“A curriculum, to be truly
educational, will lead the
students to
unanticipated, rather than
predicted, outcomes”
John McKernan

Look at it This Way:
ICT in the Geography
Classroom
Alan Parkinson
Secondary Curriculum Development Leader
Geographical Association

My contact details
alanparkinsonatthega
aparkinson@geography.org.uk
@GeoBlogs
GeoBlogs

About me....

If I have seen further it is by standing
on the shoulders of Giants
Image by Flickr user Steve Roe

Flickr user: Highranger

What I hope to do....
• Outline some web tools that will help support
the development of adventurous pedagogy, and
suggest how they can be used in the geography
classroom
• Connect their use with a Living Geography
approach, and to the GA’s manifesto for
geography: ‘a different view’
• Share the work of a range of teachers who form
part of my Personal Learning Network (PLN)

"As I travel the world, I find
myself asking questions
that only geographers can
answer..."
Michael Palin

a different view

Why “look at it this way ?”
Example lesson activity in handout...

Geographical enquiry
Students as active participants and
investigators, not just the passive
recipients of knowledge
Using imagination and creativity to
think critically about what we see

BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY
Creating
Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things
Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.
Evaluating
Justifying a decision or course of action
Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging
Analysing
Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships
Comparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating, finding
Applying
Using information in another familiar situation
Implementing, carrying out, using, executing
Understanding
Explaining ideas or concepts
Interpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining
Remembering
Recalling information
Recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding

A-Z on Google Earth by
Rachel Young
A = Leigh, Kent
Z = Sleepy Staffordshire

7 sections
A curriculum resource
Thinking geographically
Living Geography
Geography and young people
Investigating and exploring geography
Geography and the ‘real world’
Curriculum making with geography

“The Met Office admitted this week that
its promise of a barbecue summer was
wrong, explaining that it was very difficult
to predict what will happen in three
months time. Meanwhile, they remain
absolutely convinced that they know
precisely what the weather will be like a
century from now.”
Jeremy Clarkson – August 2009

The Action Plan for Geography

“The Independent” – 23rd Sept

“The central problem of our
time is not standards. It is
actually about getting kids to
engage with learning.”
Prof David Hargreaves, SSAT

“If you're enthusiastic and have a
command of your subject, you don't need
technology. You just need to have a
relationship with your pupils, to engage
with them, and be interested in them as
people, and how they develop. Teachers
of different ages and different types have
different skills, and they all have a place –
children like variety.”
History Teacher quoted in same article

Blogging....
2003: GeoBlogs...
•A reflective ‘diary’ of what had been taught, and the
pedagogy involved
• A means of setting homework and continuing the
‘conversation’ so that the lesson didn’t end when the
lesson ended
• Sharing student work with a wider audience, and peer
assessment with other schools
• Communication with colleagues
• A ‘filing cabinet’ to remember links I had come across

http://livinggeography.blogspot.com

Juicy Geography: Noel Jenkins

Geography Geek: Helen Young

http://delicious.com/preche/wastefulworld
Delicious is an example of “social bookmarking”

“mobile
learning”

New fieldwork...
GA Worldwise Challenge
Juniper Hall, September 2009

Wordle
Digital images
Big Huge Labs : image manipulation

Noel Jenkins
“virtual fieldtrips”
Exeter Princesshay
360 degree panoramas

Alternative maps...

Flip Video

Make sure
you have the
latest version
installed on
your
machine.

http://googlearthusersguide.blogspot.com

Clone Towns ? Dead hearts ?

Copenhagen – December
Google Earth Climate Tours

Gavin Brock’s OS Layer
http://www.brock-family.org/gavin/google-
earth/osmaps.html

Images
.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/geographypages

Hooks....

Online magazine, plus YouTube, plus iTunes podcast subscription

John Davitt
• The LEG (Learning Event Generator)
• A series of tasks, and alternative ways of
completing the tasks.
• An iPhone app (the RAG) and an Excel
spreadsheet version...
• Have made a GEOGRAPHY version, but could
be customised...

Literacy
narratives : “writing” the earth

http://www.kerismith.com/

“Childhood is a branch
of cartography”
Michael Chabon

Bringing your maps to life
Ordnance Survey Mapping News

Newspapers

NINGS
NetworkING

Supporting each other through
curriculum change...

Over 1400 members !

Richard Allaway activities
http://www.geographyalltheway.com

Teachers TV
Recent series on ICT in the
classroom
Login to download previous
programmes...

Paul Cornish – use of VIDEO in the
classroom

Enhancing Teaching and Learning
with Flip Video
Paul Cornish

Ideas to Enhance Lessons . . .
• Starter/ plenary - Filming responses on IWB
• Mysteries - Camera is the source of information
• Explaining – e.g coastal processes
• Discussion & debate – video contributions
• Vox pop – Interview pupils/ staff before lesson on an issue
• Activities – e.g trading game or model building
• Assessment – teacher, self, peer etc…
• Evaluation – Group project or pupil voice
Clip 1 Clip 2
Enhancing teaching and learning with Flip Video

Projects . . .
• News Report Clip 1
• Sustainability film
Clip 2
• Puppet Show
• Visual poetry Clip 3
• Video for parents
• Make a film for link school
• Competitions
• Prospective parents/ Options evening
Field
work
Enhancing teaching and learning with Flip Video

Field Work . . .
• Museum trips- video an exhibit and explain…
• Geography fieldwork - methods of data collection
- motivation
- alternative to making notes
- AS revision for exam
- KS3 Rebranding Canterbury
• Video diaries – Year 9 Ypres trip
• Video for assembly/ parents
Clip 1 Clip 2 Clip 3
Enhancing teaching and learning with Flip Video

Tony Cassidy – Social media & “what’s
in your pocket...”

Local hotel owner reports
guest as missing.
.

Guest named as Mr
Jones, mid-thirties, home in
the East Midlands, paid cash.
.

Last seen 48 hours ago-
headed for the Foreland…
locating the Foreland.
.

Downloading images…
.

Mobile phone recovered at
the Foreland.
.

Off to
photograph
Old Harry, will
send you a
picture.

Police find bag at the base of
the headland.
.

Individual recorded as a
missing person.
.

Police request help with
building a profile of the
individual.
.

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U Mapper – make your own
“find a location” game

Visualisation
Ageing Britain: Office of National Statistics
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ageingintheuk/agemap.html

Gapminder

Worldmapper Cartograms
http://www.worldmapper.com

Gracenote Music Maps
http://www.gracenote.com/map/
Cultural Geography of Music...

Vocaroo.com

Wallwisher

Wordle

“Pupils want to learn. If you
forget that, give up and get out
of the profession...”
Neil Winton
Teachmeet SLF 09
BBC Scotland – 23/09/09

You are not
alone...

and finally....
“Look at it this way”
Available from GA shop later this month

Thanks for coming – safe journey
home !
alanparkinsonatthega
aparkinson@geography.org.uk
@GeoBlogs
GeoBlogs

Acknowledgements
• Map Head image: Strangemaps Blog
• Images of Otzi: Otzi Museum
• Climate map: Centre International de Recherche
sur l'Environnement et le Développement and
Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie, Météo-
France
• Alec Couros, Networked teacher
• Other images by Alan Parkinson, made available
under Creative Commons

Acknowledgements
Teacher / colleague ‘giants’ on whose shoulders I have stood today:
• Noel Jenkins: Juicy stuff
• Tony Cassidy: Facebook template and mystery bag
• Kenny O’ Donnell: Twitter conversations
• Richard Allaway: Hjulstrom curve and IB goodness
• Helen Young: Geekiness with the Mr. Men
• Liz Smith: Facebook brilliance
• Daniel Raven Ellison: Urban Earth and Journey Journal
• Jamie Buchanan Dunlop: Digital Exploring
• David Rogers: Social networking
• Ollie Bray: Ever present
• David Lambert, Ruth Totterdell & John Lyon – GA colleagues
• Staff of Juniper Hall Field Studies Centre: Worldwise