Badger book review in 'Teaching Geography'

Thanks to Emma Johns for her nice review of my Badger GCSE Grade Booster book in the latest issue of 'Teaching Geography'.

The book is available to purchase from the Badger store.

New GA CPD courses 2012-13

You've bought the book (I hope) - now meet the author....

The latest GA courses for the new academic year have now been published and are on the Geographical Association WEBSITE.

The courses in red are the ones I am leading. Look forward to seeing some of you there...

You can download further information and a course flyer from the links. Feel free to use these with colleagues.

Leading urban fieldwork

For primary teachers and geography subject leaders

London - Tuesday 16 October 2012
Manchester - Monday 22 October 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £150

Primary geography for the non-specialist

For non-specialist primary teachers, including those who may be taking on the subject responsibility within their school

Birmingham - Wednesday 17 October 2012
London - Wednesday 7 November 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £150

Leading a successful geography department

For current and aspiring secondary geography subject leaders

Birmingham - Thursday 18 October 2012
London - Friday 19 October 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £160

Google Earth and beyond: free online GIS

For secondary geography teachers

Leeds - Thursday 18 October 2012
London - Thursday 25 October 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £160

Planning for Ofsted with the Quality Mark Self Evaluation Form

For secondary and post-16 geography teachers and subject leaders

London - Tuesday 23 October 2012
Birmingham - Friday 30 November 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £160

NQT Conference: Making a difference in the classroom

For secondary geography NQTs

York - Thursday 8 November 2012
London - Thursday 15 November 2012

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £160

Outstanding teaching and learning in primary geography

For primary teachers and subject co-ordinators

Manchester - Monday 28 January 2013
York - Monday 4 March 2013
London - Friday 15 March 2013

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £150

Managing safe and effective fieldwork for IGCSE geography

For secondary geography teachers involved in delivering the new IGCSE

Leeds - Monday 4 February 2013
London - Tuesday 5 February 2013

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £160

Being Ofsted ready with the PGQM

For primary geography subject leaders, middle leaders and head teachers

London - Tuesday 5 March 2013
Nottingham - Monday 11 March 2013

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £150

Fieldwork and new technologies

For post-16 geography teachers

Birmingham - Thursday 7 March 2013
London - Thursday 14 March 2013

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer 

Price: From £160

Leading through primary geography

For primary teachers and geography subject leaders

Birmingham - Friday 3 May 2013
London - Wednesday 15 May 2013

Further information and online booking
Download course flyer

Price: From £150

End of year debrief

Don't forget to join me at 7pm tomorrow night for a VITAL CPD Teachshare to look back on the academic year, and ahead to the next one....

One of the highlights of the year I'll be talking about will be my work on the Badger GCSE book.
Have you got your copy yet ? 
Would make perfect Summer reading on the beach.... much more exciting than '50 Shades of Grey'...

GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 4 of 4

We are at the final of 4 posts which summarise some of the responses from the 94 students and teachers who answered my questionnaire earlier in the year...

This final question asked about Smartphones and whether they were used for revision and teaching and if so, which apps or features were used....

One teacher provided these specific recommendations:

Geography GCSE Revision App (£1.49)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/geography-gcse-revision/id340221590?mt=8

GCSE Geography Bitesize Last-minute Learner (£1.49)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gcse-geography-bitesize-last/id410791814?mt=8

GCSE Geography Bitesize Podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/audio/geography/

Think Geography GCSE Geog Podcasts

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/think-geography-gcse-geog/id374013012

About a quarter of the respondents didn't own a smartphone, and one teacher said nicely "I am a technical dinosaur and my phone is a brick".

There were 15 people who owned a smartphone but hadn't as yet made use of many apps in their teaching, but that they would investigate further.

Some apps that were mentioned by name:

• iPlayer (for iPad)
• Flipbook
• The Guardian
• Bitesize App
• USGS Earhquake App
• AQA App
• Twitter
• National Geographic Atlas

One colleague had turned powerpoint slides into JPEGs so that they could be viewed on the phones.

Several teachers pointed out that many students had Blackberries because of the messaging, and wondered about the apps that might be available for these... any ideas ?

Google Docs are an area that could be more used.

James Mutton has just created one with the hope of creating a collaborative resource for Edexcel B

Check it out if you'd like to be involved...

Thanks to the teachers and students who took the time to fill in the document.

I shall be creating another document with some questions on the new curriculum later in the year to help guide another product. As before there'll be a prize on offer for all who take part...

GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 3 of 4

OK - so we're coming up to REVISION TIME for GCSE colleagues.
The IB Geography papers are also being sat next week, so there's a lot of teenagers trying to revise.

Remember that there are some key revision tips in Chapter 7 of the Badger Book


This is the 3rd of three posts summarising the 94 responses I got to my Google Doc on GCSE Geography revision earlier in the year....

Two more questions are summarised in this blog post....

The first one asked about the topics that people found the hardest to teach / revise....


There was a broad range of over 20 topics that were mentioned (most of the course really by someone) including some topics that I wouldn't have expected to be there..

The areas that were featured the most were:

• Weather and Climate, particularly depressions 
• Industry / Economic Activities
• Map Skills
• Population
• Economic Development

It seems that there are also some issues with Case Studies: from their frequency to the depth that is needed.

• Some colleagues were concerned about the amount that needs to be revised compared to the amount that is actually examined.
• Level marking
• Timing
• Depth of answers that are required (sometimes too much, at other times not enough...)
• Use of Diagrams

You will be pleased to hear that Chapter 7 tackles revision, and Chapter 8 looks at exam preparation and skills....

Which brings us on to the next question:
What additional help would students / teachers want to help them with revision  ?

This might lead on to some actual resources that need to be prepared, or perhaps some collaborative efforts from teachers. I will share some ideas for these (and the previous question) in future posts on this blog.
Quite a few teachers were fine without any further support, and others suggested that greater consistency from the Awarding Bodies, better Specifications and better questions would help.

Some interesting comments worth mentioning...

• Case Study notes with tasks to help unpick them (have been producing some KS3 resources for Harper Collins very like this...)
• Online Videos
• 'Current' Case Study material (no shortage of ideas for that on Living Geography of course)
• Podcasts

Ready made display and other material was mentioned, although I always enjoyed creating my own displays in my room...

Finally, a multimedia resource / textbook of some kind was mentioned - the arrival of iBooks Author earlier in the year makes this sort of collaborative resource a possibility, and we are planning something related to this for the GA Conference 2013. 

The final post in this series will look at the Apps that people have found useful when revising and teaching GCSE Geography...

Author copies...

My author copies arrived today... looking great !

Just browsing and about to send e-mail thanks to those who had an idea featured in the book.

David from Triptico shows one of the tools featured in the book...

The book features the Triptico suite of tools by David Riley, with some ideas for how you might use them.
Here is a screencast which shows some ideas for using just one of the tools: Word Magnets, or 'Mystery Magnets'...

Those of you who have purchased the book should turn to Chapter 10: New Tools, which features Triptico and many other ideas for engaging learners...

Books in stock at the warehouse...

Thanks to Graeme Eyre for telling me that he had already received his copy of the Badger GCSE Grade Booster book that I wrote, and has already been using the activities today... he tried out the speed dating activity today for starters...
Here's a picture of some of the books in the warehouse ready for distribution, with thanks to Gracey at the warehouse for the pic...

Order yours now to avoid disappointment...

Further feedback welcome...

Final poofreading...

Just spent a few hours reading through and doing some final amendments on the CD that will accompany the book.
The final proofs were sent to me this morning and the book and CD both look great.
I look forward to the physical copies being available. Quite a few of the original planned activities failed to make the cut as the book's size wasn't infinite, and they will feature in future blog posts here.

There will also be further materials to support and update the contents of the book, which will make most sense, and be of most use, to those of you who are planning to purchase it of course.

Gone to the printers....

The book has apparently gone to the printers...
Order your copy here.

I spent yesterday in London exploring the Geography of the Olympics Park and its surroundings...
My Flickr images are here...


Badger have produced a Poster Set themed on the Olympics.

Editing and improving...

Spent some time yesterday with the manuscript of the book making some final checks and changes, which always improve the finished result of something.
Also checking through the illustrations and other resources.
It's clear that I've written a lot more than can fit within the 100+ pages of the book, which means there'll be plenty to add to this blog over the months to come.
Plenty of good stuff didn't make the director's cut, so will be in the 'DVD extras' :)
We're still on schedule for an April publication date.... It's looking good !

Geography GCSE Booster now available to pre-order

Badger Learning is now live.

Badger Publishing's new site.
You can visit the site to see my new book. It brought together some of the ideas I'd been working on for a while, along with a few more that were kindly  lent to me by colleagues (who are all acknowledged in the book, and will also be listed here once I have my hands on a physical copy of the book....)

The book will be useful to those who are preparing students for external assessments, but I would say that a lot of the ideas are transferrable - they are basically good geography....

The book is now available to pre-order (it will be out in April)

GCSE Grade Boosters: Geography Contents

• Introduction – what does a C grade geographer look like, and how can students raise their grade to a C and beyond.
• Memorable geography – a range of geography activities which can be re-versioned for other topics or particular pupils; includes thinking graphs, lucky lines, maps from memory, and ideas funnel to name just a few.
• Students as experts – establishing students as experts and joint creators of resources.
• Enquiries – how to introduce, explore and communicate the Big Geographical Questions.
• Controlled assessment – how to approach controlled assessment, complete with examples to illustrate the support that can be provided.
• Revision techniques – graphic organisers, memory techniques and the power of blogging.
• Help from the examiners – exam specs and question types – where and how marks are gained and lost.
• Memorable vocabulary – key vocabulary for exam success plus techniques for learning it.
• Exciting new tools – word clouds, triptico, google docs and google earth.
• Geography after the exam – why a good grade in geography can take you places.

Author: Alan Parkinson an experienced and award-winning teacher with an international reputation for creative and innovative teaching. He has worked with thousands of teachers at hundreds of CPD events in the UK and Europe. This title draws extensively from the experience of successful schools around the country.
Featuring:

• A wide range of activities to make the topics covered memorable. Activities can be used for class, group, pair and homework tasks. They can be versioned by you for other topics or particular pupils
• Support for exam preparation including a distillation of examiners reports to pinpoint common errors and show
• how easily marks are lost and gained, as well as revision and memory techniques that have been shown to work
• Help with controlled assessment and how to approach it to get the best results
• The key vocabulary for exam success plus techniques for learning it
• 80 page photocopiable book with re-versionable activities on accompanying CD-ROM. 

A perfect gift for Easter.... :)

Badger GCSE Geography book - due later in 2012

This new blog has been created to support a book which currently 'exists' - if it exists at all - in a large number of documents in a folder on the desktops of two computers, and in the cloud. Most of those documents are incomplete, or in draft form, but over the next 7 weeks I shall be shaping them with the not inconsiderable help of Maureen: my editor, and these will form a new publication by Badger Publishing.

When teaching. I made good use of Badger's 3 KS3 Starter books, and worked with a few of the authors of those books when we served on the Geographical Association's Secondary Committee. I also used their Thinking together in Geography book which had some nice ideas that could be adapted to various contexts.

The new book that I am writing is aimed at supporting teachers with GCSE Geography teaching. It has a number of sections which include ideas for teaching, learning, revising, blogging (of course) and otherwise adding some extra inspiration for those involved in GCSE Geography courses. There are sections looking at the examination and various options for preparing for it. There's also a healthy dose of social media suggestions in there of course.

I'll keep you up to date with the progress on the book as we pull it together, and also assemble the content for the accompanying CD - I've just been preparing some folders of images for key GCSE topics which will be included as part of the contents, and it's looking very promising... I'd buy it !