Geography and all that Jazz

Image by me... A very pleasant day at the Royal Geographical Society on Friday for a training day for Geography Regional Subject Advisers. Thanks to Judy Mansell and co for hosting us... The day was led by the National Subject Leads: David Rayner and Ruth Totterdell, and we also had sessions from Fred Martin, who provided an excellent overview on the use of GIS, and 2 GIS providers: Diana Freeman from the Advisory Unit with AEGIS, and James Sawle from Digital Worlds. The CfBT support is focussing on the use of GIS technologies this year. If you need some support with the use of GIS in your Key Stage 3 Geography teaching. get in touch, and I'll pass you on to the relevant adviser: if you teach in the East of England , you can get support from Katharine Hutchinson and I... Perhaps the easiest thing is to have a TAXI DRIVER for a geography teacher ? According to research by University College London, they have a particular type of brain... Image from UCL via BBC website And to win...

SPORE - very exciting prospect ! Ewan is one of many who are excited about the educational possibilities of this game, launched TODAY. SPORE explores ideas of evolution and the creation of societies and communities. I have a copy ordered, but not received it yet... "Spore is bringing creativity to the masses where you as a consumer watch something on TV and say I can do something better than that, I can make a better space ship than that and you go on Spore and you can make something very compelling and even better in terms of design and scope." Thomas Vu, Spore Producer The key to the game surviving is suggested to be " narrative density ", which is a good thing to aim for when producing an educational resource I would suggest, especially if it's evident in what the students produce as a consequence... Here's the creator: Will Wright at Ted Talks over a year ago... The planetary editing phase looks particularly great !

A day in watching the Open Golf at Royal Birkdale. The wind in control today... A sunny day in the Tour as well. Spore ... This game is out in September 2008. The website is HERE . It has been developed by Will Wright, who also created " The Sims ". The later stages of the game become a little more 'geographical' as the players begin to develop civilisations. Also been some controversy over some aspects of the game's installation and security features, and the apparent removal of reviews from Amazon. I have been having a play with the SPORE CREATURE CREATOR , which is great fun. Also a new edition of GRANTA out now is called " The New Nature Writing ", and it has some wonderful contributors. There are 2 articles by Robert McFarlane which would be well worth reading. There is one on the changes that have been taking place in Beijing, and one on the Fens. There are also 2 VERY nice online pieces. An interview with the author Jonathan Raban , who was bor...