Monthly Archive for August, 2008

Last Week > Next Week

I intend to write a blog post at the start of each week that outlines what I will be teaching in the coming week and reviewing what I taught in the previous week.  It’s an effort to try and be more reflective – in a slightly more formal way.  The style of these weekly post may well develop over time – we will have to see.

Just to outline my teaching commitment – I teach all year groups except Year 8 (who are being taught by a colleague using www.geographyalltheway.com).  I have one Year 7 group who have two one hour lessons a week.  I have two Year 9 groups – each having two hours a week.  I have two IGCSE Geography groups – one Year 10 and one Year 11 – each having two one hour lessons a week.  I have two IB Geography groups – one Year 12 and one Year 13 – each having four one hour lessons a week.  I also have a Year 9 form and will blog a little about PSCHE in the near future.  All students have their own laptop computers.

Last Week

Staff were back for two days of INSET last week so there were no students in school and therefore no lessons.  I will have more to write in this section next week.

Next Week

Year 7 Geography

I have redesigned my short Year 7 induction unit this year around the What, Where, Who, When and Why theme that I try to use in case studies with all the year groups.  So this week Year 7 will be looking at ‘What Geography‘ and ‘Where Geography‘.

Year 9 Geography

A change from last year – I am starting with a new unit on Energy Resources.  It is still in development but will start with some revision and checking what the science department has already taught them! Before looking at energy management, biofuels and wind farm location.

Year 10 IGCSE Geography

Starting with the Population unit – looking at Global Population Growth and then Population Pyramids.

Year 11 IGCSE Geography

We will be picking up where we left the course before the summer break looking at the Lower Course of a river.  So this week we are looking at Fluvial Deposition, Deltas, Levées and Floodplains.

Year 12 IB Geography

Year 12 students start their IB courses with a two/three week induction – it is skills based and should allow students to fine tune their subject choices.  The main focus this week in Geography is ‘Tools that will make your life easier‘ – so I take time to introduce the students to delicious, Google Reader etc before looking at some web search skills.  This will develop into a case study of a disease (HIV/AIDS, SARS, Avain Flu or Malaria) – but skills first!

Year 13 IB Geography

The Year 13s have been working on their Internal Assessments over the summer break so I will clear up any issues about those and remind the students of the deadlines.  We will then start the Development unit of the Core looking at ‘What is Development‘ and ‘Poverty‘.

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AS / A2 / IB Geography – HIV/AIDS Source synthesis

A short induction exercise for my Year 12 IB Geography class in case they haven’t all been issued with their laptops before the start of the first lesson.  The work will be marked as an informal baseline assessment of study type skills.

Take the following three sources (print outs):

  1. avert.org: The origin of AIDS and HIV and the first cases of AIDS
  2. globalhealthfacts.org: People Living with HIV/AIDS (adults and children) 2007
  3. BBC News: The Aids audit: A mixed picture

Task

Read the three sources and then produce a one side of A4 summary.  The page should be split into three to cover the following three points:

  1. What is HIV/AIDS and where did it come from?
  2. What is the geographical distribution of HIV/AIDS suffers?
  3. What economic factors are making the situation worse?

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Testimonial – Thank you Alan

In response to the geographyalltheway.com newsletter Alan Parkinson of www.geographypages.co.uk and Geographical Association Secondary Curriculum Development Leader fame has emailed me with the following comment which I have added to the Site Testimonials page and to the random comment that appears on the site’s homepage.

Thanks Alan!

I always try and add nice comments etc to the Site Testimonials page.

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AS / A2 / IB Geography: Update: 2 YouTube Videos

Two videos of Keynote presentations added to the geographyalltheway.com YouTube channel from the AS/A2/IB Geography Development unit.


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Flickr: Update: Images added to geographyalltheway_photos

Having taken some time over the summer break to sort out all my digial photos I will be trying to use more of my own photography on geographyalltheway.com.  The photos below are ones I added to geographyalltheway_photos flickr account last night and have since added to lessons about Weathering and Erosion and Coastal Deposition.  Click on the images to view them in flickr and to get more details about what they show and where they were taken.

Pembroke

Weathering

Etang Long taken from Port de Barlonguère, Pyrenees

Kings Wall, Fall Bay, Gower

Verdun Gorge

Coastal Defences on Spurn Head

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geographyalltheway.com Feedback

geographyalltheway.com - Online Geography Resources

I have added a feedback tag to everypage on geographyalltheway.com using uservoice – a ‘web 2.0′ feedback service.  Users of geographyalltheway.com can now easier give feedback on the site’s content.  Other users of the site can then vote upon this feedback to show the importance of the issues.  It also gives me a solid structure to show which pieces of feedback I am taking action on etc.

So get involved and leave some feedback – whether it is something you like, something you think could be improved or a broken link.

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August Newsletter

I sent out the August Newsletter this evening – please find a copy of it below.  To recieve themonthly newsletter straight to your inbox sign up here.

You have recieved this geographyalltheway.com newsletter because you submitted your email address or have been in contact with geographyalltheway.com.

I hope you had relaxing summers and feel prepared for the new school year.

As the summer comes to an end it is time for a geographyalltheway.com newsletter in preparation for the new academic year.

Feedback Tab

I have added a feedback tab to each page of geographyalltheway.com – you should see it on the left hand side of each page. Please use this to give me feedback about what you think works well, what doesn’t work well and any bugs etc. Other people can then vote upon the feedback so that I can prioritise work that needs to be done.

Testimonials

geographyalltheway.com has a ‘Testimonials‘ page and I have recently added some of these statements to the site’s homepage. If you would like ‘to see your name in lights’ and have nice things to say about geographyalltehway.com – drop me an email and I will add your comments to the testimonials page and to the bank of statements that appear in a random order on the homepage.

Twitter

geographyalltheway.com has a twitter account (twitter name: geogalot) that I will be using to let people know about updates that I make to geographyalltheway.com – so follow it to keep up to date. I will continue to blog in more detail on geogalotgeographyalltheway’s update blog.

The next newsletter will be in September and will share plans for curriculum areas that I plan to develop over the year on geographyalltheway.com.

Take care.

Richard

If you feel that you should not have received this email please just reply to this message with the word ‘Unsubscribe’ as the email subject.

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CommonCraft: Electing a US President in Plain English

This is going to continue as a major news story for the next few months! Useful video from the CommonCraft people to help explain it all to your students.


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Wildfires – Great Lesson Starter


Californians Gather To Celebrate Annual Wildfire Tradition

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Feedback tab put on the left h…

Feedback tab put on the left hand side of geographyalltheway.com.

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