Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Commercial break...

You deserve to get one of these for yourself, or your wife or husband or partner, or a friend, or as a prize....just buy one...

Now available from the GA's online merchandise store...

iPhone 3G / 3GS case, which has been given a GA makeover...
Show your support for Geography and the GA wherever you go, and protect your iPhone at the same time..

Can't wait for mine to arrive :)

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

FrozenUK

Started a new Twitter stream yesterday to collate stories of the Big Freeze...

Follow @FrozenUK for the cold weather geographical digest... or add #FrozenUK to your tweets and I'll pick it up and add it when I get the chance...

There is more snow falling as I type this...

FrozenUK

Started a new Twitter stream yesterday to collate stories of the Big Freeze...

Follow @FrozenUK for the cold weather geographical digest... or add #FrozenUK to your tweets and I'll pick it up and add it when I get the chance...

There is more snow falling as I type this...

Friday, 17 December 2010

The Ning's the thing...

Nings have developed nicely since I first saw them in 2006-7...
At the time, I was teaching geography and the 'A' level specifications were being reviewed.
I set up a NING to support my 'A' level teaching, and to share resources and discussions relating to the work that was being carried out. Another NING was made private to my students, so that work within school could be developed further. I also created other networks for colleagues.
That first main NING now has over 2200 members !

At the 2008 Scottish Learning Festival, I attended my first teachmeet, and presented on Nings in a short 7 minute presentation slot.

When I joined the GA, I took NINGs with me, and the GA's online professional network was born, as was the now thriving PRIMARY CHAMPIONS Ning, which is closing in on the round figure of 1000 members

Earlier this month, the pre-release materials for the January 2011 Edexcel exam was released, and there was an immediate response:

Over 20 new members joined the network
Over 100 members joined a group to discuss the new pre-release material and others joined related groups
There were over 100 contributions to discussions about the materials, particularly on the tectonics hazards question, which has now had almost 50 replies and contributions..

Plenty of helpful ideas and resources being shared for the benefit of all members...

So come and join a NING near you...

Friday, 19 November 2010

GA Conference Programme 2011

The programme for next April's conference is now available to view or download on the GA website, where you can also book a ticket, or from the link below...

Geographical Association Conference & Exhibition 2011 Programme

For those doing Edexcel 'A' level there are plenty of appropriate sessions, notably the keynote lecture by Hans Rosling, creator of Gapminder.
See you there...

Saturday, 2 October 2010

One for those doing Edexcel GCSE

2 great videos made by Dave Holmes.
The first is shot in London and provides some simple ideas for ethnographic fieldwork data collection.... "people watching"...



The second is particularly helpful.
It is a short video featuring Nick Blunsum: the Head of Geography at Kingsmead Community School



What's great is that Nick talks about the impact of going through the process of gaining the Geographical Association's Secondary Geography Quality Mark.

He talks about "evaluating what was good and developing areas that needed improvement" and also "giving back some of the control to students to stop the lessons being too teacher led..." - some good advice on controlled assessment too....

Thanks for sharing these Dave, and to @GeogAdviser for the tip off on Twitter....

Thursday, 19 August 2010

Hans Rosling at GA Conference 2011

There was some exciting news earlier this week !


Hans Rosling is the Director of the Gapminder Foundation, and produced one of the most exciting tools for geographers in recent times: GAPMINDER (now in a desktop version too)

Thanks in part to some work by our colleague Bob Lang earlier in the year, it is now confirmed that Hans will be doing the keynote lecture at the Geographical Association's conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford in April 2011.

One for your diaries: for the chance to see Hans in action - get a flavour of his presentations by watching this TED TALK.

Online booking for the conference is now available!

GA members get substantial discounts!
Full time and PGCE students get FREE registration!
Delegate fees have been frozen to 2009 levels !

Follow the GA on Twitter (@The_GA) with the hashtag: #gaconf11

This year, the conference will also be raising money for ACTION AID: the President's chosen charity.