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Showing posts from December, 2011

Normal service will be resumed in 2012

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I'm going to take a couple of weeks away for Christmas (although I probably won't be able to resist blogging if something important happens between now and the 1st of January 2012.) I'm going to be doing one or two things over Christmas as well as enjoying the festive cheer Writing a GCSE book Completing a major resource pack for the Ordnance Survey Planning out a Children's book I'm going to be writing Preparing for CPD events in the New Year Writing some Online Updates for Harper Collins Edits and proofreading for 2 books I'm editing that are published in early 2012 Adding new content to my Vital Geography Portal Preparing some thoughts for new Curriculum consultation Putting together some ideas for Mission:Explore Food On 1st of January I'll be back with various New Year thoughts... Please join me on the 5th of January for my Teachshare on New Year New Geography It'd be great to have your company at 7pm with your plans for the ye

Mary Portas Review: Saving the High Street ?

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Regular readers of the blog will know that I have an interest in the changing fortunes of town centres and have written various posts on Clone Towns, Rebranding and other projects to revitalise town centres as they face competition from out of town retail parks and the rise of online shopping. This was also part of the 'A' level specification that I used to teach, and some ancient resources from the Cambridge Urban Field Day that we used to run are available via the link. I also started a Flickr Group called The Disappearing High Street some years ago, and several kind photographers have contributed their images to join mine. Mary Portas, who has featured in a number of recent TV programmes looking at changing the fortunes of retail businesses, was asked earlier in the year to explore the ways that the fortunes of the High Street could be turned round. The report was published this morning.... There is also a free KS3 resource that you can obtain from the Harper

Mission:Explore Food - you can help make it happen

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Last night at the Houses of Parliament, Mission:Explore came runner-up in the Educational Writers' Awards ceremony of the Society of Authors. Congratulations to the winner: 'Moon' by Stewart Ross. We were described as having produced: ' A brave book which encourages children to explore the world around them, developing their curiosity, confidence and courage along the way…’ We're now all set to do something bigger and better, and we are planning to produce a cookbook- but not the usual type of cookbook of course... Mission:Explore Food will be a 320 page exploration of all things 'foody' in our own Geography Collective style, and with the fabulous illustrations of Tom Morgan-Jones . For example, here's our take on the importance of eating locally sourced food. .. The funding for the book will hopefully come from crowd-sourcing, and we are using a website called PLEASE FUND US to co-ordinate this. If you are able to support us at certain lev

Culture - the latest Digital Explorer site...

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I've been working with Jamie Buchanan Dunlop over the last few months, adding some new resources to the OCEANS DIGITAL EXPLORER website. The Digital Explorer empire is now expanding to CULTURAL matters , linking in with the idea of Citizenship and (as always) a link with real world exploration. Check out the new CULTURAL WEBSITE which has some superb resources. The FILMS and PHOTOS section looks like being an amazingly useful resource for exploring Citizenship issues.

New Rorys StoryCubes set

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Regular readers of the blog will know of my love of Rory's Story Cubes . I use these in  my CPD sessions, and link them in with the creation of geographical narratives: geography as 'writing the earth'. The latest set of cubes is now available to purchase from the Creativity Hub website, and will be in shops in the UK in a few weeks time. Story Cubes Voyages is a whole new set of dice for story-telling which can be used in combination with the previous sets, or by themselves... My cubes are on order...