Geography Teaching Today

Stories, people, places and the use of ICT frames

This activity is principally about using ICT to share images of our world. But I want to start with a question that might seem like a diversion:

When did you last tell an amazing story about something that happened to you?

This might have happened in another country, or perhaps in another place in this country. Often the stories we tell can help to establish our personal connections to other places and help to make the geography we teach more meaningful, both for ourselves and for our pupils.

My story

During the August holiday in 2005, I was lucky enough to go on a very special holiday to Alaska. Every day brought us new and amazing experiences - but one particular event has stuck in my mind:

Diary account 18/08/05 -

We are followed all of the way from Valdez by a small grey naval vessel and now, as we approach Whittier, we are surrounded by armed inflatable boats and several helicopters. Black-clad figures board the ferry and hurtle along the deck carrying semi-automatic rifles. My brother waits, watching on the quayside, while the rain pours down. An hour later, our ferry docks on this grey and miserable afternoon. Why the delay? Let's just call it 'homeland security'.

Thinking about how I could use my Alaska photographs for a workshop session started me thinking about how we all connect with our world and about how important connectedness is as a 'big idea' in geography.

I have chosen to share some of the ways that I felt connected to the world through a 'Nine Number' PowerPoint Presentation. The picture board was contributed by John Hamshaw of Silverdale School, Sheffield, and works on the same principle as A Question of Sport. It was downloaded from the Staffordshire Learning Net website for Geography.

ACTIVITY 3.1

Can you work out what you think are the inter-connections that link me to the world through my choice of images?

Download the 'Connections' Powerpoint. (You can download a Word version of the blank nine-number square grid from the GA website.)

As images come up on the screen, jot down a note of what you see. The story starts at number 3 on the grid:

On the fast ferry from Juneau to Alaska we met Michael... (Start with slide 3)

Visit my Alaskan blog.

How do we connect? Adapting this idea to use with your class

In the next section - Taking it Further - you will begin to think about how to adapt this idea for use with your own class. Before you move on, you may want to begin to think of some meaningful ways in which your pupils connect to their world. Possible examples might include: food, sport and stories, e.g. Kensuki's Kingdom or A Balloon for Grandad.

Making the ICT easy

You may have decided that it is all very well for me to create presentations that use fancy ideas but the technical side is beyond your own ICT skills. This is where the idea of pre-constructed ICT frames can be useful. In effect, the setting up of the ICT has already been done for you and as long as you can manage the following:

• obtain images from digital cameras, websites or scanners and store them in a personal folder
• insert an image into a presentation, word processor or interactive whiteboard program
• have a basic understanding of the software program you are using

... then you will be able to adapt this activity for your own purposes.

ACTIVITY 3.2

Explore some additional ways of using the Nine Number Picture Board at the GA website. Look for Uluru and Days of the Week.

How can using stories enhance geographical learning?

Stories link us to the places we have visited through our memories of the people we have met, the landscapes we have experienced and the journeys we have taken.

They are an important way of communicating our geographical imaginations - how we 'saw' the place. Through them we may also share our sense of place - how we felt about that place. Geography helps us to improve the quality of our geographical imagination, by engaging us with more and different places at a variety of scales. It also helps us to develop a sense of place that is informed by others. One of the aims of a geographical education is to reduce egocentricity, i.e. to help us to see the world through a variety of different eyes.

Many stories have a place element to them. Everything happens somewhere. When we understand the 'somewhere' better, we can understand the story better too. Geography education helps us to make transparent the significance of place, location and juxtaposition. Geography education also helps us to understand that other people have a different sense of place from our own, and that other people have a different geographical imagination from our own. We can learn from each other to think about places in a more informed way.

Now go to Taking it Further