The new IB Geography Higher Level and Standard Level specimen papers and markschemes (for first exams 2011) are now available in the list of geography publications under External assessment on the OCC.
The Spanish specimen papers and markschemes will be available on the OCC from 16 March 2009.
The French specimen papers and markschemes will be available from 31 March 2009.
The main issue for me with these applications is the effort involved in inputting the questions and answers. Typing in the questions and the answers needs to be as easy and bug free as possible. As a busy teacher is needs to be something that easily fits into my normal work-flow. I have tried to set up the same quiz as I used with gFlash+ review with the other applications but it was difficult – more difficult than with gFlash+. They mostly use a browser for question/answer entry – some crashed after you had inputted a number of the questions – others were just plain awkward. To add questions and answers to gFlash+ all you need to do is share a Google Spreadsheet with a certain email address for the quiz to appear on gFlash’s library.
So … I’m supporting gFlash+ as the best iPhone/iPod Touch flashcard and quiz application.
I recently co-lead a three day workshop for Experienced IB Geography Teachers with Natasha Winnard of ibgeog.net, IB Geography 2009-2017 Wiki and OCC fame. We were running the course for InThinking in a hotel in central Paris. We had 26 participants from 9 different countries and the feedback we received was excellent. The main purpose of the workshop was to prepare for the new IB Geography syllabus – teaching of which starts this summer but sharing teaching strategies and new approaches was also a key theme.
For the penultimate session I gave a presentation called ‘60 Slides, 60 Ideas for IB Geography Teachers in 60 Minutes’ as a summary of 60 ideas that teacher could use in the Geography classroom to benefit themselves (by making their lives easier) or to benefit their students. The rationale is not that every participant tries to implement all 60 ideas – I just hope that everybody learnt something new and now has plans to have a go at a couple of ‘new’ things over the next couple of months. I have embedded the presentation below – obviously it’s better when seen ‘live’!
The competition is open to everybody – the winner being chosen from all the correct answers received. The winner receives a unique certificate via email.
As follow up for the IB Geography teachers who attended the InThinking Workshop in Paris last weekend – this list would be a good place to start when subscribing to RSS feeds via a RSS Reader [60 Slides, 60 Ideas for IB Geography Teachers in 60 Minutes]
It would seem that geographyalltheway.com was down for a period of time this afternoon/evening.
It was taken down by the company that hosts the site due to ‘unusual activity’ – lots of a certain type of ‘hit’ during a short period of time. Most likely somebody trying to download the whole site at once.
I will be monitoring the situation – if you do find the site down you can contact me via email:
and I will do all I can to get the situation sorted. Again … sorry.
geogalot looks like it should again. The theme I use (k2) had a conflict with the lastest version of WordPress. The great people who produce k2 posted a fix on their site and the world is alright again.
I can now go skiing – I’ll be posting updates to various themes – the recent InThinking Workshop I ran, iPod Touch/iPhone quiz applications etc after a couple of well earned days in the white stuff.
Since a recent update to the software that runs geogalot there has been some issues with how the site looks.
I will be working to sort this out as soon as I have the time to sit down and get all geeking with style sheets etc – until then it will just not look as ‘tidy’ as it should.
Recent Comments on geogalot