Here’s some examples of Earth Art by Year 7 as part of their work on landscapes (inspired by you know who)
It would be greatly appreciated if readers could add a one word comment to indicate their favourite picture.
Jan 212012
So Apple released iBooks Author and afterwards, nothing will be the same again (to paraphrase 70′s surf pic Big Wednesday.)
Apple have effectively handed textbook publishing over to everyone with a Mac and an iPad. Maybe one day there will be a cheaper tablet for education but there’s little doubt that a great many students now own, or can access an iPad and the stage is set for collaborative authoring projects such as the one I’ve started below.
I’ve taken some of the best examples of student work from their GCSE homework Posterous blogs and begun to edit them into the first chapter of a revision book for the whole class. I added some references to our syllabus, subtitles and illustrations. Click on the image below to download the part-finished first chapter (requires iPad and iBooks 2.)
The Author is powerful, but extremely intuitive to use, and providing an iPad is plugged into to your computer, previews of the book are instantaneous.
I’m thrilled at the opportunities offered by this development and really interested to see what the reaction will be from the class when they discover that they are now textbook authors. I’d hope to see them taking the initiative to continue adding to the iBook over the rest of the course.
Nov 092011
I really liked this piece of work by Simon. He looked up the climate graphs of the locations mentioned, then described the climate and designed appropriate clothes. It’s an old activity from Juicy Geography, but it always gets good results and I enjoyed his take on the activity!
Oct 272011
I can’t remember the original source of the Earth Art idea, and I suspect several people would claim the honour (though NASA is in pole position) but Searthing offers some pretty spectacular examples and the chance to contribute to the site.
A few years ago I was enthusiastic about getting learners to find interesting angles in Google Earth, adding a suitable caption using Big Huge Labs’ Motivator tool. Who can forget the classic “Cabbage of Jub”?
History Pin
Google Maps, Participatory geographies, Photographs, Student work
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Dec 162010
The concept of History Pin from We Are What We Do and Google is beautifully simple. Young people spend time talking with people of an older generation about their old photographs and associated memories. The photos and stories are uploaded to the History Pin website, where they can be viewed through Google Maps and Street View. A little piece of history is created.
Here’s a short video explaining more:
It took a little while, but we finally persuaded some wonderful older people to visit a small group of Year 8 & 9 in our Student Support Centre. Over the course of two sessions, the students found themselves asking dozens of questions; in fact the original purpose of discussing photographs was quite subverted by the quality of the dialogue itself. In the end we only got to add one photo to the History Pin data base, but we’ll certainly run future sessions and try and expand the project further. History Pin is my discovery of the year!
The Zones
Student work
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Jul 192009
Not digital geography at all – but I thought I’d publish these song lyrics by two Year 8 students. The work is one of the outcomes from the choose your own assessment activity from a few weeks ago and reveals a great many of the ideas from the preceding lessons.
Volcanoes,
With the magma chamber underneath,
The magma flows up through the layers of ash,
And lava,
But people died cuz,
Of the poisonous gases,
And the pyroclastic flows of pressured hot ash,
And tar,
I-I don’t know,
Why they live in danger zones,
They live by volcanoes cuz of tourists and farmland,
What about earthquakes?
How do people live there?
They build strong buildings, it’s cuz of tectonic plates.
(Chorus)
Tectonic plates are moving,
All of the countries used,
To be all together,
All together,
Don’t trust the zones,
Never trust the zones,
Don’t trust the zones,
Won’t trust zones,
Tectonic plates are moving,
All of the countries used,
To be all together,
All together,
Don’t trust the zones.
Never trust the zones
Don’t trust the zones
Won’t trust zones,
Earthquakes,
All around the world,
You never get a warning, there is no way to tell,
And buildings,
Collapse and fall down,
Bits inside break off and liquifaction occurs,
Liqui-liquifaction,
Is when buildings,
Turn to liquid,
What about tsunamis?
Tsunamis?
Earthquakes under the sea,
Produce big waves which get bigger by the shore.
(Chorus)
Move guys!
Move right now!
I know you have a reason for living there,
I said move guys!
Move right now!
I know you have a reason for living there,
I said move guys,
Move right now!
I know you have a reason but I don’t really care,
I said move guys !!!!!
Move right now,
I know you have a reason for living there.
(Chorus)
By Rachel and Lauren ( Year 8 )
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