Here is a link to my presentation at Teachmeet Cramlington. It involves Critique and Solo Stations. The end has 2 slides in how to incorporate technology especially mobile devices into planning.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Solo Taxonomy as a revision tool Using QR codes and a Google Form
I need time to add the resources for this.
My first attempt at a revisional exercise using SOLO involved halved hexagons.
Students worked in pairs and were presented with a series of halved hexagons. The hexagons were split between question stems and answers to those questions. They had to piece the hexagons together.
When they had achieved this they then flipped the hexagons over to reveal a QR code constructed when they pieced the correct hexagon halves together. If they had connected the hexagon correctly with the correct question stem and answer the QR code when scanned would launch them to a google form.
In the first instance of doing this I cut out the hexagons and then on the back I stuck a printed out QR code for a specific set of statistical details of the case study. Then I simply cut the hexagon in half. Wa la!
Google forms are brilliant and they offer teachers multiple ways to construct a question and more importantly answer input from the student. The question types range from text, paragraph text, multiple choice, choose from a list, check, to a grid.
I mainly used simple multiple choice options as I wanted this stage to be quick and for students to get on to the main activity. So why was I using this??
I wanted students to build up the use of key CASE STUDY specific statistics and details.
So students filled out the google form and checked to see how well they knew the statistical and detail parts of their case study.
They then went on in class to construct an essay answer based on the case study, which was about China’s One child policy for an approach to reduce population growth. They were allowed to use the completed google form as well.
But before going hell for fire into the essay I wanted students to flip over the hexagons again and to using the hot map guide frame in my small at the minute thinking tool kit.
This was a stimulus to get students to arrange the hexagons around 3 core themes. Advantages, Disadvantages and background of the one child policy. The background hexagons I wanted students to think of as depth to the case study so they were still relevant and worthy of including in an essay.
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I’m also working on developing students literacy especially with the longer questions such as the 6-9 markers. SOLO fits brilliantly with this as from the specification to get to a level 3 answer (GCSE) students must demonstrate that they are linking their answer together and use case study specific terminology and detail.
What is that highlighted term??? (I sense people are putting 2 and 2 together here and seeing RELATIONAL!
I have begun very basic with my students and need to have a word with English subject folk on how to really develop this but my efforts are simple. Such as the linking sentence terms in bold below.
So to the essay with a google form and solo arranged hexagons as resources to use to combat the essay.
The following is an answer by one of my students that I have simply copy and pasted from an email I asked to send containing it!
The 1979 One Child Policy introduced by China was a policy to reduce the rapid population growth problem and limit the strain put on scarce resources. The policy would work by limiting the number of children a family could have to 1 if Parents had only one child they would get a "one-child glory certificate," which entitles them to economic benefits such as an extra month's salary every year until the child was 14. Among the other benefits for one child families were higher wages, interest-free loans, retirement funds, cheap fertiliser, better housing, better health care, and priority in school enrollment. Women who delay marriage until after they are 25 would receive benefits such as an extended maternity leave when they finally get pregnant. This demonstrates a carrot approach to entice Chinese couples to have only one child. The stick approach involved these privileges been taken away if the couple decides to have an extra child.
To help promote the one child policy Slogans such as “Have Fewer Children Live Better Lives” and "Stabilise Family Planning and Create a Brighter Future” were painted on roadside buildings. Some crude family planning slogans such “Raise Fewer Babies, But More Piggies” and "If you give birth to extra children, your family will be ruined" These were banned in August 2007 because of rural anger about the slogans and the policy behind them. The one child policy angered rural people as many are farm workers who need labour hands to help produce the food that China needs! Therefore if the one child policy was nationwide it would make resourcing such as food production even scarcer!
However the one-child policy actually only covered about 35 % of Chinese, mostly those living in urban areas. The conventional wisdom in China has been that controlling China's population serves the interest of the whole society and that sacrificing individual interests for those of the masses is justifiable.
A huge problem with the one child policy was the impact on abortions. Most families wanted a boy in order to work and carry on the family name and so as a direct result of this there was a dramatic increase in female abortions. They accounted for 90% of all Abortions!! This also led to scenes such as babies dumped on the street or under bridges. This shows from a human being perspective that the policy was destroying human rights!
In conclusion the policy although it harsh especially with the impact on abortions and steralisation after many births on the mother the effects on population growth are clearly optimistic and beneficial to the country’s problem. In 1979 China had a birth rate of 40 per 1000 in a year as a result of the ‘one child policy’ this was reduced to 17 per 1000 per year by 1980. Therefore the one child policy worked as a strategy to reduce the population growth as the birth rate fell by 23 per 1000 per year.
I was really impressed with this essay. She has clearly used statistics and case study specific details throughout.
So in conclusion I thought the lesson went brilliantly.
The use of solo as a strategy to get to this stage have been huge and I will be doing a hell of a lot more SOLO with my classes.
Incidentally I have begun a voyage with many other Geographers in using SOLO taxonomy. If you are interested then we've created a hashtag on twitter called #geogsolo
I have also created a series of google docs on different aspects on employing Solo in Geography. Many of the sections are bare at the minute but they will be extensively added to over the coming week as I am on half term.
Plus to emphasis the power of twitter we are having a global #geogsolo discussion for an hour on 16th June 12pm GMT. COME AND JOIN US!
Thursday, 17 May 2012
#DurhamTM a quick Mission:Explore introduction
An introduction to Mission:Explore the books, website and the coming food book.
Scoop.it at #Durham Teachmeet
A quick (ish) inroduction to scoop.it see earlier post for a more thorough overview.
Mute Lapping as presented at #DurhamTM
Mute Lapping is my current concept in the classroom. In a nutshell it is PBL, Solo Taxonomy, Classdojo, Kagan collaboration, Socrative feedback and whole class presentations via an exhibition format.
If you want to get in touch with me about anyone it contact me on twitter @JOHNSAYERS
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Mute Lapping
Here is a basic powerpoint with the concept of what I'll be talking about regarding Mute Lapping with PBL, Solo, Kagan, DL Leader packs, Classdojo and Socrative.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
CampEd12 Reflection
Two days have past since the brilliant CampEd12. In that time I've struggled to get back into the swing of the day job. This has been a direct result of some quality/bizarre reflective time.
If you haven't already read up about CampEd12 as you don't follow those who attended then in a nutshell it was created out of a tweeting discussion between Tim Rylands, Dughall McCormick and Bill Lord from memory. The discussion evolved around the cost issues with conferences and CPD sessions and Tim Rylands commented that one in his own Shed would be better!
As twitter is an incredible networking tool the wonderful Helen Daykin soon added her 10 pence worth to the mix and got involved to quickly volunteered her Mother's farm as a site where an outdoor conference/festival of fun could be sited.
After a teething problem surfaced, which destroyed the concept of Shedfest in name sake at least as it's a wine festival in California the concept evolved into the wonderfully clear descriptive title of CampEd12.
At this stage I started to inquire whether I could be an attendee as I saw the list of brilliantly inspiring people grow and grow into an event that I felt I couldn't miss.
I'm at a relatively early stage of my teaching career and since joining twitter I've followed many incredible people in the education World some of the most inspiring were attending CampEd12.
As a direct result of twitter I've tried to develop myself into being a person that other educators can reflect with, share ideas, read interesting and note worthy news articles. In a year I've seen my followers grow to other 1600. A decent amount that could only of happened by other reflective learners in a similar network of people joining in on conversations on #ukedchat or #geographyteacher that I throw myself into on a daily basis.
So this was my journey that took me to hearing about CampEd and signing myself up to attend.
Since returning from CampEd12 I've read many blog posts on it. A few really stick in my mind as they emphasised my situation. The great Dawn Hallybone posted one of them. Her situation is like mine. A partner who glances over to see me engrossed in my phone, iPad of Mac in a twitter conversation on something educational. Jess often gets extremely frustrated with seeing me return home from school to then start nattering on about Geography at home! this was a feeling I felt Dawn and I shared with our partners.
"Put it down" is a phrase Jess is sick of saying!
When the event drew nearer and nearer I began to feel guilty of leaving Jess at home on her own considering she has just been made redundant. So I sounded her out saying that it'd be fun and time for us to spend away from the 4 walls of home and reflect on our current circumstances.
Unlike another blog post by Nicky Allman where her family decided against camping I decided to brave the suggestion that Jess and I should camp as I thought we were homing another camper. Jess made inquiries into the local pub but financially we I convinced her camping was better for us.
Jess was less than convinced and her trepidation was well founded as 4 weeks earlier we had camped in Gloucester where we had to come home early as she became sick through the cold. The forecast for CampEd was not looking favourable temperature wise!
Anyway we decided to pack the kitchen sink and the entire spare bedroom of extra duvet and set off with the car packed to capacity!
On arrival like all of the blog posts we've read on returning home we were greeted with a number of warm hand shakes and embraces from the core organisers and set upon the 1st great mountain to climb (see other posts regarding the mountain climb to the pub) setting up camp!
Unlike the other campers who had set up their respectable and sensible tents I decided to bring my 12 berth Outwell beast that was to become known as 'Hotel Sayers' 'Mission:Explore base' or via sections as the 'East Wing'. I love my tent as it has a great communal area to relax in any weather situation.
This was to be the case for the opening day as Emma Dawson and I had brought along some of our favourite Guerilla Missions for anyone and everyone who wanted to explore.
This allowed me to catch up with the incredible modest Emma who never gives herself enough credit in my opinion with things that we're doing in school. We allowed those who came to the Mission Tent to explore on their own and left everyone to their own devices a skill many teachers really need to adopt as much as possible but that's another story that I like to have on my ever appearing soapbox!
After a sneaky trip up to the pub to catch the final score of the FA Cup Final I sampled a glorious ale named 'April Showers' unfortunately for me and a number of others it soon ran dry:( Mind this didn't spell disaster as many great conversations were stoked up including with the incredibly approachable Bryn Llewellyn, Chris and Catherine.
In the evening we were treated to an outstanding BBQ courtesy of the great pub owner! The sausages were nicely spiced and the burgers yummy. Plus the spicy chilli was right down my street:)
This was followed by a great musical treat from Dan Bowen, Kevin Mc Laughlin plus special children guest appearances and the incredible BEV Evans ! WOW SUCH TALENT was on show! Plus Jamie who was the best egg shaker I've ever seen!
This was where Jess and I were pretty nervous as I've only known people through twitter so I socially felt pretty scared to sit and natter so we simply took a step back and observed laughter a plenty and made our way to bed to gaze at the Super Moon before the freezing cold kicked in!
Luckily Jess came prepared with 2 hot water bottles, 2 sleeping bags each and our thick duck feathered duvet! We'd need it! The morning followed plenty of body shuddering from the cold. It was a little earlier than welcomed due to the cockerels and the infamous cuckoo or was that owl Tony Parkin kept telling us all about:)
Day 2 was more relaxed Jess and I needed some thinking time for our penny counting future and opted for the great activity of Geocaching and a walk.
I love Geocaching and my 320 total in 1 country was well and truly eclipsed by the brilliant Lord James Langley with his 400 + from 7 countries soon to be 8:) I've done plenty of Geocaching in my time and thought of different ways to use them from mission explore cache boxes, to panoramic photo reference boxes to historical changes to an area to visual changes to seasonal changes in a QR code instruction in the geocache, to a game based traceable competition.
But I had never done Geocaching with the GPS devices the Lord had brought.
Instantly I was in my silly element! With squashing imaginary Geckos and other games. This was a fab ice breaker game that got to all at ease with people we didn't know.
On the Geocaching main challenge my group got talking about the pedagogical worth and value of Geocaching and quickly kept coming back to the outdoor quality it brings but came up with some strategies to make the searching time into thinking time or activity in itself time. We loved the dimensions, distance, direction and orientation aspect to build EAL issues and the QR code uses seen earlier but more importantly the fun aspect. We each discussed how at finding each cache of various different challenges that could be set and these could be collaborative to level based / solo based activities to each group getting an element to a mega task then collaborating centrally after each group has found their geocache-challenge-code to be solved.
We all love Geocaching and at this stage Jess and I wanted to explore the countryside. The walk was lovely and the guide was very informative and certainly loved her area. Something I think we should all take note of and explore our local area to relate to it more than most of us do ME included!
On this walk I got to chat to Dawn Hallybone and her husband for the 1st time. We had a lovely chat about travels and possible future options something that is at the forefront of both Jess and my mind! I loved the walk as it recharged my batteries that were getting wary of the amount of tea I was drinking to stay warm.
On returning to the Campsite I slumped into a chair to gaze at the awe inspiring Kevin Mc Laughlin and his 3D snow flake creation time. How is it created again Kevin? He showed great persistence that many teachers ooze when needing to finish a job/task. At that time a huge aspect of the Camp was beginning to surface again. My mind had drifted but now I was beginning to regain a mind focus it became clear that children were a central core to this festival of fun and rightfully so! Not once all weekend did I see ANY children whine about being bored or wanting to go home!
Perhaps like Matthew Pearson suggests this was because we were all a middle class well brought up mini community with engaging parents offering different stigmatic activities for the children. I agree with Matthew on this front that this sort of festival/camp is ideal to opening the eyes to those less fortunate who don't get much more beyond the end of their street let alone another county or country!
I'd be more than willing to run a competition/secret invitational criteria for next year to bring 1 boy and 1 girl from my school who fitted this bill for them to experience this wonderful event!? Thoughts????
After Kevin finally relieved himself from Snow flake duty I settled down to chat with Susan Banister, Dughall McCormick, Jamie and Dawn Hallybone. We had a lovely chat that ranged from some of the best ad hoc planning I've done in ages to a comparison of scars. Again another aspect that I'm taking back to form time to allow students to come up with a starting discussion point and see what we have in common on a specific theme.
The event drew to a close for me in the final Sunday dinner meal and drinking session. My sunburn was firmly setting in by then and so I enjoyed sitting back and chatting to those mentioned and the very approachable Tony Parking and Alex Bellars.
I had such a wonderful time as did Jess. She is happy for me to keep tweeting to open up other windows of networking opportunities like CampEd12 for a friendship event as much as an educating opportunity.
So what will I take from CampEd?
Well I've asked my SLT if I can set up my tent in the school grounds for a Learning Pod.
My form have begun a life experience book using the CBB app.
I'm planning a new transition series of events for next years year 7 using events from CampEd12 mostly the mission:explore, geocaching, den building linked events.
Overall I had a wonderful time and didn't get opportunity to speak to many who I wanted including Jo Badge about GTAUK and Graeme Eyre about Geography education or many other people who I follow on twitter like Chris Ratcliffe.
Roll on CampEd13! A camp that I hear now is a strong possibility of happening!
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Mute lapping - (Solo-Kagan-Socrative/Digital leaders-Classdojo-window writers)
This is a quick overview on what I'll chat about at #TMhum. I'll upload to this site the presentation in advance of it for you all to have a butchers at.
My whole teaching method at present is all about me doing very little and the students learning for themselves and collaboratively. I am the last port of call. So if they have a question they have to ask the others in their learning quad or around the room.
I provide a 2-4 week project based learning pack for each group. The students compliment this by using iPod touches, iPads, laptops (BYOD) for research and an avenue on how they want to present their learning.
Students also have learning packs (these have digital device weblinks, guides on how to use learning app/programs created by my Digital leaders team and are growing all the time) and their quad groups to use Kagan activities such as all write, pair, share to provide feedback/up and forward on how to develop their learning.
Throughout the lessons the Digital leaders run some Kagan led Socrative feedback questioning to check the learning progress of the class this is displayed on the whiteboard. Each group discuss in their learning groups and feedback via one person (different person each time) using the devices they have for the whole class to get a feel for the learning the other groups are doing so when they get onto that aspect of the learning they have a mini light bulb at the back of their mind ready.
The PBL packs all contain mapping/place activities, describing, explaining, opinionated, aspects. These generally are split up in the quad groups one each. Therefore the next lesson when the groups switch they have a partner who can give some feedback/feedforward.
My time is purely spent lapping the classroom and using my iPhone adding learning points to Classdojo that will be up on the whiteboard for students to see how happy I am as an assessor to everyone’s learning.
At the end of each lesson students evaluate where they are on the solo taxonomy path of learning and they know where they are at and the learning theme they have to develop the next lesson to complete a specific aspect of their projects. I am developing a solo geography skills ladder path so that students can easily decipher where they are and where they’ll take their learning.
The start of the next lesson students will think, pair, share the learning that they gained from the previous lesson. Ones from each group will spend 5 minutes each week getting together to discuss their learning progress and as a Q&A time. Twos, threes and fours do likewise.
During the lesson each group will write the learning paths that they explored (successes/problems on the windows in their learning room for the other classes that I observe to get some hints and tips or to explore ways to overcome problems that the other groups have had and give them a helping hand. Each window is split into 4 for this for the different aspects of the project.
So my role in the class is to be as Mute as possible and simply lap the room, listening and observing the learning.
Mission:explore Genius bar
I'll have the mission:explore books and the website that i'll run through and show how we are looking for schools to sign up to it and create their own mission based learning. This is something that can be cross-schools based.
Scoop.it 2 min nano presentation
With the great Theo Kuechel I am running a Scoop.it research project with my students.
This is a site where you can curate on a given topic and have the site search different sites for items on your chosen topic on a daily basis. You can add the suggested content and add sites that you want the site to search each day. You can add bookmarklets to sites and then this will link that site page straight to your scoop.it page. Just by the click of a button. Once you install the bookmarklet to your bookmark folder this will be open for any site you look at. You can even do it on your iPhone so I'm constantly updating.
I have used this with 6 form and each student uses my account and they add content to it as they come across research that they find useful. The classes have all found that it speeds up research and created a turbo charged depth to their reading by the site doing it for them! I'll discuss some issues that students have had with it.
This site has meant that I now rarely update my further reading blogs for students to read up on different topics. Students also use the app.
I might add a little on zeebox on how I'm using this with students to cut down in class video watching time as we do it in the comfort of our own homes.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
An evening of informal Geography chat not to be missed
David Guetta feat Usher do continental drift!?!
A video that with the music is a bell work task for students to pick out what is happening. It links to continental drift and where we came from Pangea connenting us together and the without you aspect of the song could be interpreted that we can't exist as a planet without everyone?
Hypothesis the meaning of the song yourself. Link to a jigsaw puzzle exercise of the tectonic plates and get students to produce an animated model of continental drift using a Bourbon biscuit broken in two......
What could I mean? get a bourbon and hypothesise what Alfred Wegener might of done with it to prove continental drift of Africa and South America.
Google Fusion table map and Intensity Map of Mega cities vs cities of the World
Since December I have discovered google Fusion tables and have fiddled on with them and spent many an hour exploring created maps from them on the internet.
As a Geographer mapping is key to me. It can provide so much visual information for the reader.
Here is my latest effort to map all the mega cities in the world against all the cities using simple visual cirles. Larger circles show megacities, smaller cirlces show cities.
What patterns from the following maps do you pick up?
Many many more maps are to follow from me in various complexities. This one been very simple. I can natural resort to using hacks to change styles and bling up various maps but these will come in following posts.
The 1st picture is simply of city placemarks of the world.
The 2nd map is a visual representation using 2 circle sizes.
small (light green) = city
large (dark green) = mega city
As a Geographer mapping is key to me. It can provide so much visual information for the reader.
Here is my latest effort to map all the mega cities in the world against all the cities using simple visual cirles. Larger circles show megacities, smaller cirlces show cities.
What patterns from the following maps do you pick up?
Many many more maps are to follow from me in various complexities. This one been very simple. I can natural resort to using hacks to change styles and bling up various maps but these will come in following posts.
The 1st picture is simply of city placemarks of the world.
The 2nd map is a visual representation using 2 circle sizes.
The following link is to the google fusion table data for you to play around with.
I'll put one embed example in only as it will drastically slow down the browser.
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S357504wfN5
Those on apple devices won't see them so I have attached some screen shots as well.
small (light green) = city
large (dark green) = mega city
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Mission:Explore Food
Mission:Explore Food
We need your help to create Mission:Explore Food, the latest in the series of children's books which The Society of Authors have said "encourage children to explore the world around them, developing their curiosity, confidence and courage along the way…".
Mission:Explore Food will be a revolutionary cookbook, guide, fieldbook and atlas to what we grow in the ground, chase around fields, put in our mouths, poo out our bums and plant our seeds in. The book will include scores of both delicious and disgusting recipes, missions, games and wisdom on good ways to find, eat and dispose of food.
Written by The Geography Collective (a team of teachers, academics, artists and explorers) in partnership with City Farmers and illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones, Mission:Explore Food will go where no other family food-related book dares!
The first Mission:Explore Book won the Hay Festival & National Trust Outdoor Book of the Year and is Pink Stinks for being forward thinking and positive on gender issues. Our next book will be even bigger and better.
Mission:Explore Food will cover sustainable, healthy, slow, self-grown, urban farmed, ethical, local and international food. Readers will be encouraged to think critically and creatively about where their food comes from, how it's transported, traded, processed, prepared, cook, eaten and disposed of.
Chapters in the 320 page full colour and illustrated hardback book include:
1. Grow
2. Harvest
3. Cook
4. Eat
5. Waste
6. Soil
In true Mission:Explore style readers will be challenged to complete missions which involve planting, digging, watering, finding, foraging, growing, investigating, testing, questioning, sifting, rolling, talking, throwing, climbing, harvesting, hunting, picking, sharing, learning, soiling, pooing, weeing, recycling, trading, singing, creating, cooking, stiring, boiling, grating, skimming, churning, thinking, mapping, eating, tasting, smelling, sniffing, burning, chilling, drinking, gargling, farming, playing and fooding.
We will be preparing free units of work to help teachers use the book in schools across the curriculum. The missions will also be integrated with www.missionexplore.net so that readers can collect points and earn rewards for their efforts.
If you are a charity or food related organisation and would like to support the book in a way that is not directly on offer on this page please let us know.
We plan for the book to retail at £20 a copy and to launch at the Hay Festival 2012. Please help us to make this happen and be a part of something special!
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Here are a few words from other people on Mission:Explore.
"Mission Explore by the Geography Collective and published by Can of Worms Press was ‘mischievous, quirky and fun. full of truly challenging, thought provoking and slightly bonkers activities. Nicola Davies particularly liked the ‘Mint Stint’ which asks readers to see how far they can cycle sucking the same mint, giving page space for the route maps of three attempts.’ But the judges admired the book as being a lot more than frivolous entertainment , liking the way it fosters an attitude of observation , enquiry and engagement with the world,, asking children to interact with their environment, interact question it and think about it – and to play with ideas, places, objects - a playful approach that is the foundation of all creativity." Society of Authors on becoming a runner up for the Best Education Writer of the Year Award 2011.
"Mission:Explore is bold, cool, exciting, innovative, geographic, educational…and just plain fun! Every curious kid, budding geographer, and responsible parent should have a copy!" National Geographic Education
"Mission:Explore is splendid - great fun, and a lovely way to get children out into their environment and using their brains." Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood
"We love the creativity of Mission:Explore and the way it creates experiences for all children so they can share, learn and play together." Pinkstinks Approved
"Designed to be read, scribbled on, illustrated, smeared, scratched and sniffed, it may just be the most revolutionary geography-related book ever published." Geographical Magazine
"Learning to engage with the world around you is the key to effective citizenship education, Mission:Explore sits at the heart of what we believe is good citizenship education!" Ade Sofola, Citizenship Foundation
"THE KIDS' CLASSIC - Attempting to travel with a wriggly child? Buy a copy of Mission:Explore, a book of 102 spy-style tasks and assignments, such as 'How far can you travel while sucking the same mint?' and 'Make a map revealing local cat routes'. It's like bringing along a nanny with endless patience and a James Bond fixation." Sunday Times Travel Magazine
2 / 3
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Friday, 2 December 2011
Watching the Cricket
The video links mapping of the situation of the cricket ground and then straight into the analysis of a classic wagon wheel of scoring shots. Students have a plethora of data to analyse! Does the batsman prefer singles, twos, threes, fours to score their runs? Do they prefer a certain scoring location via a compass rose analysis? From this can you plan a field of attack?
The next two photos analyse bar graph data. This allows students to analyse patterns and trends (does a batsman score a century over a regular period? Have they had a purple patch of their career? Did they have a lull? When was that? Get video footage? Was it their technique? Location when they played? Team they played so angle of delivery? How did they get out? Was it a specific way each time?)
The 2nd looks at the current innings. Did the team loose wickets at a set time? Why was that? Weather? Pitch? Ball condition? Bowler? How do they deliver the ball? How is the pitch responding? The type of soil cracks? Does this type of pitch appear a lot? Is it particular with this pitch? Does a certain batsman, bowler suit a certain pitch?
This sort of graphical data through sport opens up a multitude of open ended questions / interpretation / theories
I could go on and on! But time to enjoy geography in action.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Daily Reading
As a Teacher I feel that it is important that I read up on my subject area of geography. In order to get a grasp of current affairs in the changing nature of how humans live their lives (human geography) and how the physical and natural world (physical) evolve and shape our planet to recurring and new issues and how we impact upon it to damage or repair it (environmental). I can gain an appreciation for this with the ever developing GIS to help me visually see changes and current / past trends/anomalies.
BUT how many teachers like myself have wanted to open the lesson up to students for a discussion on a topic and got blank faces back?
How many have had students utter the words 'I couldn't / can't find anything?'
Well I've taken it upon myself to train students to do a daily dose of reading into the world we live in. This sounds a vast concept and my initial effort llobgeog.posterous.com / llobgeog.blogspot.com got a little confusing after 2 weeks when students said
'Sir you said look on that site but there was loads of stuff we're not doing, so I couldn't find anything on our topic'
My response naturally wasn't oh that is ok but to challenge 'why wasn't the other topics relevant? Can they be related in anyway? Examine a word mat and see if any reoccurring geography terms appear that could link it to your topic. Categorise aspects - human, physical, environmental geography. Produce a ringed linking diagram to see if any overlap.. Etc
Anyway I evolved this to include twitter and added a hashtag to a tweet and add the blog link e.g #llobgeo7 indicating the tweet related to year 7 and when they clicked on the hyperlink they were taken to the correct page. This worked better BUT hashtags only last a week so via twitter that link would be lost and if a student missed it they would have to come back to me about it.
ANYWAY so to my current evolution. I've seized to add tweets or so many to my unofficial geography twitter account other than to link students to a specific topic of reading materials that focus students reading but actually allow overlap occasionally but also open up students to select additional interest reading into topics they might not be learning about currently but like I said have an interest in.
Another reason why I changed it to a single site for students is to limit them getting lost. More than 2 clicks and the student is struggling or capable of getting lost in their research.
The sites I've developed are as follows then i'll go into my reading technique each morning and night and which I expect students to do for 20 minutes each day and to eventually to take ownership of and to build up the extensive reading material as they home the technique to suit them for geography and other subjects to make them well oiled research learners.
geognewspopulation.posterous.com
geognewsflooding.posterous.com
geognewsdevelopment.posterous.com
geognewsanimals.posterous.com
geognewsmappingandplace.posterous.com
geognewstectonics.posterous.com
geognewsclimate.posterous.com
geogtnl.posterous.com
The sites may look long to type in but they are quite obvious titles for the students and I haven't had snubbed come to me saying they couldn't find it.
The tnl one is there for tools as I find them that students should experiment with and other teachers as well.
TECHNIQUE
Each morning I come downstairs with my iPad and I search the following sites to see if any obvious geography has occurred. I say that as geography is everything we do and get involved in and the future but for school curriculums and old fashioned core topics what current news would fit.
1. The BBC app. I search the headlines, world, uk, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, science and nature, technology, health sections and then tweet to #geographyteacher so that I can come back to it and news blog later that day on. I also do this for other teachers of geography if they don't have time to read up in depth different sites so that they can have a quicker reading experience.
2. I go to sky news app and do the same
3. I go to google news and repeat the procedure. I love this site as it reviews lots of papers into a similar theme of story. This is a great site to get students to read in greater depth on a news story that crops up that is relevant for say a case study. Google news also creates a nice line graph which highlights stories that most journalists have covered on a particular search that you have conducted or around a similar theme to that written about on that day that has caught your eye. It can help give students a quick evaluation form as to what might be worth reading and what not Alternatively topsy turvy it and why is one article less popular? has it been written badly and so the message hasn't been portrayed well? How could the students make it stand out more? could it be the headline or the bulk of the story or the imagery used?
4. Personalised research news apps like Zite. This app is excellent as it allows you to custom the content to be of specific themes. You can even type a key term in and have that as a search for it to do and it will give you a back Catalogue of material on that theme.
I have found that this has really deepened my reading and made a lot of my teaching comments CURRENT. Through time I'll blog findings if students reading and see if it improves discussion lessons.
I love a comment by @anguswillson who I greatly admire for his wisdom that getting students to read their local media coverage will help get them to make connections with their own neighbourhood experiences as well as the global events as I'm sure many geography teachers have faced the question but why are we looking at this place!?!?! I', never going there I DONT CARE! How the local media portray global issues could assist students. Local concepts could open more doors for making the difference geography. Students could be more likely to get involved with assisting local issues and creating a difference than global.
BUT how many teachers like myself have wanted to open the lesson up to students for a discussion on a topic and got blank faces back?
How many have had students utter the words 'I couldn't / can't find anything?'
Well I've taken it upon myself to train students to do a daily dose of reading into the world we live in. This sounds a vast concept and my initial effort llobgeog.posterous.com / llobgeog.blogspot.com got a little confusing after 2 weeks when students said
'Sir you said look on that site but there was loads of stuff we're not doing, so I couldn't find anything on our topic'
My response naturally wasn't oh that is ok but to challenge 'why wasn't the other topics relevant? Can they be related in anyway? Examine a word mat and see if any reoccurring geography terms appear that could link it to your topic. Categorise aspects - human, physical, environmental geography. Produce a ringed linking diagram to see if any overlap.. Etc
Anyway I evolved this to include twitter and added a hashtag to a tweet and add the blog link e.g #llobgeo7 indicating the tweet related to year 7 and when they clicked on the hyperlink they were taken to the correct page. This worked better BUT hashtags only last a week so via twitter that link would be lost and if a student missed it they would have to come back to me about it.
ANYWAY so to my current evolution. I've seized to add tweets or so many to my unofficial geography twitter account other than to link students to a specific topic of reading materials that focus students reading but actually allow overlap occasionally but also open up students to select additional interest reading into topics they might not be learning about currently but like I said have an interest in.
Another reason why I changed it to a single site for students is to limit them getting lost. More than 2 clicks and the student is struggling or capable of getting lost in their research.
The sites I've developed are as follows then i'll go into my reading technique each morning and night and which I expect students to do for 20 minutes each day and to eventually to take ownership of and to build up the extensive reading material as they home the technique to suit them for geography and other subjects to make them well oiled research learners.
geognewspopulation.posterous.com
geognewsflooding.posterous.com
geognewsdevelopment.posterous.com
geognewsanimals.posterous.com
geognewsmappingandplace.posterous.com
geognewstectonics.posterous.com
geognewsclimate.posterous.com
geogtnl.posterous.com
The sites may look long to type in but they are quite obvious titles for the students and I haven't had snubbed come to me saying they couldn't find it.
The tnl one is there for tools as I find them that students should experiment with and other teachers as well.
TECHNIQUE
Each morning I come downstairs with my iPad and I search the following sites to see if any obvious geography has occurred. I say that as geography is everything we do and get involved in and the future but for school curriculums and old fashioned core topics what current news would fit.
1. The BBC app. I search the headlines, world, uk, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, science and nature, technology, health sections and then tweet to #geographyteacher so that I can come back to it and news blog later that day on. I also do this for other teachers of geography if they don't have time to read up in depth different sites so that they can have a quicker reading experience.
2. I go to sky news app and do the same
3. I go to google news and repeat the procedure. I love this site as it reviews lots of papers into a similar theme of story. This is a great site to get students to read in greater depth on a news story that crops up that is relevant for say a case study. Google news also creates a nice line graph which highlights stories that most journalists have covered on a particular search that you have conducted or around a similar theme to that written about on that day that has caught your eye. It can help give students a quick evaluation form as to what might be worth reading and what not Alternatively topsy turvy it and why is one article less popular? has it been written badly and so the message hasn't been portrayed well? How could the students make it stand out more? could it be the headline or the bulk of the story or the imagery used?
4. Personalised research news apps like Zite. This app is excellent as it allows you to custom the content to be of specific themes. You can even type a key term in and have that as a search for it to do and it will give you a back Catalogue of material on that theme.
I have found that this has really deepened my reading and made a lot of my teaching comments CURRENT. Through time I'll blog findings if students reading and see if it improves discussion lessons.
I love a comment by @anguswillson who I greatly admire for his wisdom that getting students to read their local media coverage will help get them to make connections with their own neighbourhood experiences as well as the global events as I'm sure many geography teachers have faced the question but why are we looking at this place!?!?! I', never going there I DONT CARE! How the local media portray global issues could assist students. Local concepts could open more doors for making the difference geography. Students could be more likely to get involved with assisting local issues and creating a difference than global.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Questions for Sian Welby
Questions for Sian Welby
1.
How did you find your current
job?
2.
What was your favourite subject
at school?
3.
Who inspired you when you were
11-18?
4.
Where do you get your clothes
from as you have lovely style?
5.
What is a typical day for you?
6.
Where is your favourite place
in the world?
7.
What do you fear the most?
8.
What do you love of life?
9.
What does your job involve?
10. What do you want to achieve?
11. How do you travel to work?
12. What type of house do you live in?
13. What type of car do you have?
14. What is your favourite programme on tv?
15. What music do you listen to that cheers you up?
16. What do you hate?
17. If you could visit one place where would it be?
18. Who do you most want to meet?
19. What jobs have you had?
20. Do you like sport if so what is your favourite?
21. What make up tip would you give any girl?
22. How do you tell the weather?
23. How do you monitor the weather?
24. What percentage of the time do you get the weather forecast right?
25. How many people work behind the scenes at channel 5 weather?
26. What jobs do the other people in the office do?
27. How long did it take you to learn how to read all the different
parts to the weather?
28. How do you know if cloud cover from a satellite will cause rain?
29. Will we get snow this winter?
30. Do you believe in global warming?
31. Do you believe in climate change?
32. What do you think life will be like in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years?
33. Who will most likely cause WW3?
34. If you could make a law what would it be?
35. What is your favourite name?
36. Can you speak a foreign language?
37. What is your favouirte food?
38. What is your favourite drink?
39. Who is the fittest man in the world?
40. Who is the fittest woman in the world?
41. If money was no object what outfit would you buy?
42. Who is your favourite designer?
43. What is your favourite shop?
44. What supermarket do you shop at?
45. Do you recycle?
46. Do you play xbox?
47. Do you play PS3?
48. Which is best PS3/XBOX?
49. What type of phone do
you have?
50. Who is your favourite comedian?
51. What is your favourite song?
52. What is your favourite film?
53. What is your favourite colour?
54. If you were told you only had 1 meal left and it could be anything
what would it be?
55. Would you ever visit our school?
56. How do you stay so slim?
57. What exercise do you do?
58. What shampoo and hair products do you use?
59. How many pairs of shoes
do you have?
60. What was your geography teacher called?
61. What was your best ever lesson that you remember?
62. How well did you do at school?
63. Which A-Levels did you study?
64. Which University did you attend?
65. How many houses have you lived in and where have they been?
66. Are you still friends with anyone from primary school?
67. Are you still friends with anyone from secondary school?
68. What was the naughtiest thing you did at school?
69. What makes a day at work bad?
70. What do you look forward to most each day?
71. What is your favourite day of the week?
72. If you could make an advert what would it be for?
73. What are your hobbies?
74. Do you have any pets?
75. Do you think what is taught in schools is worthwhile?
76. What would your dream job be?
77. What did you grow up wanting to be?
78. What is your favourite weather?
79. Will weather forecasting change?
80. If you could be on Dragons Den what would your product be?
81. What is your favourite computer game?
82. What was your favourite challenge?
83. Who is the most famous person you’ve met?
84. If you could be reincarnated as someone who would it be and why?
85. If you were in the Alan Partridge episode where he is fighting to
get a second series and he has to think off the top of his head a TV show what
would you say? What would it be about?
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