Ordnance Survey survey on teacher needs

I've been involved with the OS in numerous ways over the years: as a GetOutside Champion, author of support resources for Digimap for Schools and Digimap for Colleges / Mapstream. Also as an author of articles for Mapping News and other support for various campaigns and activities.

For many years Ordnance Survey has delivered support for education to encourage the awareness and use of high-quality geospatial data in the education sector and since 2020 this has been through an Education Plan, funded through the UK Government's Geospatial Commission (GC).
They are keen to gather evidence about how this has so far supported the work of teachers and consider what more they could be doing in this area. 

They would also like to understand what other training tools geography teachers currently access and the barriers that may be in place when using geographic information systems (GIS).


They are asking for 15 minutes (or so) of your time to complete a short survey. 

The survey is open to all geography teachers until Friday 8 December and the findings from it will help them to consider how to develop the Education Plan.

Complete the survey on this link.

Mapping Windrush

A new resource from the National Archives.

This is perfect for our unit on 'Windrush Child'.

We’re excited to launch our new resource, Mapping Caribbean Migration to Britain.

This resource traces passenger journey’s on three post-war ships, the Ormonde, Almanzora, and Empire Windrush, through a series of interactive maps.

Discover more: https://t.co/qSogHFuT4N#BHM

— The National Archives (@UkNatArchives) October 20, 2023

The iconic Empire Windrush passenger list acts as a gateway into the personal migration stories of those on board. It is an invaluable record as it provides a wealth of information about the passengers, such as their names, ages, occupations, onward addresses, and their last country of residence. Although not the first ship to carry migrants from the Caribbean, the Empire Windrush is symbolic of the wider story of post-war migration to Britain.

The ship visited numerous ports on its route to Tilbury docks in 1948. The first port that passengers embarked at was Port of Spain (Trinidad), followed by Kingston (Jamaica), Tampico (Mexico), Havana (Cuba), and Bermuda, before crossing the Atlantic to reach Tilbury Docks. Passengers disembarked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948. There were 1,027 passengers onboard the ship, all with their own personal story.

There was a diverse range of people onboard the Empire Windrush. Although the passengers were mostly male, there were also women and children onboard. They ranged in age from just six weeks old to 80, and travelled in different capacities. Some passengers travelled with their families, some alone.

Passengers also travelled to Britain for a variety of reasons. Some migrated to Britain to seek new opportunities and economic stability, others were joining family and friends. The extraction of resources from the Caribbean by the British contributed to the poor economic situation in the Caribbean, which influenced post-war migration to Britain too.

Over 800 people gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the Caribbean. A common misconception is that all passengers were migrating from Jamaica. However, people migrated from numerous islands in the Caribbean including Trinidad, St Lucia, Grenada and Barbados, as well as Jamaica.

The British government initially encouraged migration from its colonies and Commonwealth countries to boost the workforce after the Second World War. In 1948 it passed the British Nationality Act, which created the status of ‘Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies’. This new legislation around citizenship aided post-war migration to Britain, as it gave people from British colonies the right to live and work in Britain.

 

GI Pedagogy

 

I previously posted about my regret at the ending of the UK's involvement with the ERASMUS+ programme following our withdrawal from the EU. Whenever I've met and worked with European friends and colleagues since then, they have expressed their sadness and bafflement at that decision. We can only hope that it might be reversed at some point.

The GI Pedagogy project was my 'final' involvement and last week we got the final assessment back from the British Council with a VERY GOOD assessment, which had improved on the original project bid - which is always good to see, and which commented on the quality of the outputs and support for teachers.

If you are thinking of increasing your use of GIS in the classroom please check out our website for the resources that we created as part of the project. The innovative aspect of our work is the use of Rosenshine's Principles to help inform the teaching with GIS.

These include:

- Our lesson template.

- Research reports on best practice when teaching with GIS. I contributed to all of these, but was particularly involved in the creation of the TOOLKIT. I'm very pleased with how that turned out.

- Check out our MOOC - free access, and full of useful videos and other resources

- A StoryMap of outcomes from people who have used our model.

GI Pedagogy MOOC - check it out

We are now coming to the final stage of the GI Pedagogy project.

The target audience is wide and you may be part of it...

The project’s outputs and events are aimed specifically at supporting educators (Horizontal Priority: Supporting Educators). 

This training will help teachers embed GIS within their curriculum. 

It will support them to feel confident in teaching GIS as a fundamental tool for modern geography, not as a superficial add-on to existing methods.

The training takes the form of a MOOC: an online course basically, with resources, videos and presentations.

King's Ely is a partner in this project.

Feel free to check it out.

Also feel free to follow us on Twitter @GIPedagogy.

GI Pedagogy Multiplier Event - 9th December

We are hosting this event.

I opened up an invitation to an online event yesterday.

It will take place on Friday the 9th of December and will be online.

I organised a face to face multiplier event to share outcomes from the ERASMUS-funded GI Pedagogy project, but this was not able to attract colleagues because of the challenges of travelling and the business of this term.

The plan now is to have an online meeting instead which I hope that people may be able to attend without the need to travel to Ely. 

This will allow me to demonstrate the importance of GIS in the curriculum and the idea of telling stories.

You can also get a sneak preview of the other materials we have produced, including a training course. A chance to have a discussion around GIS too.

Suitable for Primary and Secondary teachers.

I'm going to try again to get this event in before Christmas.

Free tickets can be obtained on Eventbrite.

GI Pedagogy - come and hear about it

Come along to an ERASMUS+ event at my school: King's Ely, funded by the British Council.

This is a multiplier event for the GI Pedagogy project.

The GI Pedagogy project has involved exploring the pedagogy that might be applied when using GIS to support teaching, using Rosenshines Principles and a stepped model that we have developed, along with a literature review.

We have put together an online course which we'd also like to introduce you to during the afternoon session.

We'll give you a light lunch and refreshments.

Tickets to come along to Ely are free.

They can be booked on this Eventbrite link - there is space for 25 people in total in person.

If you can't make it in person, but would like to join online, let me know and we'll see what can be organised for you. Eventbrite doesn't seem to want me to add a hybrid event.

StoryMap Exercise on Tornadoes in the USA

 

GI Pedagogy Training Course - 4-6 July

Last week I had a meeting of the GI Pedagogy group of partners - which is funded by an ERASMUS+ grant, given by the British Council.

I represent King's Ely on this project, and have completed all the intellectual outputs and supported other partners and worked on a range of work packages.

We have been working on resources and an online teacher training course. 

We now have an opportunity for you to join us for a face to face event in Madrid.

Free training course for secondary teachers - introducing an Innovative Pedagogical Model for Teaching using GIS, July 4-6 2022, Madrid, @GIPedagogy project, some travel grants available - find out more and register at https://t.co/8uy2lRNfpA

— karl_donert (@karldonert) May 19, 2022

The Registration form is here, and you can also request a first-come first-served grant of €200 to help with the cost of attending if you are outside of Spain.

It would be great to have you there. Happy to answer any further questions as well. 

Climate Change - Teach with GIS

The new ESRI UK Education Team resources for teaching about the Climate Emergency have now been released and are ready for use. They explore climate change in the UK, and were produced in partnership with the Met Office.

They include Teaching Resources for different key stages including Primary.

They also include a Teacher Knowledge section.

This includes the useful resource on COP26 below.

A typically stylish and useful set of resources generously shared.

ArcGIS Indicators of the Planet

An excellent resource which we shall be referring to during lessons and also form time.

The power of Geography, and why it is needed

Essential viewing...

The value of GIS

An excellent new video from ESRI

UK Supermarkets - a new layer from the ESRI Living Atlas

View larger map

GIS and Data Skills

Useful for students I spoke to earlier about their NEA

World GIS Day

Another practice question for Y12

Can you name a number of applications of GIS and other GI to the work we've done this year, both inside and outside the classroom?

Teach near Ely? Want to know more about GIS?

Why not come along to the free day we're hosting at the end of June. Contact Alan Parkinson on the e-mail provided - limited places. FREE OF CHARGE.

GIS Day 2016

How old is your house?

You may have an idea… but what about the other houses in your street, or district, or neighbourhood, or across your whole town.
The latest map to be created and shared by Oliver O'Brien of CASA at UCL is now out, and it allows you to see the age of housing in specific areas of cities.
Look at Norwich below, for example, and you can see the different ages at which areas of the city were added to the current shape…
Click for biggery...

These would be very useful for students who wants to unpick the relationship between cities and the traditional urban models.

ArcGIS Online

At King's Ely, the Geography department now has a subscription to ArcGIS Online.

GIS is a special type of digital mapping, which connects a base map with data to start to map it, and look for patterns within it.
This means that we are going to be able to use it across the school to map data related to topics we are teaching, but also to ask (and answer) questions about the world.

This is a very new mapping tool, and the supporting website for teachers has just launched. Mr. Parkinson worked on some materials for this tool earlier in the year, and we'll be developing more in school between now and the end of the year.

This will also be useful for Controlled Assessments at GCSE, and 'A' level work too...

If you'd like a login and further details to be one of our King's Ely GIS Pioneers, find Mr. Parkinson in N2 and ask him for more details...