Ar first sight, the concept of using Twitter in the classroom may seem to trivialise learning. The very word “twitter” conjures thoughts of inane gossip, or insubstantial background noise. How can you encourage extended writing and complex thinking in 140 characters?Surely. many would argue, Twitter is ephemeral?
However, I think there is scope to use Twitter and other social media creatively, to identify key markers in a lesson. The pupils need some discipine to distil the main points into 140 characters. Getting to the heart of a matter is a valauable skill which Twitter helps to encourage. I’ll log on to the dedicated Twitter site for the class, and get pupils to add posts as the lessons progress, and particular points emerge. Thus, we begin to record on Twitter the main points of a lesson. These can be used at the plenary of the lesson, or set of lessons. As the unit and course builds up, so we steadily accumulate a series of tweets which form the key points of the lessons. These notes will supplement our summary booklets with the added benefit that the pupils have helped create the resource.
Sometimes True/False questions can be a useful way of establishing whether pupils have grasped a particular issue. I am going to look at ways of using various so-called objective tests with S1. Here is a simple True/False type for reinforcing knowledge of the CBD.
Going to trial this. at end of each lesson class will have a couple o fminutes to reflect on what they have learnt, by completing this sheet. s3 evaluation sheet
It was -9 C this evening as I drove to Paisley, over the Hurlet. Skies crystal clear, with city lights razor sharp and twinkling. This spell of really cold clear weather has certainly prompted interest in a number of meteorological features, and has even got some people reassessing their peeception of global warming. Many papers are trying to explain how this system of weather has come about. A particularly helpful graphic can be found at the Guardian.
Click here for details.
The admirable Scottish Review pops into my e-mail twice a week. Edited by former BBC man, Kenneth Roy, each e-edition comprises several thoughtful articles, often barbed and iconclastic, which are well worth reading. I particularly enjoy Professor Walter Humes, whose acerbic analysis of management and corporate culture are an antedote to organisational theory. Here is an extract from a recent address to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow:-
“My central argument was that a healthy democracy requires a wide range of public, private and voluntary institutions representing different aims and values, but that this diversity was at risk because of the extent to which ‘corporate culture’ had come to dominate all sectors of society, including schools and universities. Corporate culture exhibits a number of dangerous characteristics: it values organisational loyalty above truth; it employs boastful rhetoric which often masks reality; it subjects staff to constant restructuring in order to shape them into the desired corporate image; it promotes a form of ‘groupthink’ which discourages creativity and individuality; above all, it erodes trust, respect and intellectual freedom. I argued that academics had to show greater courage in opposing these trends within universities but that they also needed to be more outward-looking. They should be prepared to take on the role of public intellectuals and, on occasion, challenge political power.” (SR, issue 169, 13th Nov 2009)
Arguably the shambles that was Copenhagen will become a byword for the failure of nations meaningfully to cooperate on matters of international substance and import. Arguably a primary school gaining a green flag has done more for energy conservation than 45 000 delegates, reporters and sundry hangers-on. A vast, overblown junket that was meant to deliver so much has managed to produce fresh waves of cynicism and world weariness. Surely the environment deserves better. As the snow tumbles out of the lead orange sky above Glasgow, and as folk slither home or stand more or less patiently in stranded trains and growing bus queues, whither global warming? For there seems to be a growing fatigue with the whole concept, allied to continued and narking suspicion from some scientists who remain unconvinced about much of the climate change agenda,.
I thought I “got” climate change, but perhaps not. Certainly there appears to be two growing, divergent views, never mind numerous in-between stances. The problem is that it seems difficult to achieve a balanced debate, without resourcing to hype and triumphalism. Gerard Warner, in caustic mode wrote a typically hard hitting blog which sums up the views of the sceptics, describing the Conference as “strictly for Hans Christian Andersen” and going on to say,
When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?
But invective is no substitute for evidence. I recommend the following website which carries a detailed analysis of the arguments for and against global warming, or more precisely, anthropogenic global warming.
If I were to visit the area where you live, what would I be interested in?
This was posed to illustrate the kinds of questions which applicants to read Geography at Oxford might get asked. It’s a great question at any level, because it gets you thinking aout your home area, and how you might represent it to other people. Very often, I suspect, we overlook the attractions of our neighbourhood, becuase they are common, every day. We drive or walk past them every single day. Yet no place on earth is without some kind of interest; from the smallest village to the most anonymous suburb. The exotic and the mundane are interchangeable concepts; it’s a matter of perspective.Joe Moran, cultural historian at Liverpool John Moores specialises in the everyday; he credits his own interest in taking note of what normally goes unnoticed to the I-Spy books he read as a youngster. His books are admirable social histories and local geographies, focusing on the geography of the everyday; roads, motorway service stations, roundabouts and traffic lights, or celebrating the Queue and the Great English breakfast. Dr Moran writes a great blog, too.: http://joemoransblog.blogspot.com/
Perhaps much of geography is the study of the things we take for granted; the central business district of a town, farms, rivers and factories. It is from a myriad of little, small scale activities and patterns tah we can piece together the larger story, the regional pattern and the large scale global processes that inform the subject. After all, our motto is surely “think global, but act local”
As ever, Ollie Bray has blogged yet another piece of software to try in our classes. I noticed he had made a Wallwisher for TeachMeet 09, to give participants the chance to thank the sponsors and just generally add comments. It struck me that this might be a great way to encourage pupils to give feedback on lessons or units as a means of ongoing evaluation. Would also be good for some thinking skills and decision-making exercises; pupils could post their viewpoints and we could see a whle range of opinions build up.
Thought I’d pilot this with my S3 class who are doing glaciation; I need to know how they are coping before they get a formal assessment.
Interested in using objective questions in Geography. While not a feature of Intermediate or Higher, they do provide a very useful diagnostic assessment, which can give quick, accurate feedback-as long as they are well designed. Lots of types, ranging from simple True false, through to multiple choice (A-D, usually) and more complex Assertion-Reason style. Going to sample some styles with my classes; plenty to choose from; see eg http://www.s-cool.co.uk/gcse/geography/rocks-and-landscapes/test-its/rocks-and-landscapes-multiple-testit.html
here’s a few for starters:
![images[6]](http://jdmcd.edublogs.org/files/2010/02/images6.jpg "images[6]")
Ar first sight, the concept of using Twitter in the classroom may seem to trivialise learning. The very word “twitter” conjures thoughts of inane gossip, or insubstantial background noise. How can you encourage extended writing and complex thinking in 140 characters?Surely. many would argue, Twitter is ephemeral?
