It is many years since I first got students to produce a collaborative website (see The Unfair Trade story at Juicy Geography) Ewan McIntosh recently mentioned the Magazine Factory, a free online application which lets students publish their work as a web magazine. The teacher takes the role of editor in chief, and the students are the journalists. The magazine can be a one-off project, or edited continuously over the year. Multilingual features allow students from different schools and countries to collaborate on a project.
The Magazine Factory cetainly looks interesting enough for me to consider giving it a trial, once I’ve thought of a suitable project.
Here’s an example magazine: Eye Spy on Europe
Tag Archive for 'Teaching_resources'
It was great to see SLN user Melanie Richards using the photographs of my Year 7 homework to inspire her own students. This is precisely why I continue with the whole blogging lark! Melanie posted an excellent video on You Tube. Her blog Gorgeous Geography is here.
A range of Geography revison “audiobite” podcasts have appeared at the Bitesize site They are quite informal and incorporate sound effects and dialogue by actual actors! More podcasts should be added in due course.
I wrote the human geography scripts so that’s why there is a slight South West bias (check the Sidmouth accent on the Aging Populations podcast!) Here’s one example: download Foriegn Aid.mp3
Since I don’t really listen to podcasts, I’d be interested in feedback. Personally I think they’ve turned out rather well!
Combining an interesting visualization of the 400,000 victims of the Darfur conflict, with an original approach to fund raising, the Darfur Wall is a great way of impressing the seriousness of this humanitarian disaster on your students.
While researching a lesson I came across a superb case study example of appropriate technology in the region from the Practial Action NGO.
Play the Darfur is Dying game for a glimpse of the daily struggle for many refugees. [Via Tony Cassidy]
Via SLN user Helen, this is a very useful Flash presentation that explains some tectonics concepts simply and effectively.
The Map Room recently posted an article on the intriguing series of maps and data published by the G-Econ research project, based at Yale University. Gross cell product (equivalent to GNP) is measured at a 1-degree longitude by 1-degree latitude resolution at a global scale. Centres of economic activity are topographically represented, and the maps are great for discussing theories of regional development.
Economic activity Ireland Core and periphery thriving!
Val Vannet has produced an excellent PowerPoint (13mb) to introduce the maps in the classroom.
Updated 4/2/07
Gapminder is a BRILLIANT way to analyse development indicators. A range of development data can be plotted on a map or chart and animated over time. Gapminder website
Here are some suggested activites to introduce the Gapminder site to students
Download an illustrated guide to Gapminder (Word doc) Thanks very much to Val Vannet who produced the first version of this document. This could be printed off and laminated. Thanks also to Alan Parkinson for mentioning the Trails feature in his recent comment. Gapminder also provide an excellent tutorial on the application here.
Mapping development indicators
Start by selecting Map, and looking for patterns by selecting different development indicators for the countries.
Correlating development data
Select Chart and compare different indicators, for example Life Expectancy and Income. What correlations can be found?
Students could be asked to try and identify data that gives a positive correlation on comparison (e.g. carbon dioxide emisions and income) or negative correlation (e.g. fertility rate and phone use)
Analysing trends
Try choosing Life Expectancy and analysing changes over time (select Time for the x axis.) Track selected countries by selecting them, clicking the Trails box and playing the animation.
In the screenshot I coloured the countries by income , but why has Botswana, a middle income country, seen a dramatic decline in life expectancy in recent years? Students really should know why!
Exploring urbanization trends
Compare Urban Population and Time, and track countries from different income groups. In the screenshot example I changed the circle size to one size and the colour to Income Group.
In a recent lesson, these activities proved sufficient to turn the students into fairly competent Gapminder users.
I recommend watching Hans Roslings’ entertaining presentation at the TED Talks and visiting the Gapminder.org site for more resources and downloads.
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