Under Construction!

I have not been posting much to the blog recently - due to my extreme busyness over the last month and also due to the fact that I have been spending a lot of time learning how to use Dreamweaver and trying to recreate my web site using this programme. I am now at the stage where I have some of my content for some classes ready to use on a new part of my site. I have been working exclusively on my AS and A2 Level Geography classes and making sure that these parts of my site are working ok. If you want to check out the new sections please go to the new address at http://info.thinkgeography.org.uk - though I will probably move all the content back to www.thinkgeography.org.uk once I have removed all the old pages.
Frop me a line and let me know what you think of the new stuff - it looks much the same but I will get it moved over first before I start to tinker with the design aspects.

Why does computer stuff always take so long?

I have been having problems with my web site recently. I have been unable to make big changes to my site for a while now and I have been teaching myself Dreamweaver so that I could open a new backdoor to the site that would still allow me to add stuff to the site and stay up to date. But, learning Dreamweaver is slow! I have tried to put together some basic stuff and it has been taking me absolutely ages. It is very slow. I think this is the thing that frustrates me the most about ICT - it takes so long to do everything. I like my students to get fresh content and to be able to get my presentations, podcasts etc - but it is taking progessively more and more time to stay up to date and to be able to do this. Is ICT slowly becoming the realm of the professional again. I must admit to be struggling with all this RSS and web design stuff - surely there are easier ways to stay up to date?

As it is - i think the resources that I put together about the Giant's Causeway are pretty good and reflect a whole departmental effort with Mr B and Miss A in the Geog department at Slemish. I think it provides a good example of a good learning resource packed with thinking skills, accelerated learning, creativity and ICT can actually look like in the real world. The big question is now if the students can engage with the project and produce the goods . . it is over to you -

Click here to see the final resource content

Giant's Causeway-cliff view3_jpg

Giant's Causeway-cliff view3_jpg
Originally uploaded by mapsman06.

I have been doing a little work about the Giant's Causeway for a Field trip that i am involved in next week. We are trying to develop a more interactive type of Geography field trip that will stimulate the kid's learning while they are on the trip and later on when we get back to the classroom.

The picture above is one of the things we are thinking about using - in flickr you can add notes to the picture that when the student scrolls over give more information about that area. We are going to try and develop this into some sort of interactive map - maybe! Any ideas about how we can do this without using flickr would be much appreciated as unfortunately the students can't access flickr in school!

Changing Information to Imagination!

For a while now I have been thinking how weird it is that we talk about ICT as Information and Communication Technology . I am starting to think that we should be a little more creative in the way that we use ICT and maybe we need to start with the title. Perhaps, this is a good time to change the 'I' in ICT to Imagination and Communication Technology. We should be attempting to get learners to imagine the best use of the technology and to imagine themselves in a new way - what is their web 'prescence'? what is the profile that they leave on the web?

I do find that (and maybe this is a peculiar Northern Irish thing) children today are NOT good at following through the potential of what the technology actually creates. For example, they will spend more time on bebo writing comments to their mates than they will actually typing up a piece of homework. They will spend an hour having an MSN chat with a mate - when the same content could have been covered it they had actually picked up the phone and spoken for 5 minutes! And, dont even get me started about text messaging! The fact that they are communicating and networking socially is good - but is it enough? How does learning fit into this?

I think that teachers are essential in opening up the amazing world of ICT to students and showing how this web can be used to enhance their learning and their imaginations. How can we make learning fun? How can we make the actual process of knowing how to use and communicate through a computer, not just fun but something that makes the kids rush home and boot up their computers!

I think I might address a few ideas about imagination in ICT in my next few posts!

Apart from being a Geography teacher . . . . . . . .

A few of my students have recently been asking me this question! Apart from being a Geography teacher . . . what else can you do with a Geography degree - so i this useful link that might help !

The AAG (Assoc of American Geographers)

Or try starting here

Prospects.ac.uk

Or earthworks

How important is Geography?

I came across a very cool web site called My Wonderful World

One of the links looked at the whole aspect of geographical literacy. How much do young people today actually know about the world that they live in.

"Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from our world," said John Fahey, National Geographic Society president and CEO. "Geography is what helps us make sense of our world by showing the connections between people and places. Without geography, our young people are not ready to face the challenges of the increasingly interconnected and competitive world of the 21st century."

Geography is under threat! With changes to the curriculum already in advanced stages, subjects like geography are gradually being squeezed out. We need to be careful to protect one of the few subjects left that actually combines knoweldge or our world with a practical demonstration of this knowlege in action.

How important is Geography to you?

Computers vs creativity

For many years the simple cry from teachers when asked about the use and purpose for computers in the classroom was that we did not have enough. However, in most classrooms there is enough and they work all the time and they allow users to work on a stable network and surf the net. But, has the leap in creativity been made? Do the teachers know how to actually maximise the use of these machines for learning.

Unfortunatley I think that the answer inside most classrooms is no. We still use the computers as a reward, an incentive to work fast, and excuse for dead time and for low level research that could more easily be carried out in different platforms.

Teachers need to think more creatively when it comes to ICT. They need to start thinking more about how these computers can be maximised for learning. They need to consider how students access, process and publish information. They need to provide opportunity to allow students to experiment and be creative with the use of the computer themselves and best see how this could help learning.

I had cause to visit a very good school today. I saw computers being used - but little of what i saw was actually creative. It did not inspire. It did not challenge perception or thought. Yes, we can have all the computers in the world but we need to know how, exactly how, to use them to effectively aide teaching and learning.

This is something I intend to come back to in future weeks as I think through what are the best ways to support and encourage teachers to grasp the nettle of innovation. One thought I have is perhaps to set up a small conference/meeting for geography teachers within the local area to share ideas and learn about creativity in ICT and Thinking skills. If you have any comments - let me know!