article on the BBC 'box' project by me "Connecting Classrooms": an article by Graham Goldup on a project to develop a school link with Arusha, Tanzania & Brighton schools "Windwards Revisited": an article by Martin Crabbe on the ongoing links that he has maintained following a trip to the Windward Islands in 2005 "Interdependence Day": a summary of the report by Joe Smith of the Open University "Food glorious food - but for how much longer ?...

The European Union has produced a 'heat map': Global Accessibility This is based on travel time to major world cities . Image copyright: European Communities, 2008 The map comes from a WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography This has a series of documentary clips called "GEOGRAPHY IN MOTION". 95% of people live on 10% of the land

OFSTED "cracking down on dull teaching..." Extract from BBC NEWS article Ofsted chief Christine Gilbert said her inspectors would give more advice on why pupils may not be paying attention. Ms Gilbert told the Guardian newspaper teaching was wrongly divorced from behaviour, and disruption emerged when pupils were "bored and not motivated". Ofsted's most recent annual report, published in November, warned that secondary school pupils were too often set tasks that were not demanding enough and that teaching in primary schools could be "pedestrian". Ms Gilbert said work that she had previously been involved in suggested there was a strong link between boredom and poor behaviour. She added: "People divorce teaching from behaviour. I think they are really, really linked and I think students behave much better if the teaching is good, they are engaged in what they are doing and it's appropriate to them. "Then they've not got lost five minu...

A good friend of mine starts his new job at ACTION AID tomorrow... To celebrate, here's an Action Aid video from their current campaign to encourage Tesco to pay the women who pick their apples in South Africa an extra 5p per hour. It's also 20 years since the publication of the classic CHEMBAKOLLI resource. Steve Brace, who now works at the RGS-IBG was involved in producing this resource. There is also a very useful video produced by THE ELDERS : a project which was started by Peter Gabriel : one of my favourite artists. This explores the issue of the FOOD CRISIS: an area I have been exploring...

A Christmas message from Kenya via the DFID site.

The tagging game: 7 facts about me Been tagged by Ollie Bray for a blogging 'game'. The aim is to tell people " seven things you didn't know about me " So, in the hope that anyone finds this interesting... 1. I am very myopic. Take my glasses off me and I'm like a mole in a bokeh existence. (That's not an invitation...) 2. I used to do quite a lot of climbing before I had kids and realised that I'd been taking a few risks. If you look carefully on the image below you can see me en route to the classic Cioch  on the Isle of Skye, which I reached, along with the Inaccessible Pinnacle. Along with a few  friends, we formed the BOILED ONIONS CLIMBING CLUB , which completed a lot of routes in Wales, The Peak District and on Skye. I used to be quite good... Images of Cioch Slab and Inaccessible Pinnacle by me.... 3. I'm a bit sad about clipping geography stories out of newspapers and keeping them. I left 14 bulging lever arch files of newspaper stories b...

Millions of Christmas Cards will be coming down in the next day or so as we get to 12th night.... Don't forget to recycle them, rather than chucking them in the bin... As always the WOODLAND TRUST is coordinating a recycling campaign. One tonne of recycled cards saves 17 trees... Take cards to WH Smiths, Tesco, TK Maxx and other partners...

900 up.... Will be revisiting some classic old posts from the first 900 over the next 100 or so posts.. Please let me know of any favourite tip-offs from the last few years...

A rather comprehensive slideshare presentation produced by Jo Blackmore: a DME basis for an investigation of Liverpool City Centre - a model that could be adapted for other cities: on the nature of City centres... Miss Blackmore's DME Presentation! View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Just finished putting together my CGeog Log for 2008 , and discovered a quote of mine on the CGeog section of the RGS-IBG website. Why become a CGeog (Teacher)? "The CGeog is a qualification which spurs you on to improve your own professional development, and maintain the curiosity about the subject. Teachers should also be learners, and the CGeog provides a framework for that process, as well as recognition when it is achieved." Alan Parkinson, CGeog (Teacher) Why not apply to become a CGeog this year as a New Year's resolution ? Got through a fairly hefty amount of CPD in 2008, but looks like there's even more to come in 2009. Look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.